1986 Brabham BT55

I took this photograph at the Donington Park museum in May 1989.

It's the 1986 Brabham BT55 designed by Gordon Murray and had a 1,499cc 4-cylinder inline BMW M12/13 engine with a single turbocharger. Much of the downforce was created by the rear wing of the car, and as the 4-cylinder BMW engine was taller than the V6 and V8 engines of it's rivals BMW re-designed the engine so that it could be tilted at an angle and therefore allow a better airflow to the rear wing. This created an extremely low car with the driver lying almost flat, but the tilt in the engine also created oil starvation and surge issues when cornering. Brabham's drivers at the start of the season were Riccardo Patrese and Elio de Angelis, but in the first four races of the season there were six retirements with just an eighth place in Brazil for de Angelis and a sixth place in San Marino for Patrese. During the testing of a new wing at the Paul Ricard circuit in France Elio de Angelis left the track after the wing broke and the car flipped several times then landed upside down with the driver trapped in the cockpit. The car caught fire and it took so long to get him out of the car that he suffered from too much smoke inhalation and died in hospital the next day. Derek Warwick joined the team for the rest of the season, but the car performed no better, Patrese managing just a sixth, a seventh and a thirteenth place finish in the remaining races with Warwick having consecutive tenth, ninth, eighth then seventh place finishes followed by a string of retirements.