1985 Austrian Grand Prix

F1 Austria Austrian Österreichring 1977-1987.svg The Österreichring (last modified in 1977) 18 August 1985 XXIII Holiday Großer Preis von Osterreich 10 16 Österreichring, Spielberg, Styria, Austria Permanent racing facility 3.692 5.942 52 191.994 308.984 Dry Alain Prost McLaren-TAG 1:25.490 France Alain Prost McLaren-TAG 1:29.241 39 France Alain Prost McLaren-TAG France Ayrton Senna Lotus-Renault Brazil 1968 Michele Alboreto Ferrari Italy AUT The 1985 Austrian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Österreichring on 18 August 1985. It was the tenth race of the 1985 Formula One World Championship. It was the 25th Austrian Grand Prix and the 24th to be held at Österreichring. The race was run over 52 laps of the 5.94 km mi on circuit for a total race distance of 308.9 km mi. The race was won by Frenchman Alain Prost, driving a McLaren-TAG, after he started from pole position. Prost took his fourth victory of the season by 30 seconds from Brazilian Ayrton Senna in a Lotus-Renault, with Italian Michele Alboreto third in a Ferrari. With the win, Prost moved level on points with Alboreto at the top of the Drivers' Championship. This was the last F1 race until the start of 1987 in which a car with a naturally aspirated engine was entered, Martin Brundle failing to qualify his Cosworth-powered Tyrrell. Race summary Missing from the grid was RAM driver Manfred Winkelhock who had been killed in a sportscar race in Canada just a week before. His place was taken in the team by Kenny Acheson for his first Formula One race since the 1983 South African Grand Prix. A second Toleman was driven by Piercarlo Ghinzani. Before Saturday morning practice triple and defending World Champion (and 1984 Austrian Grand Prix winner) Niki Lauda, flanked by a very unhappy McLaren team boss Ron Dennis, announced to the media that he would be retiring for good from Formula One following the season ending 1985 Australian to concentrate on running his airline Lauda Air. Dennis was reportedly unhappy as he had paid Lauda a considerable amount of money to make his F1 comeback in 1982 and he had unsuccessfully tried to get Lauda to continue racing into the 1986 season. A now relaxed Lauda gave his home fans something to cheer about when he qualified a season-high third. Lauda's teammate Alain Prost captured pole position, averaging 155.478 mph (250.219 km/h), followed by Nigel Mansell (Williams-Honda), Lauda, Keke Rosberg (Williams) and Nelson Piquet (Brabham-BMW). After a troubled qualifying, Ayrton Senna only qualified 14th on the grid in his Lotus-Renault. The race was restarted after one lap (with Niki Lauda having made a great start from third on the grid to lead Prost as the race was stopped). Mansell had got away very slowly in his Williams, but behind him Teo Fabi in the Toleman-Hart barely moved. Elio de Angelis' Lotus dived left to avoid Fabi and was hit by the Ferrari of Michele Alboreto. Fabi suffered damage as did the Arrows-BMW of the second Austrian driver in the race Gerhard Berger. Luckily for those with damaged cars (especially championship leader Alboreto) the first lap was declared null and void and the race was completely restarted meaning those with damaged cars were permitted to start in the team spares. Lucky too was Prost who was able to change cars after his McLaren had developed a misfire. Piercarlo Ghinzani became a non-starter in his Toleman after teammate Fabi took over the spare TG185 for the race as he had qualified 6th while Ghinzani started 19th. This left Ghinzani without a drive. On lap 13 Andrea de Cesaris survived one of the biggest and most spectacular crashes ever seen in Formula One when his Ligier-Renault went off-line at the left hand Panorama Curve and slid onto the outside grassy embankment at high speed. The grass, wet from overnight rain caused the Ligier to initially slide sideways before his right rear hit a slight bank launching the car into a series of 4 consecutive mid-air rolls and flips with de Cesaris's head bouncing around freely in the cockpit. Somehow as soon as the Ligier came to a rest, de Cesaris undid his seat belt and walked away with nothing more than a mud-splattered helmet and driving suit.Andrea de Cesaris crashes out of the 1985 Austrian Grand Prix on YouTube When he returned to the pits, the Ligier team had not yet seen a replay of the accident, and de Cesaris told the team that the car had stalled and wouldn't restart. However, the crash was the end for de Cesaris at Ligier, with team owner Guy Ligier firing the Italian after he saw a replay of the crash stating "I can no longer afford to keep employing this man" referring to the constant repair bills from de Cesaris's crashes since he joined the team in 1984. de Cesaris was fired from Ligier after he raced for the team at the Dutch Grand Prix one week later. With his 20th career victory, Prost moved into a shared lead in the World