BRM's roots go back to 1947 when the British Motor Racing Research Trust was formed with the idea of building a British challenger to break the Italian stranglehold.

The man behind it was Raymond Mays, who was the first to bring commercial support to motor racing when he persuaded companies to back his English Racing Automobiles (ERA) efforts in the 1920s and 1930s. The BRM (British Racing Motors) project was a similar idea.

The original BRM team was a co-operative and the plan was to build a two-stage supercharged engine producing 600 brake horsepower. Unfortunately, when the car made its debut, in the non-championship International Trophy at Silverstone, it was a disaster. With Raymond Sommer driving, the car qualified on the back of the grid and broke a drive-shaft on the line. Spectators threw coins at it as it was pushed off.

The research trust lasted until 1952, when Sir Alfred Owen of the Owen Organization took over BRM. No great progress was made until the 1960s, as Cooper and Lotus overtook BRM in the effort to establish Britain at the forefront of the international racing scene.

BRM went into 1962 with just one grand prix victory to its name - the Dutch Grand Prix of 1959 with Jo Bonnier - and an ultimatum from Owen to win the championship or else. Peter Berthon, part of BRM since the start, was no longer on the scene and Tony Rudd, a former Rolls Royce apprentice who had worked for Merlin engines, took over as chief engineer and team manager, doing much work on the new BRM V8 engine.

Graham Hill showed the car's potential by winning the first heat of the Brussels Grand Prix in its debut race and then beat Jim Clark's Lotus by a nose in the International Trophy at Silverstone. He went on to score his first grand prix win in the opening round of the championship.

Hill won again in the German Grand Prix and then finished one-two for BRM with Richie Ginther at Monza. He was now embroiled in a title battle with Clark's Lotus that went right down to the wire in South Africa. Clark took off into the lead with Hill second, but an engine problem put him out and Hill won the World Championship for BRM in the Type P57.

Clark dominated in 1963, but BRM came back with its first monocoque car, the P261, the following year. Hill won two grands prix and was only prevented from taking a second championship by John Surtees's Ferrari in the final race of the season, where Hill's BRM was clobbered by Surtees's young Ferrari team-mate, Lorenzo Bandini. Hill reputedly sent Bandini a "Learn to Drive" manual for Christmas.

For the new 3-litre formula of 1966, Rudd developed the H16 engine, which was effectively two V8s mounted on top of each other with the cylinder banks opened out to lie horizontally. The complicated engine was not a success despite the team's best efforts over the next two years, and was replaced by a V12 in 1968.

By this time the BRM chassis was a little long in the tooth. Talented young designer Tony Southgate joined the organization and designed the P153 and P160 chassis, which put BRM back into the winner's circle when Pedro Rodriguez won a close battle with Chris Amon in the 1970 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.

The emerging Niki Lauda turned in some promising drives to launch his career with BRM in 1973, but, at the end of the following year, the Owen Organization withdrew its support. Louis Stanley tried to keep the team afloat, but it all fell apart in 1977. The new P207 was late and, when it did arrive, neither Conny Andersson nor Teddy Pilette could qualify it and Rotary Watches withdrew their sponsorship. BRM's final appearance in the World Championship was with Larry Perkins at the wheel at the 1977 South African Grand Prix at Kyalami.

Reproduced from The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Formula One published by Carlton Books