CHAMPIONSHIP LEADER

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31124, 29 July 1966, Page 11

CHAMPIONSHIP LEADER

TACK BRABHAM, now ° leading the grand prix drivers’ world championship for the third time, objects to being called the “old man of motor racing,” writes John

Langley in the “Daily Telegraph.” Brabham, aged 40, points out he is only a few months older than Graham Hill.

“I don’t feel old, otherwise I wouldn't be driving. Anyway, Fangio kept going until he was 47; anyone would think all the other drivers were still in their ’teens,” he says.

The Australian was the first driver to score championship points in a car of his own construction—Bruce McLaren

has since scored one point (for sixth place) in his McLaren car. “But that doesn’t mean I design it, screw it together and even change the plugs myself, as some seem to think,” Brabham says. He has a team of 30 designing and building the Repco-Brabhams, led by a fellow Australian, R. Tauranac, who has been with Brabham since 1961.

The Australian-made Repco engines, with a block based on the American Oldsmobile production engine, were intended only as a stopgap for the first half of this season, until the new B.R.M. H-16 engines were ready. They are proving so successful,

however, that the team probably will continue to use them for the rest of the season.

“We have never kidded ourselves it could be competitive for several years, and if we cannot get something better we do not intend running in formula one next year,” Brabham says. “We will concentrate on formula two, using a Cosworth-Ford engine.” Formula two Brabhams have swept the board this season, powered by Japanese Honda engines. But the rules for next year stipulate a production engine block, and Honda produce nothing suitable for this.