What did BMW in Formula One and Brabham have in common?
BMW in Formula One BMW has been involved in Formula One in a number of capacities since the inauguration of the World Drivers' Championship in . The company entered occasional races in the 1950s and 1960s (often under Formula Two regulations), before building the BMW M12/13 inline-four turbocharged engine in the 1980s. This engine was the result of a deal between BMW and Brabham, which resulted in the team's chassis being powered by BMW engines from until , a period in which Nelson Piquet won the championship driving a Brabham BT52-BMW. BMW also supplied the M12/13 on a customer basis to the ATS, Arrows, Benetton and Ligier teams during this period, with various degrees of success. In , Brabham temporarily withdrew from the sport and BMW withdrew its official backing from the engines, which were still used by the Arrows team under the Megatron badge. Turbocharged engines were banned by the revised Formula One Technical Regulations for , rendering the M12/13 obsolete.
Brabham BT52 The Brabham BT52 was a Formula One car designed for the Brabham team by longtime Brabham designer Gordon Murray for the season. The car ran on Michelin tyres and was powered by the massively powerful BMW M12/13 turbocharged engine which in 1983 produced a maximum of approximately 800 bhp in qualifying trim, detuned to around 640 bhp for the races proper. Its drivers were World Champion Nelson Piquet and Riccardo Patrese.