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…
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.
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