By the time the BT59 was conceived, Brabham was a team in decline. Following a promising stretch in the mid-1980s that had produced world championships under Nelson Piquet, the squad struggled with chronic underfunding and a lack of competitive power units heading into the new decade. The BT59 was engineered to address the team's problems within tight financial constraints, but it inherited many of the structural disadvantages that had dragged Brabham down the constructors' standings in the late 1980s.
The BT59 was powered by the Judd CV V8 engine and shod with Pirelli tyres. The Judd unit was a customer engine competitive enough for midfield ambitions but unable to match the works power plants of the leading teams. The Pirelli rubber, while available to a number of smaller outfits, was widely regarded as inferior to the Goodyear tyres used by the frontrunners, further limiting the car's potential.
For the 1990 season the BT59 was driven by David Brabham, the youngest son of team founder Sir Jack Brabham, and Stefano Modena, an Italian who had raced for the team in 1989. Modena had demonstrated pace in earlier campaigns — a third-place finish at Monaco in 1989 being the highlight — but the BT59 could not consistently deliver results at that level.
The season proved difficult. Lack of money restricted development, and the Judd engine's power deficit against the Honda- and Ferrari-powered frontrunners was stark. The team's best result of the year was a seventh place at the Canadian Grand Prix, scored by Modena. Points finishes remained elusive throughout the campaign, and Brabham slipped further from the competitive pack.
For the opening two rounds of the 1991 season, Brabham fielded a modified version of the BT59 designated the BT59Y. The primary change was the substitution of the Judd V8 for a Yamaha OX99 V12 engine, as Brabham secured a supply deal with the Japanese manufacturer in an attempt to improve power output. British drivers Martin Brundle and Mark Blundell were recruited to pilot the cars for this transitional period.
The BT59Y served only as a stop-gap. After the first two races of 1991 the car was replaced by the purpose-built Brabham BT60Y, which was designed from the outset around the Yamaha V12 package and offered a more coherent platform for the team to develop.
The BT59 represents Brabham's last serious attempt to field a car competitive enough to score points on a regular basis before the team's fortunes collapsed irreversibly. The 1990 season offered little to celebrate beyond isolated midfield appearances, and the brief BT59Y experiment underlined the degree to which Brabham's problems were as much financial as technical. The team would withdraw from Formula One at the end of 1992, and the BT59 stands as a monument to a once-great constructor in its final years of decline.