The only other major manufacturer deviating from the received V8 wisdom were Ferrari, who experimented with both V6 and flat-12 layouts, although they ultimately elected to stick with their V8.

In engineering terms, more cylinders generally allow smaller and lighter moving parts, higher rotational speeds and thus a greater peak power.

This was still a fairly unusual concept, however, with other leading cars such as Brabham's BT11 and Ferrari's 156 F1 using an old fashioned tubular spaceframe set-up.

This was an advantage for teams such as Honda, Ferrari and Porsche, who built their engines in house, as opposed to others such as Brabham and Lotus, who bought theirs in from outside.

The design featured twelve separate exhausts, six on each side of the body, which made the car very distinctive as opposed to the 'four-into-one' layout preferred by the V8 teams.

The two non-qualifiers were the Scirocco-Climax of Belgian driver André Pilette, which was hopelessly off the pace, and Carel Godin de Beaufort, who was killed during the session in a tragic accident at the wheel of his privately entered Porsche 718.

Bucknum was some 20 seconds slower than the next slowest competitor, Giancarlo Baghetti at the wheel of a BRM, and almost a minute off the pole time of John Surtees's Ferrari.

[12] Although a poor start left him down in 16th, he quickly climbed through the field and ran as high as 7th before a brake failure forced him out of the race on lap 13.

His ability to keep pace with the works BRM and Brabham cars in this race gave great hope for the future of Honda in F1.

As there were only 19 entrants, there was no threat of failing to qualify, and Bucknum was well within three seconds of Jim Clark's pole time for Lotus.

The high quality of the field, however, meant that he was down in 14th place, although he did outqualify 1961 world champion Phil Hill, now driving for Cooper.

[15] He once again ran the race just outside the top ten, fighting for long periods with the Lotuses of Walt Hansgen (works) and Mike Hailwood (RPR) and Richie Ginther's BRM.

The car's permanent residence is the Honda Collection Hall at the Twin Ring Motegi, but it has left there several times.