Cooper T51
The first mid-engined car to take the World Championship, the Cooper T51, achieved its success with a fraction of the resources available to the teams that had dominated until that point, and with significantly less power.
The lessons demonstrated by its layout changed the convention of Grand Prix car design more fundamentally than any before or since.
It was the T51's immediate predecessor that had first shown the advantages of the layout in F1 in 1958. Putting the engine at the back allowed the driver to be seated far lower, without a propshaft to clear, making for a massive reduction in frontal area.The direct mating of the engine and final drive meant that the frames housing these components didn't need to be so bulky, as their torque reversal cancelled each other out,This, and the loss of the propshaft, provided a major weight reduction. Finally, the concentration of the car's masses towards its centre-line made for much more instantaneous changes in direction.
Although the 1958 car won two Grands Prix, such advantages were not recognized universally, partly because the front-engined Ferraris and Vanwalls were still fighting over the destiny of the championship.The Cooper triumphs were regarded as flukes — perhaps because its compact dimensions were particularly suited to the tight confines of tracks like Monaco — and they were thought to have little real worth.
Yet the only reason that the 1958 Cooper wasn't a more consistent threat was that its Coventry Climax engine was merely a bored-out Formula 2 unit of just 2.2 litres.The full 2.5 litres enjoyed by the others gave them a critical advantage. For 1959, Climax responded with a redesigned crankshaft to lengthen the stroke and give 2.5 litres.The resultant I 72kW (230bhp) was still around 45kW (60bhp) down on the Ferrari, but it proved just about enough.
The Cooper T51 began the season with a win for Jack Brabham at Monaco, but it was his highly competitive third on the flat-out expanses of Rheims, despite his power deficit, that really gained the attention of the front-engine traditionalists. He won again at the British Grand Prix, and Cooper T51, in the hands of Moss and McLaren, won three of the remaining four rounds; Brabham took the title.
