When Formula One moved to 1.5-litre engines for 1961, BRM was caught unprepared. The team's new V8 was still under development, so the P57 raced that first season with a borrowed Coventry Climax four-cylinder unit. At 450 kilograms, the car was heavier than its British rivals and the Climax engine was outmatched by the Ferrari V6 in the Ferrari 156. Results were modest, though points were collected as the season wore on.
The transition to BRM's own engine transformed the car's competitiveness. For 1962 the P578 retained the P57's tubular spaceframe and suspension unaltered, but replaced the Climax unit with BRM's V8 producing 190 horsepower. A Lucas fuel injection system was new, as was a Colotti six-speed gearbox — though reliability problems with the Colotti unit forced a reversion to BRM's own older five-speed transmission. The engine was capable of revving to 11,000 rpm, some 3,500 rpm beyond the Climax four-cylinder, and the eight exhaust pipes were initially mounted vertically before being changed to a horizontal layout after they proved prone to working loose.
The 1962 season opened a sustained title battle between Graham Hill in the P578 and Jim Clark in the revolutionary monocoque Lotus 25. Clark's car was the faster machine, claiming six pole positions and three victories, but the Lotus proved fragile. Hill's BRM, by contrast, finished every race of the season. Hill opened with victory at the Dutch Grand Prix, then took three of the final four races — Germany, Italy, and South Africa — to secure the Drivers' Championship. Richie Ginther partnered Hill throughout the year and the team outscored Lotus in the Constructors' standings.
In 1963 BRM held off a new-car development long enough for Hill to win Monaco from the front, the first of his record five victories at the circuit. Clark then dominated the season in an updated Lotus, winning seven rounds. BRM did not have a replacement ready and continued with the P57, adding a new six-speed gearbox and revised injection. Hill and Ginther combined for ten podiums and finished second and third in the championship behind Clark. BRM placed second in the Constructors' standings with 29 points.
A full replacement, the monocoque BRM P261, arrived for 1964. The P57 and P578 continued in the hands of privateers including Scuderia Centro Sud until the end of 1965, the small Italian team extracting the last competitive mileage from a design that had provided BRM with its greatest period of success.
The P578 represents the high point of BRM's constructors' career. Its combination of an in-house V8, a proven if conventional spaceframe chassis, and Graham Hill's reliability-focused driving style proved an effective counterweight to the more technically advanced but more fragile Lotus 25. The 1962 season remains BRM's sole championship campaign and the P578 — under either name — the car that achieved it.