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Peter Berthon, part of BRM since the start, was no longer on the scene and Tony Rudd, a former Rolls Royce apprentice who had worked on Merlin engines, took over both as chief engineer and team manager, doing much work on the new BRM V8 engine.
Graham Hill showed the car's potential by winning the first heat of the non-championship Brussels Grand Prix in its debut race and then pipped Jim Clark's Lotus by just a nose in the International Trophy at Silverstone.
Hill does the trick
He was now embroiled in a championship battle with Clark's Lotus which went right down to the wire in South Africa. Clark took off into the lead with Hill second, but an engine problem put him out and Hill won the world championship for BRM in the Type 578.
Hill is pipped in Mexico Clark dominated in 1963, but BRM came back with its first monocoque car, the P261, the following year. Hill won two Grands Prix and was only prevented from taking a second championship by Ferrari's John Surtees in the final race, the Mexican Grand Prix, when his BRM was clobbered by Surtees' young Ferrari team-mate Lorenzo Bandini.
Reputedly, Hill sent Bandini a "Learn to Drive" manual for Christmas.
New technical developments For the new 3-litre formula introduced in 1966, Rudd developed the H16 engine, which was effectively two V8s mounted on top of each other with the cylinder banks opened out to lie horizontally.
It was not a success despite Rudd's best efforts over the next two years, and was replaced by a conventional V12 in 1968.
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