Drivers' Championship alongside Alboreto, with each having 50 points. After a string of non-finishes since his win in the second race of the season in Portugal, Senna drove a great race into second from a lowly (for him) 14th on the grid, with Alboreto finishing third in the spare Ferrari to retain his lead in the World Championship (now shared with Prost). Stefan Johansson (Ferrari), Elio de Angelis, and Marc Surer (Brabham), completed the points-scoring finishers. Classification Qualifying Pos No Driver Constructor Q1 Q2 Gap 1 2 FRA Alain Prost McLaren-TAG 1:25.490 no time 2 5 GBR Nigel Mansell Williams-Honda 1:26.453 1:26.052 +0.562 3 1 AUT Niki Lauda McLaren-TAG 1:26.250 1:26.727 +0.760 4 6 FIN Keke Rosberg Williams-Honda 1:26.333 1:26.762 +0.843 5 7 BRA 1968 Nelson Piquet Brabham-BMW 1:26.568 1:26.404 +0.914 6 19 ITA Teo Fabi Toleman-Hart 1:26.664 11:12.639 +1.174 7 11 ITA Elio de Angelis Lotus-Renault 1:26.799 no time +1.309 8 15 FRA Patrick Tambay Renault 1:27.722 1:27.502 +2.012 9 27 ITA Michele Alboreto Ferrari 1:29.774 1:27.516 +2.026 10 22 ITA Riccardo Patrese Alfa Romeo 1:29.485 1:27.851 +2.361 11 8 SWI Marc Surer Brabham-BMW 1:27.954 1:50.796 +2.464 12 28 SWE Stefan Johansson Ferrari 1:28.134 1:27.961 +2.471 13 16 GBR Derek Warwick Renault 1:30.602 1:28.006 +2.516 14 12 BRA 1968 Ayrton Senna Lotus-Renault 1:28.123 3:04.856 +2.633 15 26 FRA Jacques Laffite Ligier-Renault 1:29.181 1:28.249 +2.759 16 18 BEL Thierry Boutsen Arrows-BMW 1:28.617 1:28.262 +2.772 17 17 AUT Gerhard Berger Arrows-BMW 1:28.566 1:28.762 +3.076 18 25 ITA Andrea de Cesaris Ligier-Renault 1:28.666 no time +3.176 19 20 ITA Piercarlo Ghinzani Toleman-Hart 1:28.894 no time +3.404 20 23 USA Eddie Cheever Alfa Romeo 1:29.031 1:29.608 +3.541 21 10 FRA Philippe Alliot RAM-Hart 1:32.766 1:29.827 +4.337 22 3 FRG Stefan Bellof Tyrrell-Renault 1:31.022 1:30.514 +5.024 23 9 GBR Kenny Acheson RAM-Hart no time 1:35.072 +9.582 24 24 NED Huub Rothengatter Osella-Alfa Romeo 1:35.329 1:58.090 +9.839 25 30 GBR Jonathan Palmer Zakspeed 1:36.060 1:35.787 +10.297 26 29 ITA Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Motori Moderni 10:36.417 1:36.765 +11.275DNQ Did not qualify 4 GBR Martin Brundle Tyrrell-Ford 1:39.247 1:37.317 +11.827 Race Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 2 France Alain Prost McLaren-TAG 52 1:20:12.583 1 9 2 12 Brazil 1968 Ayrton Senna Lotus-Renault 52 + 30.002 14 6 3 27 Italy Michele Alboreto Ferrari 52 + 34.356 9 4 4 28 Sweden Stefan Johansson Ferrari 52 + 39.073 12 3 5 11 Italy Elio de Angelis Lotus-Renault 52 + 1:22.092 7 2 6 8 Switzerland Marc Surer Brabham-BMW 51 + 1 lap 11 1 7 3 Germany Stefan Bellof Tyrrell-Renault 49 Out of fuel 22   8 18 Belgium Thierry Boutsen Arrows-BMW 49 + 3 laps 16   9 24 Netherlands Huub Rothengatter Osella-Alfa Romeo 48 + 4 laps 24   10 15 France Patrick Tambay Renault 46 Engine 8   Ret Retired 26 France Jacques Laffite Ligier-Renault 43 Accident 15   Ret Retired 29 Italy Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Motori Moderni 40 Suspension 26   Ret Retired 1 Austria Niki Lauda McLaren-TAG 39 Engine 3   Ret Retired 17 Austria Gerhard Berger Arrows-BMW 33 Turbo 17   Ret Retired 19 Italy Teo Fabi Toleman-Hart 31 Electrical 6   Ret Retired 16 UK Derek Warwick Renault 29 Engine 13   Ret Retired 10 UK Kenny Acheson RAM-Hart 28 Engine 23   Ret Retired 7 Brazil 1968 Nelson Piquet Brabham-BMW 26 Exhaust 5   Ret Retired 5 UK Nigel Mansell Williams-Honda 25 Engine 2   Ret Retired 22 Italy Riccardo Patrese Alfa Romeo 25 Engine 10   Ret Retired 30 UK Jonathan Palmer Zakspeed 17 Engine 25   Ret Retired 9 France Philippe Alliot RAM-Hart 16 Turbo 21   Ret Retired 25 Italy Andrea de Cesaris Ligier-Renault 13 Accident 18   Ret Retired 23 USA Eddie Cheever Alfa Romeo 6 Turbo 20   Ret Retired 6 Finland Keke Rosberg Williams-Honda 4 Oil pressure 4   DNS Did not start 20 Italy Piercarlo Ghinzani Toleman-Hart 0 Car raced by Fabi 19  Source:1985 Austrian Grand Prix http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1985/304/ formula1.com https://web.archive.org/web/20140218001222/http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1985/304/ 18 February 2014 23 December 2015 Championship standings after the race Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 FRA Alain Prost 50 2 ITA Michele Alboreto 50 3 ITA Elio de Angelis 28 4 SWE Stefan Johansson 19 5 FIN Keke Rosberg 18Source:Austria 1985 - Championship • STATS F1 https://www.statsf1.com/en/1985/autriche/championnat.aspx www.statsf1.com 7 March 2019 Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 ITA Ferrari 72 2 GBR McLaren-TAG 55 3 GBR Lotus-Renault 43 4 GBR Williams-Honda 24 5 GBR Brabham-BMW 15Source: Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. References 30em Austrian Grand Prix 1985 1985 German Grand Prix 1985 Dutch Grand Prix 1984 Austrian Grand Prix 1986 Austrian Grand Prix Austrian Grand Prix Grand Prix Austrian Grand Prix Category:Austrian Grand Prix