If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying: Brabham BT52 super fuel
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Developing a special blend of petrol from Wartime technology so your little four-cylinder can exceed your dyno limit. Welcome to BMW’s Eighties F1 engine strategy
As with any story about deception or misbehaviour, it gets romanticised. The truth isn’t documented at the time, it wouldn’t be wise to keep track of your cheating. Myths and legends take the place of truth. The fallacy that surrounds the fuel used in Brabham’s 1983 title-winning BT52 F1 car goes something like this: when the Brabham mechanics opened up their barrels of fuel in the Monaco paddock in 1983, the leaves on the trees above wilted and fell off. The fumes from the concoction that was fuelling the turbocharged 1400-plus-horsepower 1.5-litre BMW M12/13 engine were that pungent.
That seems unlikely, but it’s not that far from the truth. In an interview with Werke magazine, a high-quality BMW magazine, David North, a Brabham F1 engineer at the time, said of the fuel, ‘It was evil stuff and could make your nose bleed if you got too close’.