Car · Cooper · 1959–1963
Cooper T51
Cooper's rear-engined cars had been winning with half the power of a front-engined Ferrari since 1958, and the establishment kept explaining why it did not matter. Brabham's 1959 title ended the discussion: within three seasons every car on the grid had the engine behind the driver, and no front-engined car has won a World Championship race since 1960.
- Seasons
- 1959–1963
- Entries
- 117
- Wins
- 5
- Poles
- 6
- Fastest laps
- 6
- Constructors' titles
- 1
- Drivers' titles
- 1
Why it mattered
The idea. Put the engine behind the driver and the whole car gets smaller, lighter and faster with less power
New on this car. Not the first rear-engined Grand Prix car, but the one that settled the argument
What it did. 5 wins. Brabham's 1959 drivers' title and Cooper's 1959 constructors' title - the first for a rear-engined car.
- Designers
- Owen Maddock
- Supersedes
- —
- Design life
- 1959–1960
- Confidence
- high
Specification
- Chassis
- Steel spaceframe
- Front suspension
- Double wishbone, coil spring and damper
- Rear suspension
- Double wishbone, leaf spring and damper
- Brakes
- drum
- Gearbox
- Citroen, Colotti (and others)
- Gears
- —
- Tyres
- Dunlop
- Fuel
- —
- Engine
- Climax, Maserati, Castellotti, Borgward or Ferrari
- Configuration
- straight-4
- Capacity
- 2,495 cc
- Aspiration
- naturally aspirated
- Power
- 240 bhp
- Power note
- —
- Weight
- 701 kg
- Wheelbase
- 2,642 mm
- Track, front
- 1,397 mm
- Track, rear
- 1,346 mm
A blank is a figure nobody published for this car. Where several teams quote the same number in a season it is usually the rule they were all built to rather than a measurement, so it is kept with the regulation limits instead of here.
Seasons that cannot be attributed 1
| Season | Also entered by this constructor |
|---|---|
| 1959 | cooper-t43+cooper-t45 |
Every entry 117 entries
Show all 117 entriesShow the first 10, Every entry
Where this comes from
- Constructor
- Cooper
- Predecessor
- Cooper T45
- Successor
- Cooper T53
- Races (published)
- 24
- Wins (published)
- 5
- Poles (published)
- 6
- Confidence
- reference
- Specification source
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_T51
- Register source
- https://github.com/f1db/f1db