1966 Belgian Grand Prix
| Race details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 2 of 9 in the 1966 Formula One season | |||
 |
|||
| Date | 12 June 1966 | ||
| Official name | XII Grote Prijs Van Belgie | ||
| Location | Spa-Francorchamps, Francorchamps, Belgium | ||
| Course | Permanent racing circuit | ||
| Course length | 14.120 km (8.770 mi) | ||
| Distance | 28 laps, 395.36 km (245.56 mi) | ||
| Weather | Overcast and wet | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | Ferrari | ||
| Time | 3:38:0 | ||
| Fastest lap | |||
| Driver |
 John Surtees
|
Ferrari | |
| Time | 4:18:7 | ||
| Podium | |||
| First | Ferrari | ||
| Second | Cooper-Maserati | ||
| Third | Ferrari | ||
The 1966 Belgian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Spa-Francorchamps on 12 June 1966. It was the second round of the 1966 Formula One season. The race was the 26th Belgian Grand Prix which to this point had only been held at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit. The race was held over 28 laps of the fourteen kilometre circuit for a race distance of 395 kilometres.
The race was won by British driver, 1964 world champion John Surtees driving a Ferrari 312 in a race that saw the field decimated by weather in the early laps. It was Surtees's fourth Grand Prix victory and his first since the 1964 Italian Grand Prix. Surtees took a 42-second victory over Austrian driver Jochen Rindt driving a Cooper T81. It was future world champion Rindt's first podium finish and the first for the new Cooper-Maserati combination as the works Cooper Car Company team looked to the three litre Maserati V12 sports car engine for the new regulations. Surtees's Italian team mate Lorenzo Bandini finished third in his Ferrari 246.
With a pair of podiums, Bandini took the lead in the championship by a point over the two race winners, Surtees and Jackie Stewart.
The race distance was shortened from the previous year, from 32 to 28 laps. More than half the field crashed out on the first lap due to a heavy rainstorm and there were only seven runners left by the start of the second lap. Four drivers went off and crashed at the sweeping Burnenville corner, where the heavy wall of rain was. Jo Bonnier's Cooper T81 went through an upstairs window of a house on the edge of the track and Jackie Stewart's BRM P261 crashed into a telephone pole and then landed in a ditch at Masta Kink, leading to him being stuck upside down in his BRM, halfway up to his waist in fuel, for 25 minutes. Graham Hill and Bob Bondurant, both of whom had gone off near Stewart, managed to rescue him with a spectator's toolkit. Jack Brabham slid his Brabham BT19 coming out of the Masta Kink at 135 mph, but regained control of the car and rejoined the race. There was so much water on the track that it got into and flooded Jim Clark's Climax engine in his Lotus 33 and he was out of the race on the first lap too. The entire first lap was run under green flags. And by the start of the second lap, 8 of the 15 drivers who started were out of the race.
...
Wikipedia