1985 French Grand Prix

  1985 French Grand Prix

Race details
Race 7 of 16 in the 1985 Formula One season
Date	July 7, 1985
Location	Paul Ricard Circuit
Course	Permanent racing facility
Course length	5.81 km (3.61 mi)
Distance	53 laps, 307.93 km (191.33 mi)
Weather	Dry
Pole position
Driver	Keke Rosberg	Williams-Honda
Time	1:32.462
Fastest lap
Driver	Keke Rosberg	Williams-Honda
Time	1:39.914 on lap 46
Podium
First	Nelson Piquet	Brabham-BMW
Second	Keke Rosberg	Williams-Honda
Third	Alain Prost	McLaren-TAG

The 1985 French Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Paul Ricard on July 7, 1985. It was the seventh round of the 1985 FIA Formula One World Championship. It was the 63rd French Grand Prix and the ninth to be held at Paul Ricard. The race was held over 53 laps of the 5.81 km (3.61 mi) circuit for a total race distance of 307.93 kilometres (191.33 miles).

This was the last time the entire Paul Ricard circuit was used for the French Grand Prix. In 1986 a shorter, 3.813 km (2.369 mi) 'club' version was used after Elio de Angelis' fatal accident at the circuit during a test session. This was seen as a knee jerk reaction to the crash by the FIA as it was known that the circuit itself wasn't to blame for the crash. The rear wing of de Angelis' Brabham BT55 had broken off at high speed going into the Verriere bends at the end of the pit straight, resulting in a complete loss of downforce at the rear of the car causing it to crash.

Nelson Piquet won the race driving a Brabham BT54-BMW. It turned out to be the Brabham team's last victory in Formula One. It was also the first Grand Prix victory since their return to Formula One for Italian tyre manufacturer Pirelli. Piquet won the race by six seconds over pole winner Keke Rosberg driving a Williams FW10-Honda. Third was French driver Alain Prost driving a McLaren MP4/2B-TAG Porsche. Prost's podium finish allowed him to close to within five points of championship leader Michele Alboreto (Ferrari).

Qualifying

Williams driver, and 1982 World Champion Keke Rosberg, broke the Lotus-Renault stranglehold on 1985 pole positions by putting his car on pole position at Paul Ricard, averaging 140.561 mph (226.612 km/h). Ayrton Senna was second in his Lotus-Renault, followed by the Ferrari 156/85 of Michele Alboreto and the McLaren-TAG of Prost. The third row of the grid was taken by the first of the Pirelli runners in Nelson Piquet, while defending World Champion (and 1984 French Grand Prix winner) Niki Lauda (McLaren) rounded out the top six. The factory Renault's of Patrick Tambay and Derek Warwick qualified 9th and 10th. Tambay was driving an updated version of the Renault RE60, dubbed the RE60B, while Warwick was in the older RE60.

Nigel Mansell (Williams) had an accident at the high speed Signes corner, located at the end of the 1.8 km long Mistral Straight, during practice, and he suffered a concussion which kept him out of the race. Mansell had broken the record for the fastest accident in Formula One history when he went off at over 200 mph (322 km/h).

The BMW straight 4cyl engine, rated at about 1,000 bhp (746 kW; 1,014 PS), showed its worth on the Mistral Straight, the most distinguishing feature of the Paul Ricard Circuit, when it propelled the Brabham of Swiss driver Marc Surer to a season fastest 338 km/h (210 mph) during qualifying. This compared to the slowest car, the 550 bhp (410 kW; 558 PS) Tyrrell-Ford of Stefan Bellof which could only manage 277 km/h (172 mph) on the Mistral.

The French Grand Prix also marked the first time the Tyrrell team used the Renault turbocharged engine with Martin Brundle having use of it for the race mounted in a new Tyrrell 014 chassis while team mate Stefan Bellof still used the Cosworth DFY powered 012. It allowed Brundle to qualify some four seconds faster than his team mate. Brundle telling in qualifying that at one point while both were on a quick lap, he had followed the Bellof's 012 onto the Mistral about 100 yards back, and by the time he reached Signes, Bellof was nothing more than a dot in his mirrors. The top speed of the new turbo powered car was around 310 km/h (193 mph), some 33 km/h (21 mph) faster than the older V8.

Tyrrell were the last F1 team to change from a naturally aspirated engine to a turbocharged engine having done a deal with Renault in late 1984 but the new 014 was not ready until this race. As the lowest team in the Renault pecking order behind the factory team, Lotus and Ligier, Tyrrell were only supplied with Renault's 1984 engine, the EF4.

Race

At the start, Keke Rosberg and Ayrton Senna got to the Verriere Bends in their respective grid positions, followed by Nelson Piquet, who made an excellent start from 5th, Michele Alboreto, Elio de Angelis, Niki Lauda, Gerhard Berger and Alain Prost who made a poor start from 6th place.

