Nelson Piquet drives the Brabham BT52

Fire will be a recurring pattern of this gallery. The flames pictured here belch forth from the Brabham BT52, a Gordon Murray-designed, Nelson Piquet-driven car which took the 1983 world championship. It was powered by the BMW M10 engine, a lovely exercice in engineering insanity.

BMW M10 Engine

Probably no other engine had a 26-year career during which it progressed from 75 HP in the BMW 1500 Neue Klasse of 1961 to 1500 HP in the Brabham BT52 Formula One race car. The basis of this twentyfold increase in power was an incredible little 1.5-liter Baron Alex von Falkenhausen design, turbocharged to the ionosphere for F1.

Legend has it that BMW’s motorsports engineers chose for their F1 units engine blocks which had already accumulated 60,000+ miles on them—and that they urinated on them in the factory.

Photo Credit: BMW Historisches Archiv

Nelson Piquet and Gordon Murray

Piquet was the man who drove the BMW-powered Brabham racers. Gordon Murray? He designed them. After Formula One, he would go on to create the sublime BMW-powered McLaren F1, which was the last road car to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans—in 1995.

Photo Credit: joosten

Andrea de Cesaris

More fire! This is the Brabham BMW of 1987 at Silverstone, driven by unlucky Andrea de Cesaris, who started in 208 Formula One grands prix without a single win. The fire you see was the result of a broken fuel line, which ended de Cesaris’s race.

Photo Credit: Chris Cole/Allsport

Fire! Fire! Fire!

Before we ban Beavis from Jalopnik’s editorial systems, one more photo of a flame-happy Brabham. Most likely driven by Nelson Piquet.

The Brabham BT52 from above

The arrow shape of Nelson Piquet’s 1983 championship winner was dictated by the sudden banning of ground effects at the end of the 1982 season.

Because regulations for 1983 specified flat underbodies, the wide sidepods of ground effects cars suddenly became wings and had to be sheared off.

Gordon Murray was the most efficient shearer of them all: he designed the arrow-shaped BT52 over a scarce three months.

Suitcase signed by Piquet and Murray

For 1984, Gordon Murray developed the BT52 into the BT53. It was no worse a design, but BMW’s mad turbocharged M10’s couldn’t reliably finish races. Piquet won only two races in the season and had to retire from an incredible 9 of 16 total.

Photo Credit: joosten

Nelson Piquet leads Ayrton Senna in the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix

Here’s the Brabham BT53 in action in Dallas. Both Piquet and Senna would retire from the race, which was won by Keke Rosberg.

Photo Credit: twm1340/Flickr

Jacques Villeneuve at the 2006 French Grand Prix

BMW was out of Formula One for many years, only to acquire the Sauber team of Switzerland and return as a factory outfit. Over their four years in F1, they have experimented with a number of weird and wonderful aerodynamics elements, including the Twin Towers seen here, which were designed to flick air to the car’s rear.

Nick Heidfeld and Jacques Villeneuve drove the cars to 8th and 11th place, respectively. The towers were banned after the race as officials had postulated it would interfere with the drivers’ vision.

Photo Credit: Paul Gilham/Getty Images

Robert Kubica’s crash at the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix

In their second year in F1, BMW would be involved in perhaps the most dramatic crash in modern times. On lap 26, Robert Kubica’s car clipped Jarno Trulli’s Toyota and became airborne at 150 MPH. Most of the car disintegrated to a fine powder of carbon fiber as it tumbled down the track, subjecting the Pole to 75 g’s of deceleration but saving his life.

BMW’s other driver Nick Heidfeld finished second in the race which marked Lewis Hamilton’s first F1 win.

Photo Credit: Paul Gilham/Getty Images

Another view of Robert Kubica’s 2007 crash

This is how Kubica’s BMW came to rest after his big crash. You can see that he is still in the car, with his feet poking out. In a testament to the gigantic strength of the carbon fiber monocoque, he suffered nothing worse than a sprained ankle.

