How Britain’s first F1 team began in a shed in Lincolnshire

As this season’s Formula One World Championship reaches a dramatic climax, some of the sport’s most famous names look back at the humble origins of Britain’s first team. BRM was founded 80 years ago at the bottom of a garden in the small town of Bourne, Lincolnshire, and went on to win the world championship.

“Isn’t it an incredible story?” says former F1 champion and broadcaster Damon Hill. “They set out to take over the world.

“I think they have put this country on the map as a world leader in automotive technology and Formula 1.”

Hill, the 1996 world champion, has a strong connection with BRM. His father, Graham, raced for the team and won the team’s only championship in 1962.

“This was one of the places that really allowed him to show what he had,” Hill recalls. “He basically built his career on the success he achieved at BRM.”

However, this success did not come easily.

BRM – or officially British Racing Motors – was founded in the market town of Bourne in 1945 by Raymond Mays, an ambitious racer and entrepreneur.

Mays and his co-founder Peter Berthon set up a small factory at the bottom of Mays’ garden and set out to compete with European teams such as Ferrari and Alfa Romeo.

Anthony Delaine-Smith, who runs a bus company based in Spalding Road, where the former BRM factory once stood, said: “Raymond Mays always had a desire to go Grand Prix racing.

“The idea was after the war; they would bring the industries together with the idea of ​​producing a British Grand Prix car.”

At the time, motor racing was recovering from the Second World War and a new Formula One World Championship was launched in 1950.

To participate, BRM developed the Type 15 Chassis Number 1 car with a V16 supercharged engine.

Mays brought together nearly 40 British companies for the project.

He managed to gain the support of some of England’s leading industrialists, including Sir Alfred Owen, who purchased the team from Mays.

Today, BRM describes the Type 15 as “arguably Britain’s most important Formula One car”.

Although the green BRM was not ready for the first Formula 1 World Championship race at Silverstone in 1950, it soon began racing alongside iconic brands such as Ferrari and Maserati.

In 1952, the company was given another boost when Juan Manuel Fangio, the leading driver of his time, agreed to drive the car.

Maurice Hamilton, former racing correspondent for BBC Radio 5 Live and The Observer, said: “Getting Juan Manuel Fangio in your car was quite a big deal.

“He was indeed a promising man.”

Motor racing legend Sir Jackie Stewart, who won three world championships, made his F1 debut while racing with BRM.

He said the team was “the first team to take on great responsibility” with “top-level drivers”.

“Juan Manuel Fangio raced at BRM once and he was the greatest racing driver that ever lived. I’ve seen it all too,” said Stewart, who joined the team in 1965.

“It was really a very important part of my life to go on the journey with BRM. It was a huge moment in my life.

“The family is top notch. The engineers and the rest of the people were really great.”

He said BRM’s success had paved the way for Britain’s huge motor racing industry, which is now worth £12bn a year according to F1.

“BRM started things off in a big way and now we are the capital of the world,” Stewart added.

BRM raced until 1974, winning 17 grands prix, appearing on the podium 63 times and capturing the drivers’ and constructors’ championship in 1962.

Mays put the company up for sale in 1952 and it was bought by Sir Alfred Owen and his engineering firm Rubery Owen, but Mays remained as team manager.

He was appointed CBE for services to motor racing in 1978, two years before his death at the age of 80.

Sir Alfred’s grandson Nick Owen is today the custodian of the BRM name, along with brother Paul, cousin Simon and uncle John.

He described Bourne as “where it all happened”, from car and engine designs to testing at nearby Folkingham that became “critical to BRM history”.

The team’s success paved the way for British teams such as McLaren, Williams and Lotus.

Nick Owen said that as well as celebrating the team’s past achievements, BRM wanted to inspire the next generation and “lay the foundations of the future for the next 75 years”.