Constructors

British Racing Partnership

The British Racing Partnership was established in 1958 by Stirling Moss's father Alfred and manager Ken Gregory. Moss was contracted to other teams and the aim of BRP was to provide him with cars when he was available - while at the same time helping young British drivers climb the motor racing ladder. The team adopted Tommy Bridger and Stuart Lewis-Evans and they raced a Cooper-Climax F2 car in a variety of F1 and F2 events that year, Lewis-Evans scoring some useful results, including a victory in a BRSCC F2 race at Brands Hatch.For the 1959 season BRP acquired a pair of Cooper-Borgwards, which were run for Ivor Bueb, George Wicken and Chris Bristow and an F1 BRM which was run for Moss on several occasions but was then destroyed by Hans Herrmann in a famous accident at Avus. Bristow did particularly well winning several races.For 1960 Gregory landed a major sponsorship deal from Yeoman Credit and acquired a trio of Cooper-Climax 51s. One of these was rented out to Olivier Gendebien for the Belgian GP and he finished third - which would be BRP's best ever result in a World Championship event - but the same day Bristow was killed. The cars continued to appear for the rest of the year for a variety of drivers including Tony Brooks, Henry Taylor, Bruce Halford and even Phil Hill. The cars also appeared from time to time in F2 with Jack Sears amongst the drivers.The following year BRP found backing from another financial company United Dominion Trust Laystall and bought Lotus 18s for Henry Taylor and Cliff Allison (the latter was replaced by Masten Gregory) although results were few and far between. Moss drove one of the cars to win the Silver City Trophy at Brands Hatch. Later in the season he won two other races in Scandinavia.Innes Ireland joined Gregory for the 1962 season but the old Lotuses were no longer really competitive and were eventually replaced by Lotus 24s. These were redundant as soon as they arrived as Team Lotus built the Lotus 25 for the factory team. Ireland and Gregory each won a minor race but towards the end of the year BRP took the decision to build its own cars for 1962. These were designed by Tony Robinson and followed the design concept of the Lotus 25. They were fitted with BRM V8 engines and raced for the first time in the summer of 1963. Ireland finished fourth in Holland and Italy and third in the non-championship race at Solitude while Jim Hall raced one of the old Lotuses.In 1964 Ireland was joined by Trevor Taylor and the pair both ran BRP chassis but there were only a few minor placings. The team tried to join the new Formula One Constructors Association but was turned down and at the end of the year decided not to continue in F1. A couple of cars were hurriedly built for the Indianapolis 500 and Gregory was running fourth in the event when his gearbox failed.There were plans to return to F1 in 1966 but the plan flopped and BRP closed down and Ken Gregory turned his undoubted commercial skills to the jet chartering business.