1966 F1 rule change: How non-championship races shaped a smoother transition

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Vintage Ferrari Formula One car racing on paved road.

F1’s ‘Return to Power’ in ’66 had a rehearsal at

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Doug Nye
April 1, 2026

Reaction to this year’s Australian Grand Prix was certainly ‘mixed’ but, while Mercedes and Ferrari expressed delight with the promise shown by their new-era Formula 1 cars, it was (predictably) sobering to hear reservations about the new regulations so noisily expressed not only by the consistently aggressive Max Verstappen but also (quite untypically) by the normally reflective and thoughtful reigning World Champion, Lando Norris.

Of course the short-range memories of the Drive to Survive generation have little inkling of bygone regulation changes and how they developed. The big revolution of the 1960s was the change from 1½-litre maximum engine capacity to the 3-litre ‘Return of Power’, as enacted through the winter of 1965-66.

In technological terms it was stone age stuff in contrast to the current revolution, but at least then competing teams had considerable opportunity to play themselves tentatively into the new category, to gain experience and knowledge of the new tools they were being allowed to deploy.

For example, rather than throwing the whole of Formula 1 into immediate World Championship-qualifying contention first time out in 1966, as early as December 5, 1965, the non-Championship Rand GP was organised to 3-litre capacity ceiling rules at Kyalami.

“In a southern hemisphere season, a full series bridged Christmas and New Year”

Of course in a southern-hemisphere racing season, a full series bridged the Christmas/New Year break to make the most of local summer. Since the South African series would take us into 1966, it seemed logical to apply a version of the 3-litre regs for the entire calendar. So when the international Formula 1 teams shipped-in for the Rand race they found themselves faced with locals who had been running to the new rules for some time.

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To some extent it showed. Wily old Jack Brabham pulled one of his best short-term strokes there, agreeing to drive local entrant Aldo Scribante’s 2.7-litre Brabham-Climax. The car was immaculately prepared, enabling ‘Blackie’ to win comfortably from Peter de Klerk in Otelle Nucci’s sister 2.7 Brabham, with Paul Hawkins third in a Parnell Racing Lotus 25 laden (poor thing) with yet another 2.7 Climax FPF. There was nothing groundbreaking about these top three cars, indeed the 2.7 Climax ‘Tasman’ engines were in essence a five-year-old 1961 Indianapolis development, dating from Brabham’s last season with Cooper.

That Rand race was followed by the South African GP – shorn of Championship-qualifying status – at East London on New Year’s Day. Mike Spence won in a 2-litre Climax V8-engined Lotus 33, from the old-Formula 1½-litre Jo Siffert Brabham-BRM and Mike’s team-mate Peter Arundell’s Lotus-Climax. Dave Charlton was fourth in the Scribante 2.7 ex-Jack Brabham car at Kyalami.

While it was relatively simple to upgrade 1½-litre V8s to 2 litres for the new year – both Climax and BRM doing so – Jack Brabham had taken the more difficult route of having his own stock-block 3-litre Repco V8 tailor-made for his 1966 cars in Melbourne, Australia. He qualified the prototype BT19 on pole at East London, and led for 50 laps before his new engine’s fuel injection pump seized and snapped its drive belt.

Only then did a four-month development gap follow, until May 1, 1966, and the non-Championship Syracuse GP in Sicily. There Ferrari stepped forward with its latest 3-litre V12 F1 car for John Surtees while team-mate Lorenzo Bandini appeared in a ‘Tasman’ special F1 car, uprated with a 2.4-litre Dino four-cam V6 engine. They faced Jo Siffert in Rob Walker’s new full 3-litre Cooper-Maserati T81 – that’s right, the car they eventually nicknamed Torrey Canyon for its oil leaking prowess after the eponymous tanker which had run aground off Land’s End in March 1967.

A second new Cooper-Maserati V12 T81 appeared on the Sicilian grid for privateer Guy Ligier, Jack Brabham returned in the albeit troubled Brabham-Repco V8 and ran third initially behind Bandini and Siffert and ahead of Il Grande John. But when Jack reappeared he was pushing his stricken car, team-mate Denny Hulme retired his 2.7 Climax… and Ferrari waltzed home with Surtees winning from Bandini; David Hobbs was third in a Lotus 25 with 2-litre BRM V8 engine.

Two weeks later, the BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone provided victory – at last – for Jack Brabham in his BT19-Repco. He headed Surtees’s Ferrari 312 and Jo Bonnier’s Swiss-liveried Cooper-Maserati T81 V12. Next stop, with new cars well proven and settled-in, and drivers fully acclimatised to them, would be the title-qualifying Monaco GP on May 22.

It fell to a virtual throw-back car – Jackie Stewart’s formerly 1½-litre BRM P261 V8 now running a 2-litre engine. The full new 3-litre BRM H16 made its public testing debut during practice, but it proved unready. Graham Hill’s sister 2-litre BRM P261 placed third, he and winner Stewart sandwiching Bandini’s ‘Tasman’ Ferrari Dino 246 V6 in second place.

John Surtees, who could perhaps have won in the more nimble Dino V6, found himself politicked out of its driving seat and into the hefty 312 instead by team manager Eugenio Dragoni, whom John detested.

So in that opening round of 1966 – 60 years ago – BRM’s gain proved to be Ferrari’s loss. That F1 change had been progressive, but back in ’66 it just seemed sensible. Melbourne’s curtain-raiser, this year, proved ‘different’.

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