Mexican GP 1966

Mexican GP, 1966

Ferrari did not bother to send a team to the Mexican GP but all the other regulars were in action with Lotus running a third car for Pedro Rodriguez (an old Climax engined 33) and Cooper running a third chassis for Moises Solana. Dan Gurney had a pair of Eagles, but decided to drive the Climax-engined car leaving the Weslake V12 car for Bob Bondurant.

In qualifying John Surtees put his Cooper-Maserati on pole position with Jim Clark's Lotus-BRM (which had won the US Grand Prix three weeks earlier) sharing the front row. Then came Ritchie Ginther's Honda and World Champion Jack Brabham in his Brabham-Repco. Jochen Rindt (Cooper-Maserati) shared the third row with the second Brabham of Denny Hulme while Graham Hill and Rodriguez lined up on the fourth row.

In the race Ginther went into the lead as he had done 12 months earlier and he was chased by Rindt, Brabham, Hulme, Surtees and Clark. During the second lap, however, Brabham got into the lead and Ginther then dropped behind Rindt, Surtees and Hulme. Surtees then overtook Rindt and began to chase after Brabham. A lap later he was in the lead and he stayed there for the rest of the afternoon being shadowed all the way by Brabham. Rindt ran third until he retired on lap 32 with a suspension failure. This left Rodriguez in third place to the delight of the locals but on lap 49 he went out with a transmission failure and so Ginther moved to third. On the penultimate lap Hulme overtook him to jump up to fourth in the Drivers' World Championship behind Brabham, Surtees and Rindt but ahead of Hill, Clark and Stewart.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
1 7 John Surtees Cooper-Maserati T81 65 2h06m35.340s  1 
2 5 Jack Brabham Brabham-Repco BT20 65 2h06m43.220s  4 
3 6 Denny Hulme Brabham-Repco BT20 64  6 
4 12 Richie Ginther Honda RA273 64  3 
5 15 Dan Gurney Eagle-Climax T1G 64  9 
6 22 Jo Bonnier Cooper-Maserati T81 63  12 
7 2 Peter Arundell Lotus-BRM 33 61  17 
8 14 Ronnie Bucknum Honda RA273 60  13 
r 11 Pedro Rodriguez Lotus-Climax 33 49 Transmission 8 
r 17 Bruce McLaren McLaren-Ford M2B 40 Engine 14 
r 19 Jo Siffert Cooper-Maserati T81 33 Suspension 11 
r 8 Jochen Rindt Cooper-Maserati T81 32 Suspension 5 
r 10 Innes Ireland BRM P261 28 Transmission 16 
r 4 Jackie Stewart BRM P83 26 Mechanical 10 
r 16 Bob Bondurant Eagle-Weslake T1G 24 Fuel Injection 18 
r 3 Graham Hill BRM P83 18 Engine 7 
r 9 Moises Solana Cooper-Maserati T81 9 Overheating 15 
r 1 Jim Clark Lotus-BRM 43 9 Gearbox 2 
ns 18 Mike Spence Lotus-BRM 25  Accident 19