page_title: Owen Maddock
section_title: The first true Formula One Coopers
hierarchical_section_title: Owen Maddock / The Cooper years / Early Formula Three and Formula Two work / The first true Formula One Coopers
caption_attribution_description: English: An ex-Rob Walker Racing Cooper T43, waiting in the paddock of the VSCC SeeRed race meeting, Donington Park.
context_page_description: Owen Richard Maddock was a British engineer and racing car designer, who was chief designer for the Cooper Car Company between 1950 and 1963. During this time Maddock designed a string of successful racing cars, including the Formula One World Championship-winning Cooper T51 and T53 models.
  The T51 was the first mid-engined car to win either the World Drivers' or Constructors' Championships, feats it achieved in the hands of Jack Brabham in 1959. A year earlier Stirling Moss had taken the first ever Formula One victory for a mid-engined car in another Maddock-designed vehicle: a Cooper T43. In addition to his Formula One work, Maddock also produced race-winning Formula Two, Formula Three and sportscar designs. After leaving Cooper in 1963 Maddock went on to a successful career as an engineering consultant, including a spell as a hovercraft designer working for Saunders-Roe on the Isle of Wight. In his spare time he also enjoyed racing hovercraft, and was a co-founder of the Hovercraft Club of Great Britain.
  Away from engineering Maddock was an accomplished jazz musician.
context_section_description: Taking cues from Brabham's Formula One special, and through evolution of the Formula Three curved tube chassis design, Maddock produced a new Formula Two design for 1956: the Cooper T41. He developed this the subsequent year into the Mark II, or Cooper T43, model. Where the 1956 car had been developed for Climax's FWB, this 1957 car was intended for Climax's new FPF four-cylinder engine. While the FWB was a development of a pump engine adapted for automobile use, the FPF was a bespoke, dry sumped racing design. Even in 1,500 cc (92 cu in) Formula Two form Maddock's lightweight cars could produce strong performances against more powerful machinery, but the true potential of the design was shown when Rob Walker Racing decided to build a T43 with an enlarged 1964 cc FPF engine – and the works entered it for the 1957 Monaco Grand Prix. Driver Jack Brabham unfortunately managed to write the chassis off in practice, but the engine was transferred to another T43 present for the Formula Two race and Brabham managed to qualify 13th for the 16 car race. In the race itself Brabham climbed as high as third place, behind the Maserati 250F of Juan Manuel Fangio and the Vanwall of Tony Brooks, before the little car's fuel pump failed on its 100th lap. Determined to finish Brabham pushed the car from the tunnel, the full distance of the Monaco marina, to the finish line. He was sixth, only one place out of the points, but better was to come.
  For the first races of 1958 Walker retook possession of the modified car and, running on AvGas, Stirling Moss drove it to victory in the Formula One season opening 1958 Argentine Grand Prix. This was the first victory at the highest level for a Cooper car, the first in World Championship history for a car that had its engine mounted behind the driver, and came against rivals running full-capacity 2.5 L (153 cu in) engines. More was to come.
  Almost immediately the T43 design was replaced by the Mark III version of the "Formula Two" chassis. Maddock and the Coopers upgraded the existing design by switching the front suspension for an improved double wishbone suspension arrangement with coilover shock absorbers, in place of the older cars' transverse leaf spring design. New step-up gears in the transaxle allowed Maddock to lower the engine (now including Climax's stretched 2,207 cc (134.7 cu in) FPF in the works Formula One car), reducing the centre of gravity of the new Cooper T45 (Mark III) by mounting the dry-sump engine much lower. Maddock credited this particular innovation to Jack Brabham, who received the suggestion from his Australian friend, Ron Tauranac. Brabham and Cooper contributed other detail improvements, but Maddock left the fundamental chassis frame virtually unaltered from the T43. The T45 was immediately successful. In the hands of Maurice Trintignant, Rob Walker's new T45 won the very next World Championship round, the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix.
  Maddock had a somewhat frosty relationship with Jack Brabham. Brabham recalled Maddock as being "even more steadfastly conservative than Charlie [Cooper] himself." This was in stark contrast to Brabham's own character, and his desire to win at any cost. The two clashed particularly over the curved tube chassis design, but the T45 had shown what could be achieved when the pair collaborated, and between the two of them they were to elevate Cooper to the top of the Formula One pack in the next few years.
caption: The Rob Walker Racing 1958 Argentine Grand Prix-winning Cooper T43.
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