Photo Credit: DAVID BOILY/AFP/Getty Images

Robert Kubica wins the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix

What a way to return to the scene of his 150 MPH crash a year later: this is BMW team principal Mario Theissen hugging Robert Kubica after he took his and BMW’s first grand prix win at the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

BMW team principal Mario Theissen

Theissen is seen here celebrating BMW’s only grand prix win at the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix. Perhaps the photo’s slightly pornographic allusions also go to show how right the late and great LJK Setright was when he called the spraying of champagne the “vulgarian display of disrespect for this princely drink” in his 2002 book Drive On!

Photo Credit: Paul Gilham/Getty Images

Nick Heidfeld at St. Moritz, Switzerland

BMW Sauber has shown a curious taste for Formula One stunts in 2007. They were all performed by Nick Heidfeld, seen here on the frozen surface of Lake St. Moritz, Switzerland, on February 4, 2007.

Photo Credit: Scott Barbour/Getty Images

Nick Heidfeld drives his BMW F1 car on the Nürburgring Nordschleife

No Formula One car had set foot on the old Nordschleife since Niki Lauda’s infernal 1976 crash at Bergwerk corner. After 31 years, Heidfeld returned to the scene of countless grands prix in his 2007 racing car to run three laps. In a raised car on the bumpy track, not going flat out, he managed a time of 8:34.

More fire! More fire!

This has become the defining image of BMW in what has turned out to be their last season in Formula One. The man in the car is Robert Kubica and the picture was taken during qualifying at this year’s Bahrain Grand Prix, which Jenson Button won.

Photo Credit: BERTRAND GUAY/AFP/Getty Images

Don't be fooled into thinking "Ferrari Store" mean "Ferrari Dealer," instead think floor to ceiling Ferrari tchotkes, with everything from obscenely expensive polo shirts to lithographs to pedal cars.The store at the Nürburgring is part of an expansion of the trackside facilities to a year-round destination of sorts, an ethanol-scented Disneyland with a leisure, shopping, and business mentality. The store was created in the image of Ferrari's focus on both performance and luxury and will thus offer styling cues from its racing past and a fancy lounge for the fans to relax in.

THE NEW FERRARI STORE OPENS AT THE LEGENDARY NÜRBURGRING CIRCUIT

Maranello, July 9th 2009 – The first Ferrari Store in Germany was officially inaugurated today at a very special location: the Nürburgring, which nestles in the gentle Eifel hills and provides the fascinating venue for the German Grand Prix. The ribbon-cutting ceremony was performed by Ferrari drivers Felipe Massa and Kimi Räikkönen, who had already been out on the track in the run-up to Sunday's Grand Prix. This is also the first Ferrari Store to open at a circuit and comes as part of an ambitious expansion plan to turn the Nürburgring complex into an all-year round leisure and business centre. With this in mind, major new structures are being added, including the shopping centre housing the Ferrari Store, an events centre, a conference centre and hotels.

The 240 square metre Nürburgring Ferrari Store is spread over a single track-level floor. Developed entirely by the Studio Iosa Ghini, its concept sees it as much as a homage to the history and spirit of Ferrari's twin souls of racing and luxury as a straightforward store. Each area has thus been carefully designed as a special, one-off space in which shoppers can truly embrace the Ferrari experience. It will offer a wide selection of products from the Prancing Horse ranges for GT car clients and enthusiasts, and Ferrari tifosi. This latest Ferrari Store will also include an elegant lounge with a business section for meetings and a relaxation area directly overlooking the track itself.

The Nürburgring Ferrari Store joins the other prestige Prancing Horse retail locations around the world, including those in Milan, Rome and Venice (Italy), London (UK), Barcelona (Spain), San Francisco and Miami (USA), Macao (China) and Abu Dhabi (UAE). It was created and will be managed by the Zender Group, which operates in the automotive sector, and has owned the official Ferrari dealership at Mülheim-Kärlich since 1981. The Ferrari Store development programme includes plans to bring the number of openings to more than 40 over the next three years in Europe, America, and the Middle and Far East.

[Source: Ferrari]

Normally, images would suffice, but nothing can replace the snarling shriek of the 5.2-liter V10 at full song.

