Brabham BT62 filmed testing: Update!
Australian testing continues, but the Brabham is heading to Europe very soon as well...
UPDATE: 19/06/18:
Brabham’s Australian testing programme has concluded with a series of laps at The Bend, a motorsport venue near Adelaide. The car will now head to Europe, and specifically to Portimao, to begin it’s calibration to the Northern Hemisphere’s circuits.
Of the testing so far, Brabham’s Director of Engineering and Technology, Paul Birch, said “Our testing in Australia has proven what the BT62 is capable of in terms of performance, pace and handling – and it’s seriously impressive. As the program advances into Europe, we’ll continue to balance and optimise the car’s set-up and configurations for different driving styles, tracks and conditions."
Nothing in the way of new detail then, other than what we can glean from the video of the test released by Brabham. Showing the car lapping in the wet, two things are apparent. One, that it looks fantastic, and two, that it sounds absolutely mega, that 710hp 5.4-litre V8 screaming up to well over 7,000rpm. Hopefully more will become apparent once it reaches European shores, and perhaps there’ll even be a chance for us to have a go ourselves…
(Dafydd Wood)
ORIGINAL STORY, AS REPORTED 25/05/2018:
"In a different league." That's how Brabham describes the BT62. The league it's differentiating itself from? Supercars and track-biased road cars; the fledgling manufacturer says it's better to think of it as an unrestricted GT racer.
If that sounds like wishful thinking, then Brabham Automotive's Director of Technology and Engineering, Paul Birch, made another claim to back it up: "To give you an idea of just how fast it is, we eclipsed the official outright lap record at Phillip Island during testing - a record formerly held by an open-wheeled car. We didn't go out to set a time, and it wasn't officially recorded, but it demonstrates the car's potential."
Now, anything a manufacturer says about lap times must be taken with a sceptical pinch of salt - and anything unverified by an official stopwatch, even more so - but assuming there's at least a kernel of truth in that statement (and given the lap record at Phillip Island is held by a 20-year-old Formula Holden car, there probably is), the BT62 would appear to be shaping up quite nicely.
Certainly, as we covered off a few weeks ago, it has the ingredients (there's a 710hp 5.4-litre V8 under that body; and reportedly over 1,200kg of downforce pinched from the airflow). It would also, from the evidence of the first video, seem to have quite the soundtrack, too. Which is nice.
What else have we learnt? Well, the first deposits have been taken, and production has begun at Brabham Automotive's advanced manufacturing facility in Adelaide. The company remains committed to delivering the first examples to customers later this year. We look forward to seeing the car on a European track. With a video data logger attached.
I would also do exactly as you describe!, however, there are extremely wealthy people out there, people who would never be able to race but would like the idea of driving this car under guidance on a race track, the type that may get a thrill from paying thousands of $ to be guided to drive a supercar at 200mph. Some of these may even pay millions to run a race team. I believe these are the target market.
Can't see why they wouldn't.
I assume they have other plans further down the line.
Take it you dont like other people having fun in which ever way they choose, even if that doesn't fit into one of "your" box's"
Do "You" really have to understand it, even if "you" are clearly not the target market ???
Take it you dont like other people having fun in which ever way they choose, even if that doesn't fit into one of "your" box's"
Do "You" really have to understand it, even if "you" are clearly not the target market ???
Let's pretend that you won the lottery, were you old enough to play. Would you buy one of these, or go GT racing? I've been GT racing, so I know which one I'd do. I'll say it again. Why would you buy a track-only car that's not only not eligible for any current race series, but also insanely expensive? I have exactly the same opinion about the FXX programme, don't understand that either. But at least there's an actual heritage at work there, not just a badge.
I understand the track-day car thing. Road-registered quick toys for people without the pockets to go racing, and without the means or desire to store and transport a car you can't drive on the roads. But cars that cost as much as (more than one) fully-funded season in GT3 but will only ever be driven at 6/10ths with a load of nannying rules? Might as well buy a road car and enjoy the pose value.
ks. As for the McLaren in comparison the Ultima will be:less stiff
less powerful (or, if as powerful, less driveable or less reliable)
lower downforce
vastly less clever (no active anything, no stability control, no driving modes etc etc)
probably less safe - although with a cage, harnesses and an extinguisher, race cars don't have quite the same need for sophisticated safety engineering as road cars, so the lack of crumple zones and so on won't be a huge issue on the track.
It will be vastly, vastly slower (in racing car terms). But almost certainly more fun to drive for most people. And you could buy one and write it off ten times before you'd reached the price of the McLaren, so if you could afford either, the Ultima would probably be the one you drove harder.
As above, you could also buy a proper GT3 car (or a used GT2) for the price of the Senna and still have money left over to campaign it in something. I don't know what the Porsche Cup costs to do now, but when I left it was about £150k for the car and £250k per season to run it at the sharp end. You could do a lot worse than spend the money on that, IMO.
https://www.peoplesrepublicofcork.com/forums/showt...
I honestly don't understand why so many people feel the need to drive two tonne SUV's that are too big for our roads, cost more to buy and yet are slower and less economical than a normal sized car with the same size engine.
But that doesn't stop a sizeable proportion of the car driving public from doing so does it.
So they are not my thing, but obviously do fit what some people want.
This car however is exactly what i would love to own as a track play thing.
None of the unnecessary luxuries that only add weight and hinder a car on track, but much better finished than a race car.
All the effort seems to have gone into making it ridiculously fast on track & pleasing on the eye, what's not to like.
As mentioned above, a 911 GT race car would be as quicker but the billionaires less knowledgeable chums couldn't tell the difference between it and a £15k 996.
And no, owning a BT62 won't get you chicks, either.
People will buy it, presumably from the same willy waving demographic which buys all these other silly track only cars which sort of look like road cars but can't be driven on them . So that means they have to be judged by the standards of other track only cars . And that's where all the puffery and talk of lap records starts to unravel . Lap records - how many times? - are set in races. Not in testing , practice or qualifying . And for all the talk of its potential why not put the money where the corporate mouth is and race it? When , even if the buyer could drive it he might think his gazillion quid investment not so impressive when any cheap as chips Formula Jedi or Dallara F3 would annihilate it .
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