By 1991, Brabham had declined significantly from its championship-winning peak. The team had been sold by Bernie Ecclestone to Swiss businessman Walter Brun at the end of 1988, and the intervening seasons had seen the team struggle to remain competitive. The BT60Y was designed by Sergio Rinland, who had co-designed the earlier BT56, and represented the team's attempt to maintain a presence at the front of the grid with a new Japanese engine partnership.
The BT60Y was driven by Martin Brundle, returning to Brabham and to Formula One after a season racing for Jaguar in the 1990 World Sportscar Championship, and rookie Mark Blundell. The Yamaha OX99 V12 engine proved insufficiently competitive against the dominant Renault and Honda-powered machinery of the era. Brabham scored just three points across the entire 1991 season: Brundle took one fifth-place finish, and Blundell added one sixth-place result. The team finished tenth in the Constructors' Championship.
For the 1992 season, the team replaced the Yamaha engine with the Judd GV V10 and modified the car to produce the BT60B. The drivers were Eric van de Poele of Belgium and Italian rookie Giovanna Amati; Amati was replaced partway through the year by Damon Hill, who would later become Formula One World Champion. The 1992 season was catastrophic. After van de Poele's classified finish at the opening South African Grand Prix, neither car qualified for a race for eight consecutive rounds. Hill qualified 26th at the British Grand Prix and the team contested its final Formula One race meeting at the Hungarian Grand Prix, where Hill finished 11th — four laps down on race winner Ayrton Senna.
Brabham fell into administration following the 1992 season. RM Motorsports attempted to purchase the team, and Galmer Engineering was engaged to design a successor car, the BT61, intended for the 1993 season. The project collapsed when RM Motorsports failed to secure an engine supplier or pay Galmer for their work. Brabham was subsequently liquidated.
The BT60Y and BT60B brought to a close thirty years of Brabham car construction, a lineage that had begun with Jack Brabham and Ron Tauranac building the BT1 Formula Junior in 1961. The contrast between the BT60's anonymous results and the team's earlier achievements — Jack Brabham's 1966 championship in a car of his own construction, Nelson Piquet's 1981 and 1983 titles, the technical innovations of Gordon Murray's ground-effect and fan-car designs — made the decline especially stark. The BT60B remains the last Formula One car to carry the Brabham name in World Championship competition until the team's later revival attempts.