Architects of F1 - Gordon Murray

Cherished memories of Formula 1 fans of a certain vintage were awakened earlier this year when McLaren announced that they would be reforming their once all-conquering engine partnership with Honda in 2015.

But there was plenty more sustained success to come for the Murray/Brabham combination. In 1981, rising star Nelson Piquet delivered the team's first Drivers' Championship since Denny Hulme some 14 years earlier, the Brazilian taking three wins in the BT49 to beat Brabham's former driver Reutemann, now at Williams, to the crown by a single point. Piquet would become a double champion two years later with BMW turbo power allied to Murray's latest creation. That proved the peak of Brabham's success, however, and by 1986, following struggles with Murray's reliability-plagued low-line BT55 and the death of Elio de Angelis in a testing accident at Paul Ricard, the South African was ready for a fresh challenge. Despite not appearing to be the most obvious of F1 bedfellows, Murray ended up at Ron Dennis's McLaren team where he committed to a strict three-year programme. Heading up the technical team with responsibilities across the board from design to strategy and post-race analysis, Murray and American designer Steve Nichols' first car in partnership was the iconic McLaren-Honda MP4/4 - the challenger which in Prost and Senna's hands won all but one of the 1988 season's 16 rounds. Two more Drivers'/Constructors' Championship doubles followed in 1989 and 1990 but with his original three-year promise to Dennis now fulfilled, Murray's next challenge took him away from F1 and into McLaren's new road car division. Unsurprisingly, the South African's time was similarly groundbreaking as he first delivered the revolutionary McLaren F1 supercar and, later on, the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. Indeed, while now well into his seventh decade, Murray continues to operate at the cutting edge of technology and design with his own company focusing on the development and technology behind small, more carbon-efficient city cars. Once an innovator, always an innovator.