The
1978 Swedish Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on June 17, 1978 at the
Scandinavian
Raceway
; it was the eighth race of the 1978 Formula One season. It
is the only race entered and won by the Brabham "fan car".
Race Summary
The 1978 Swedish GP will be remembered for just one thing: the race
itself being rather uneventful, it was the winning car that created
its own footnote in history by dominating the meeting, thus to
great lengths contributing to its uneventfulness in the first
place.
Responsible for this overwhelming coup was
some clever thinking by Brabham's Gordon Murray, who was trying to eclipse
Colin Chapman's ground effect
invention on the Lotus 79, the skirted car
that had swept the front row since its debut at Zolder
.
Center of the new
Brabham BT46B concept
was a large fan which drew air through the engine water radiator
which was mounted horizontally over the engine. The fan also took
ground effect to a higher level (at least engineering-wise) by
sucking air from under the car, creating a partial
vacuum and creating an enormous amount of
downforce. The car appeared to contravene a rule
which stated that moving aerodynamic devices were not allowed, but
Brabham argued that the rules had been worded to ban devices whose
primary function was aerodynamic. As the fan also cooled
the engine, Brabham claimed that this, not aerodynamics, was its
primary function.
Its legality was soon protested, but it was allowed to race,
John Watson and
Niki Lauda qualifying 2nd and 3rd behind the
Lotus 79 of
Mario Andretti (the two
drivers did this as to not draw attention to the remarkable
advantage that the fan would provide).
At the start Andretti retained the first place, while Lauda got
ahead of Watson; on the second lap he was passed by a fast
Riccardo Patrese in the
Arrows, and on the third he was passed by the other
Lotus of
Ronnie Peterson too; the Swede also passed
Patrese, but had later to back off due to a tyre puncture. The
order then remained the same until lap 20, when Watson was forced
to retire by a throttle problem.
At the front, Lauda and Andretti were battling for first place,
until the American made an error and was forced to let the Austrian
through, and eventually dropped out due to a broken valve on his
engine. Once a back-marker dropped oil onto the track, the Brabham
was in a race of its own, seemingly unaffected by the slippery
surface. In Lauda's biography, To Hell And Back, he wrote that
whilst other cars had to reduce speed to drive carefully over the
oil, the Brabhams could simply accelerate (as the fan was activated
by the gearbox to get around regulations, this meant that higher
speed produced much higher grip) through the affected parts of the
track. Lauda went on to win by 34.6 seconds, followed by Patrese
and Peterson in a close finish; the remaining points went to
Patrick Tambay,
Clay Regazzoni and
Emerson Fittipaldi.
After the race, the stewards deemed the car legal. Later, the FIA
investigated the car, and corroborated Brabham's claim that the
fan's primary effect was to cool the car, meeting the letter, if
not the spirit, of the rules. The car was judged to have been legal
as raced and the Brabham victory stood, but the Brabham 'fan car'
never raced again. It is popularly thought that it was banned, but
it was actually voluntarily withdrawn by Brabham. This was arguably
done by team owner Bernie Ecclestone to avoid a conflict with the
other privately owned teams whose support he needed. 1978 was the
year that Ecclestone became chief executive of FOCA and led it
through the
FISA-FOCA war that would
lead to the downfall of FISA and give FOCA the right to negotiate
television contracts for the Grands Prix, effectively giving
Ecclestone commercial control of Formula 1 which continues to this
day.
Classification
Notes
References
- Unless otherwise indicated, all race results are taken
from
Wikis
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