There's no mistaking this particular prototype with the lesser 4.2-liter V8 model. We've heard rumor that Audi will exclusively offer the 525 HP, 390 lb-ft of torque, 5.2-liter V10 FSI in the Spyder, but we find it difficult to believe a V8 won't be offered at all. Equipped either way, the R8 Spyder will surely remove all stress and worry from your life with a quick kick to the go pedal. [via autowereld]

Stirling Moss: 1955, 1957

It took the Brits six tries to crack their home grand prix and it took their greatest driver and the car the Germans came back to Formula One with. Held at Aintree, it was the only race of the season where Moss managed to beat his teammate Juan Manuel Fangio, who went on to claim his third world title. As his win came after a pass at the last corner, Moss wondered whether Fangio had let him win, but the Argentine would always say: “No. You were just better than me that day.” British-Argentine relations would, in a few decades, take a turn for the worse.

Moss’s second win came two years later in a Vanwall VW5 shared with Tony Brooks, who is also credited with the victory.

Photo Credit: Daimler Global Media. Moss is driving his Mercedes-Benz W196 to victory at Aintree.

Tony Brooks: 1957

Dr. Brooks—he was a dentist by training—was the first Brit to drive a British car to grand prix victory after World War Two, winning a non-championship race in Syracuse. His win, shared with Stirling Moss, was his first of six victories in Formula One.

Photo Credit: Terry Whalebone. This is the Vanwall VW5 before the start of the 1957 British Grand Prix at Aintree.

Peter Collins: 1958

Collins was an up-and-coming driver at Ferrari, much liked by il Commendatore himself, whom Juan Manuel Fangio passed on the Nürburgring Nordschleife in 1957 to take his last win.

In 1958, driving the Ferrari 246 F1, he took his third and last victory in front of his home crowd at Silverstone. Two weeks later, he returned to the scene of his great battle with Fangio. On lap 11 of the 1958 German Grand Prix, he went over the embankment and hit a tree with his head, dying later that afternoon.

John F. Burns of The New York Times, who saw Collins drive to his last win, has written a heartbreaking report on the fair-haired young man, one of many casualties of the brutal 1958 season.

Collins is shown at the 1957 German Grand Prix in his Ferrari.

Jimmy Clark: 1962–1965, 1967

He was the fastest sheep farmer who has ever lived, the very humble soulmate of Lotus founder Colin Chapman, the man who could not put his head around the fact that everyone else was slower on the track. Chapman had a philosophy of building his Loti light enough to last only the duration of the race but not a second more. When the cars held together, Clark would usually win. When not, he would lose out on races—and championships. He dominated his home grand prix like no other Brit, winning a total of five times at Aintree, Silverstone and Brands Hatch.

Three months before he could defend his 1967 win with the dominant Lotus 49B, he lost control of his car at a Formula Two race at the Hockenheimring, crashed into a tree and died from his injuries.

Photo Credit: Allsport Hulton/Archive. Bette Hill throws her husband Graham a party to celebrate his homecoming from America where he won the Indianapolis 500 in a Ford-Lola. Graham and his son Damon Hill—who would become a British Grand Prix winner, unlike his dad—push reigning World Formula 1 Champion Jim Clark around on a toy tractor.

Jackie Stewart: 1969, 1971

The man who taught James May how to drive fast won his home grand prix twice—both times in cars which were either French or built with French money. Not that it troubled the cool Scot, who would go on to extend both of his home wins into world championships.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images. Stewart is at the 2003 Canadian Grand Prix with fellow Brit Ozzy Osbourne. No pigeons were harmed in the taking of this photo.

James Hunt: 1977

A Silverstone race, it was a battle between party boy Hunt and his Austrian archnemesis Niki Lauda, who returned phoenix-like from the ashes of his fiery crash on the Nürburgring at the 1976 German Grand Prix.

While Hunt held off Lauda by over 18 seconds in front of his home crowd, he had no chance to defend his 1976 world title, which Lauda would win by a wide margin over Jody Scheckter.

This race also marked the Formula One debut of the turbocharged engine, at this point a comically inept device campaigned by Renault, which would over a few short years come to rule the sport.

Photo Credit: Allsport UK/ALLSPORT. All smiles is Mrs. Hunt, three years before James’s home win. Note Hunt’s totally rock and roll breast patch.

