The BT46, 100% win ratio
The car that raced and won 1 race
In 1977the Lotus team, competitor of the Brabham team, produced for the first time a Formula 1 car built around the concept of 'ground effect'. Ground effect is the phenomenon where the speed of the air that is guided under a Formula 1 car is accelerated by aerodynamic tricks, causing the air pressure to drop and the car to be pushed to the ground, as it were. This allows a Formula 1 car to race through corners at greater speeds.
Under the leadership of designers Peter Wright and Colin Chapman, the Lotus team was able to further perfect the technique behind the ground effect and solve all the teething problems that the Lotus 78 had. Halfway through the 1978 season, the team came up with the successor: the Lotus 79, with which Lotus drivers Mario Andretti and Ronnie Peterson proved to be virtually unapproachable in the rest of that season.
In the Brabham garage, designer Gordon Murray realized the secret behind Lotus's successes. However, due to the characteristics of the mace of an Alfa Romeo engine that lay in the back of the Brabham BT46, Murray could not use the ground effect that Lotus enjoyed so much to his advantage.
The wide Alfa Romeo engine ensured that the sides of the 1978 Brabham car could not house any aerodynamic elements that pushed the air under the car. Murray went back to the drawing board and came up with a very special idea.
His idea: a fan at the back of the car. One large fan connected to the engine, which produced roughly the same ground effect as the Lotus 79. More than a month after the introduction of the Lotus 79, the Brabham team showed up during the Swedish Grand Prix with its new BT46B, in the popularly called the fan car or fan car.
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It did not take long before the competition protested against the striking design of the Brabham BT46B, but it was decided that the car in the Swedish Anderstorp could just go on the track. Andretti managed to conquer pole position in his Lotus, but the two Brabham drivers, none other than John Watson and Niki Lauda, were close behind.
It then became clear during the Grand Prix that the fan had been a genius idea of Mr. Murray. Lauda quickly took the lead in his Brabham BT46B during the race and would eventually finish the Swedish Grand Prix as the winner with a lead of more than half a minute over the number two. It would eventually be the first and last time that this extravagant Formula 1 car appeared on the racing scene. Despite the fact that the fan was initially declared legal - it would sit on paper on the car to cool the engine - the Brabham team boss, none other than Bernie Ecclestone, soon had to send the fan back to the trash.
Amid protest from other team bosses, whose support Ecclestone desperately needed to become the big Formula 1 boss, the Briton tried to negotiate that Brabham would voluntarily ban the B version of the BT46 after four races, but there were the rest of the team bosses disagree. In the end, the dispute was decided for them, as the fan would be declared illegal six days after the Swedish Grand Prix.
Andretti then drove unthreatened to the Formula 1 world title in his Lotus 79 in 1978, while the Brabham BT46 did not go further than one more victory and a few podium places behind the unbeatable Lotus in the remainder of the season.