Italian GP 1966

Italian GP, 1966

With a month between the German and Italian GPs, there was time for several teams to reorganize and at Monza the Honda team appeared for the first time with Ritchie Ginther driving the new Honda V12 car and Dan Gurney making his first appearance with the Weslake V12 in the back of his Eagle. BRM and Lotus fitted their cars with the BRM H16 engine and both Ferrari and Maserati had revised versions of their engines. The field was swelled by various extra cars including a third Ferrari for Lodovico Scarfiotti. Giacomo Russo ("Geki") reappearing in a third Lotus (with a Climax engine) and Chris Amon driving a privately-entered Brabham-BRM because McLaren was again missing. Giancarlo Baghetti was entered to drive a Reg Parnell Racing Lotus-BRM but when this failed he acquired an old Ferrari.

Qualifying resulted in pole position going to Ferrari's Mike Parkes with Scarfiotti second and Clark third in the Lotus-BRM 43. John Surtees (Cooper-Maserati) shared the second row with Ferrari's Lorenzo Bandini, while the third row featured Jack Brabham's Brabham-Repco, Ginther's Honda and Jochen Rindt in the second Cooper-Maserati. The BRMs of Jackie Stewart and Graham Hill were ninth and 11th because of gearbox troubles.

At the start Scarfiotti and Parkes went into the lead with Bandini making a quick start to lead by the end of the first lap. Scarfiotti dropped back to seventh behind Parkes, Surtees, Ginther, Brabham and Hulme. Hill's BRM failed him and Clark found himself down in 10th. Ferrari's joy was spoiled on the second lap when Bandini pitted with a fuel pipe problem. Not long afterwards Stewart was out with a similar problem.

Parkes led briefly but was then overtaken by Surtees but then Brabham took the lead until he went out with an oil leak after eight laps. By then Scarfiotti had fought his way back to the front. He was able to get ahead of the slipstreaming battle. On lap 17 Ginther suffered a tire failure in the Curva Grande and the Honda crashed into the trees beside the track. The American was (miraculously) unhurt but the new car was destroyed.

This left Scarfiotti ahead of Hulme, Parkes and Surtees. On lap 32 Surtees went into the pits to retire with a fuel leak. He had been the only driver in a position to challenge Brabham for the World title and so the Australian - who was already out the race - celebrated his third World Championship success. Scarfiotti stayed ahead and finished six seconds clear of the battle for second which went (by 0.3sec) to Parkes. Hulme was third with Rindt a distant fourth.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
1 6 Ludovico Scarfiotti Ferrari 312 68 1h47m14.800s  2 
2 4 Mike Parkes Ferrari 312 68 1h47m20.600s  1 
3 12 Denny Hulme Brabham-Repco BT20 68 1h47m20.900s  10 
4 16 Jochen Rindt Cooper-Maserati T81 67  8 
5 42 Mike Spence Lotus-BRM 25 67  14 
6 40 Bob Anderson Brabham-Climax BT11 66  15 
7 48 Bob Bondurant BRM P261 65  18 
8r 24 Peter Arundell Lotus-BRM 33 63 Engine 13 
9 20 Giacomo Russo (geki) Lotus-Climax 33 63  20 
nc 44 Giancarlo Baghetti Ferrari 246 59  16 
r 22 Jim Clark Lotus-BRM 43 58 Gearbox 3 
r 36 Jo Siffert Cooper-Maserati T81 46 Engine 17 
r 2 Lorenzo Bandini Ferrari 312 33 Ignition 5 
r 14 John Surtees Cooper-Maserati T81 31 Fuel Leak 4 
r 18 Richie Ginther Honda RA273 16 Accident 7 
r 30 Dan Gurney Eagle-Weslake T1G 7 Engine 19 
r 10 Jack Brabham Brabham-Repco BT19 7 Mechanical 6 
r 28 Jackie Stewart BRM P83 5 Fuel Leak 9 
r 38 Jo Bonnier Cooper-Maserati T81 3 Throttle Linkage 12 
r 26 Graham Hill BRM P83 0 Engine 11 
nq 34 Phil Hill Eagle-Climax T1G   21 
nq 32 Chris Amon Brabham-BRM BT11   22