John Watson: 1981

Watson was an F1 driver who later became a sports car racer and a broadcast commentator. His win at Silverstone was the second one of his career. He would win three more GP's before moving on to sports cars.

It was the car he drove which marks this race for history: Watson’s McLaren MP4/1 was the first F1 racer made of carbon fiber. Watson drove the plastic tub to its first victory. The material would take over aluminum for the construction of racing cars in a few months.

Photo Credit: Tony Duffy/Getty Image

Nigel Mansell: 1986, 1987, 1991, 1992

While Colin Chapman watched Jim Clark die, it was the other way around with the mustachioed Mansell: it was only at his third year in F1 when Chapman dropped dead of a heart attack at the age of 54. His relationship with Lotus’s new management soured after that and he moved on to Williams, then Ferrari—where he witnessed Enzo Ferrari die after selecting him as his last driver, in a motorsports career which spanned six decades.

Mansell would return to Williams to drive their high-tech active-everything cars. He won his fourth and last British Grand Prix with the Williams FW14B, one of the best F1 cars ever made, with which he claimed his only world championship.

Photo Credit: DOMINIQUE FAGET/AFP/Getty Images. The other guys pictured here having a killer time at the 1986 Portugese Grand Prix are Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Nelson Piquet.

Damon Hill: 1994

His father Graham may be the more famous of the Hills, with his dapper mustache, his six wins at Monaco, his three Formula One world championships and his victories at the Indianapolis 500 and at Le Mans, but he never won the British Grand Prix.

Unlike his son Graham, who won at Silverstone and was then rammed by Michael Schumacher at the last race of the season, denying him the world championship.

Photo Credit: Pascal Rondeau/Allsport. Hill is in his Williams Renault before the Pacific Grand Prix at the TI circuit in Aida, Japan.

Johnny Herbert: 1995

Who’s Johnny Herbert? Why, he raced for a decade in Formula One and won three races, one of them at Silverstone, where duelling championship leaders Schumacher and Hill knocked each other out, allowing the Brit in his Benetton to slip by and claim victory.

Herbert was also on the team which drove the Mazda 787B at Le Mans in 1991, a shrikeing Day-Glo quad-rotor Wankel racer, which still holds the only Le Mans title for Felix Wankel’s wacky invention.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images. The person you are looking at instead of Johnny Herbert is British model Keeley Hazell.

David Coulthard: 1999, 2000

The man who is to jawbones what Jay Leno is to chins may not be remembered as much of a grand prix winner over his grand total of 15 years in Formula One, but he’s managed to take both Monaco and Silverstone twice. In both of his wins, he was sitting pretty in the sister car to Mika Häkkinen’s championship-winning McLaren.

Photo Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images. Coulthard is showing his incredible mandible at the 2004 San Marino Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton: 2008

Last year’s race was a rain-soaked wacky waltz, notable for Felipe Massa’s numerous 360’s, a high speed track bunny and a beautiful, composed drive by McLaren’s Hamilton, who was yet to face what it’s like to race in an uncompetitive car.

The race was also a sign of things to come with Ross Brawn back in the game: in a snap decision, he outflanked the field on tire tactics to propel Rubens Barrichello to third place in that utter crap Honda My Earth Dream car—notable for always bringing up the rear—which they had already given up development on.

A year later, the tables have turned: Honda is out of Formula One, their 2009 car is powered by a Mercedes-Benz engine and is absolutely pulverizing the opposition. It is the clear favorite to win this year’s race, the last at Silverstone, with Barrichello’s teammate Jenson Button set to become the thirteenth Brit to win at home.

And there may never be a fourteenth, of course.

Photo Credit: Paul Gilham/Getty Images. Hamilton is at a press conference before this year’s British Grand Prix, with Jenson Button looking on.

The video has no narration and is in black and white, but the soundtrack and the ample helicopter time more than make up for the loss. It’s an interesting period piece from the ultra-rapid decade of aerodynamic development, which took cars from the thin aluminum cigars with no downforce of the mid-60s to the ground effect Lotus 78’s and 79’s which had wings underneath, sucking them to the tarmac.

