Motorsport is an exceptionally precarious war of escalation, as technological advances in motorsport gears and technology need to be good, but not so good that they threaten the sport entirely.
Typically, a dominant competitor can create healthy competition to try and find an innovation that can beat them, but sometimes either the teams or the governing body decide a car is too good that they have to change the rules to stop it from racing entirely.
Brabham BT46B
The first and most obvious example of a car banned because it was too good was the somewhat infamous Brabham Fan Car that raced exactly once in 1978.
It took the already controversial ground effect concept to another level by fitting a “cooling” fan that just happened to extract air from underneath the car and generate vast amounts of downforce.
After Niki Lauda won the Swedish Grand Prix with practically no issues, even gliding over an oil spill at one point, it caused such a stir that Bernie Ecclestone, then owner of Brabham, agreed to withdraw it, only for the car to be banned outright.
Nissan Skyline GT-R R32
Known simply as “Godzilla”, the four-wheel-drive, turbocharged predecessor to the modern GT-R won every single race it entered in the Japanese Touring Car Championship, won three Group A competitions in Australia and won the country’s prestigious Bathurst 1000 twice with 309 pounds of added weight.
In fact, Australian motorsport’s leaders got so angry by its success that they banned turbochargers and four-wheel-drive entirely, a terribly unsubtle rule change aimed at banning Godzilla specifically.
Mazda 787B
Mazda has always taken the unusual route of using Wankel rotary engines rather than more conventionally designed reciprocating blocks, and whilst it took a lot of work to get it right, the lighter, smoother engine was powerful and remarkably reliable.
This led to the dominant Le Mans victory of the Mazda 787B Group C sports prototype car in 1991. Besides its incredible looks, the novel engine could produce as much as 900 horsepower, although it limited itself to 700 for reliability reasons.
However, partly due to fear of a repeat and a somewhat ill-advised pivot towards Formula One-style engines, the 787B was banned from 1992 onwards, and in doing so killed Group C entirely and changed the face of sports car racing forever.