How Britain’s first F1 team began in a shed in Lincolnshire

As this season’s Formula 1 World Championship reaches a dramatic climax, some of the sport’s most famous figures are taking a look back at the humble origins of Britain’s first team. BRM was founded 80 years ago under an orchard in the small town of Bourne in Lincolnshire and won the world title.

“It’s a wonderful story, isn’t it?” says former F1 champion and broadcaster Damon Hill. “They set out to take over the world.

“I think he has put this country on the map as a world leader in automotive technology and Formula 1.”

Hill, the 1996 World Champion, has a strong connection to BRM. His father Graham drove for the team and led it to its only title in 1962.

Hill recalls, “It was one of those places that really enabled him to show what he had.” “He basically built his career on the success he had at BRM.”

But that success did not come easily.

BRM – or British Racing Motors, as it was formally known – was founded by Raymond Mays, an aspiring racer and entrepreneur, in 1945 in the market town of Bourne.

Mace and co-founder Peter Berthon built a small factory beneath Mace’s garden and set out to take on European teams like Ferrari and Alfa Romeo.

Anthony Delaney-Smith, who runs a bus company based on Spalding Road, where the former BRM factory once stood, said: “Raymond Mays always longed to go Grand Prix racing.

“The idea was that after the war they would bring industries together with the idea of ​​building a British Grand Prix car.”

At the time motor racing was recovering after World War II and a new Formula 1 World Championship was launched in 1950.

BRM developed the Type 15 chassis No. 1 car with a V16 supercharged engine to participate.

The table brought together around 40 British companies for the project.

He managed to get the support of some of Britain’s leading industrialists, including Sir Alfred Owen, who purchased the team from Mays.

Today, BRM describes the Type 15 as “arguably Britain’s most important Formula 1 car”.

Although it was not ready for the first Formula 1 World Championship race at Silverstone in 1950, the green BRM was soon racing alongside prestigious brands such as Ferrari and Maserati.

In 1952, the company received another boost when Juan Manuel Fangio, the leading driver of his era, agreed to drive the car.

Maurice Hamilton, former racing correspondent for BBC Radio 5 Live and The Observer, said: “It was a big deal to get Juan Manuel Fangio in his car.

“He was really an up-and-comer.”

Motor racing legend Sir Jackie Stewart, who won three world titles, got his first introduction to F1 while racing with BRM.

He said the team was “the first to take on bigger responsibility” with “top-line drivers”.

Stewart, who joined the team in 1965, said, “Juan Manuel Fangio once drove in a BRM and was the greatest racing driver of all time. So I saw all that.”

“Really, traveling with BRM was a very important part of my life. That was a huge moment in my life.

“The family – first class. And the engineers and the rest of the guys were really wonderful.”

He said BRM’s success paved the way for Britain’s huge motor racing industry, which is now worth £12 billion a year according to F1.

“BRM started it all on a large scale and now we’re the capital of the world,” Stewart said.

BRM raced until 1974, winning 17 Grands Prix, achieving 63 podium finishes and claiming the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships in 1962.

Mace put the company up for sale in 1952 and it was bought by Sir Alfred Owen and his engineering company Rubery Owen, although Mace remained as team manager.

He was appointed CBE for services to motor racing in 1978, two years before his death at the age of 80.

Sir Alfred’s grandson Nick Owen, along with brother Paul, cousin Simon and uncle John, are the custodians of the BRM name today.

He described Bourne as the place “where everything from car and engine design to testing at nearby Folkingham happened”, which became “crucial to BRM history”.

The team’s success paved the way for British teams such as McLaren, Williams and Lotus.

Nick Owen said that as well as celebrating the team’s past achievements, BRM wanted to inspire the next generation and “lay the foundations for the future for the next 75 years”.