1969 was only the second year where aerodynamics was in play in Formula One and you can clearly see the results. Every car is equipped with a solid rear wing and various front wings. At the Flugplatz straight, where the no-downforce cars of 1967 would take to the air, ‘69 cars hunker down and stick to the ground.

Also visible is a token nod to safety—roll bars!—accompanied with its total disregard otherwise. People stand inches from a track with no Armco—not even bales of hay.

The race was won by the Jacky Ickx of Belgium in a Brabham. The guy in the ditch at 04:07 is his teammate Piers Courage, who crashed out on lap one. He would become Formula One’s next casualty in less than a year’s time, when he burned to death in his magnesium De Tomaso at the 1970 Dutch Grand Prix. And in just seven years, following Niki Lauda’s famous—and similarly fiery—crash, Formula One would be gone from the Nürburgring Nordschleife for good.

Photo Credit: Lothar Spurzem/Wikipedia (the picture depicts Bruce McLaren driving his M7C during practice for the race and you can download it at 2,098×1,529)

It would even have held the all-time lap record until lap six of the race, when Dan Gurney in his Eagle broke it with a time of 8 minutes and 18.2 seconds.

The 1967 season was fast, wicked and violent even by the standards of early Formula 1. The cars had just come back into power the year before, when regulations increased maximum engine size from a sewing machine 1.5 liters to a healthy three, and this was the first year when the entire field was made up of 3-liter cars. Speeds were increasing race by race, the cars ran on hard rubber, had no wings, and the tracks they raced on were designed and built in the 1920s.

Add to this the utter madness of the most famous of those tracks: the old Nürburgring Nordschleife. Where trees lined a thin strip of tarmac and these slender aluminum tubes with no downforce skirted right up to the edge on every lap. One would imagine it was not only the Eagle’s exhaust manifolds which were made of titanium but Gurney’s balls as well.

The cars took an incredible beating and the Grand Prix turned into a race of attrition. Gurney, who would go on to break the lap record again with a time of 8:15.1, had to retire from first position with a broken halfshaft. Denny Hulme in the unremarkable but reliable Brabham-Repco won the race and went on to become World Champion.

And yes, the cars took to the air on every lap at the very appropriately named Flugplatz.

7:29.03 - Nissan R35 GT-R
The calling card of the new Nissan GT-R is technology witchcraft. On paper, you wouldn't expect much from a 3800lb car with a V6. But on the track, the grip of the trick AWD system channeling 480 HP from the twin-turbocharged engine is pure magic.

7:26.40 - Chevrolet Corvette ZR1
The instant legend. Keep in mind, there was reportedly a strong headwind on the main straight, which could have actually slowed things down a bit. Could the ZR1 possibly set an even faster time in the future?

6:55 - Radical SR8
With only about 360 HP, the Radical is not about raw power. Its strengths instead are a race-style chassis, complete with real downforce-generating spoilers. Or course, since the car only weighs about 1430 lbs, the Radical has an incredible power-to-weight ratio. A slightly less powerful 320 HP Radical SR3 Turbo has even run a 7:19 lap. Though we doubt you'll find one being valet-parked at the country club, the Radical is technically streetable. As such, it is the fastest road-going car around the Nordschleife.

6:11.13 - Porsche 956
If the ZR1 is fast, then this is warp speed. it's the fastest official lap time ever recorded on this configuration of the track. What makes it even more amazing is that this was 25 years ago, back in 1983.

[laptimes]

While there's no eyewitness testimony, all the physical evidence points to one suspect: the Veritas RS3. A concept vehicle from 2001, the RS3 was Veritas' attempt to re-gain some of their early post-war BMW racing glory. Its 670 HP 6.0-liter BMW V12 was huge power for a car that weighed about 2100 pounds total. But don't get too caught up in those specs, because we're not too sure that's the exact same car as this mystery roadster. Yes, most of the basic visual elements of the car appear to be identical, but look at the differences. The headlights and the perforated hood are especially distinct, but who knows what other changes may lurk under the skin. So what is this thing? And what is it doing at the 'ring? Is it a one-off for a rich customer or a prototype readying for mass production? Well, keep your eyes peeled on the live web cam at the 'ring, and maybe we'll find some more clues. [Nurburgring.org.uk, MotorAuthority]
Hat Tip to Mike!