Niki Lauda and the winning vacuum cleaner
08/16/2012
During breakfast with Niki Lauda, the floor is quickly vacuumed in Bernie's catering tent. Niki looks at the vacuum cleaner and begins to talk: "These things always remind me of a car of mine, the Brabham-Alfa BT 46B. We tested it for the first time at Brands Hatch on the small circuit. It understeered like crazy. Absolutely undriveable, I thought. Back in the pits, Gordon Murray recommended steepening the front wing to get rid of the understeer. I thought the car would never be able to cope with that. Ermano Cuoghi restarted the car and let it warm up with throttle jolts, and I saw how the rear end lowered with every throttle jolt. It sucked itself onto the asphalt like a suction cup. On the second 'run' I lowered everything down a gear and at the slightest sign of understeer I simply gave it full throttle and lo and behold, the resulting downforce made the car cling to the ground and the corners became a straight line."
In 1978 in Anderstorp, at the only race for the "suction cup", the first, but unfortunately only, victory was achieved straight away. After that, the car was banned. Niki comments: "During the victory in Sweden, I was helped by the fact that Pironi soaked the track in oil on the racing line with an oil cooler that was half off. I was able to use my suction cup to overtake my opponents next to the racing line, even on the outside if necessary. Andretti fought like hell with his Lotus on the greasy track, while I was able to drive the race home without any resistance. John Watson, my team-mate, had a slip-up in which the "vacuum cleaner" became soaked with sand and stones, causing him to ruin the fan when the Swedish debris was expelled.
Niki's enthusiasm for the car still shines through in his descriptions today.
Gordon Murray, the man responsible for vehicle design in Bernie Ecclestone's Brabham team from 1973-1985, was inspired by the Chaparral 2J. This sports car dominated the CanAm series at will with Jackie Stewart at the wheel. The car had two fans in the rear, which were driven by a two-stroke engine and sucked air from the underbody to create downforce. This concept can also be found in Murray's Brabham-Alfa BT 46B. A fan was also mounted at the rear, but this was driven by the 12-cylinder Alfa boxer engine via various clutches. The higher the engine revved, the greater the suction power of the fan. As was customary with "wing cars" at the time, side skirts were used to seal the underbody so as not to lose downforce.