As the laps went on, the hot weather began to affect some of the cars. Ligier driver Jacques Laffite's Renault engine blew up on Lap 3, Laffite's teammate Andrea De Cesaris retired on Lap 5 with steering problems and championship leader Alboreto's race ended on the next lap from fourth place as a turbocharger expired on his Ferrari.

But Nelson Piquet, who so far had little success in 1985, started to run at a higher pace than the entire field. Armed with the most powerful engine in Formula One, the BMW straight-4 and better tires than Rosberg and Senna, he was able to pass his fellow countryman easily on the Mistral Straight and on Lap 11 he passed Rosberg (whose powerful Honda engine made it difficult for Piquet to pass on the straight) at the corner after Signes. Piquet then started to pull away from Rosberg, who had wrecked his tires pushing hard early on. Berger later retired on lap 20 after a collision with Pierluigi Martini.

Senna went into the pits with problems with his Lotus and was slipping out of contention. Lauda and Prost both passed de Angelis with some difficulty and they then caught and fought with Rosberg for a long period of time. Although the McLaren cars were faster, the more powerful Honda engine in Rosberg's Williams allowed him to pull away on the faster parts of the high-speed French circuit. The battle went on and on, and Piquet was getting further and further away.

While pushing hard to make up time, Senna had a huge accident at the extremely fast Signes corner at the end of the long Mistral straight when his Lotus's Renault engine blew up, slipped on his own oil that was leaking onto the rear tyres, spun backwards at extremely high speed and went into the catch fencing and the Armco guard-rails. He emerged unscathed albeit a few bruises.

The Rosberg/Lauda/Prost battle continued, but on Lap 31 Lauda's gearbox failed on the pit straight and he was out of the race in front of the pits. Prost finally got by Rosberg later on at the Verriere bends; and the pace started to hot up as Prost began to push very hard, catching Piquet (who was now 23 seconds ahead) at 1.5 to 2 seconds a lap. Rosberg then went into the pits for new rubber and he stormed after Prost and Piquet.

But Piquet, with BMW power and his Pirelli tyres working well for the first time in the season, was able to hold off both Prost and Rosberg to take what would be Brabham's last victory. Rosberg caught and passed Prost (who had eased his pace) on the last lap. The 2nd Ferrari driver Stefan Johannson (who had charged through the field from 15th on the grid and was battling with de Angelis) took fourth pace a little over a tenth of a second ahead of de Angelis, and Patrick Tambay in the Renault rounded out the points.

Keke Rosberg overtook Alain Prost on the last lap but the computers recording the final results listed Prost finishing second ahead of Rosberg in third.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Q1	Q2	Gap
1	6	Keke Rosberg	Williams-Honda	1:33.484	1:32.462	—
2	12	Ayrton Senna	Lotus-Renault	1:32.835	1:33.677	+0.373
3	27	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari	1:35.421	1:33.267	+0.805
4	2	Alain Prost	McLaren-TAG	1:33.547	1:33.335	+0.873
5	7	Nelson Piquet	Brabham-BMW	1:33.981	1:33.812	+1.350
6	1	Niki Lauda	McLaren-TAG	1:33.860	1:34.166	+1.398
7	11	Elio de Angelis	Lotus-Renault	1:34.022	1:34.227	+1.560
8	17	Gerhard Berger	Arrows-BMW	1:34.674	1:37.445	+2.212
9	15	Patrick Tambay	Renault	1:34.680	1:36.339	+2.218
10	16	Derek Warwick	Renault	1:34.976	1:35.190	+2.514
11	18	Thierry Boutsen	Arrows-BMW	1:36.051	1:35.488	+3.026
12	25	Andrea de Cesaris	Ligier-Renault	1:37.335	1:35.571	+3.109
13	8	Marc Surer	Brabham-BMW	1:35.572	1:35.640	+3.110
14	26	Jacques Laffite	Ligier-Renault	1:38.173	1:36.133	+3.671
15	28	Stefan Johansson	Ferrari	1:37.546	1:36.140	+3.678
16	22	Riccardo Patrese	Alfa Romeo	1:36.729	1:38.745	+4.267
17	23	Eddie Cheever	Alfa Romeo	1:36.931	1:38.489	+4.469
18	19	Teo Fabi	Toleman-Hart	1:37.142	1:37.657	+4.680
19	9	Manfred Winkelhock	RAM-Hart	1:37.654	1:45.628	+5.192
20	3	Martin Brundle	Tyrrell-Renault	1:40.486	1:40.015	+7.553
21	30	Jonathan Palmer	Zakspeed	1:40.647	1:40.289	+7.827
22	10	Philippe Alliot	RAM-Hart	1:41.647	1:44.221	+9.185
23	24	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Osella-Alfa Romeo	1:42.136	1:42.968	+9.674
24	29	Pierluigi Martini	Minardi-Motori Moderni	1:47.523	1:44.350	+11.888
25	5	Stefan Bellof	Tyrrell-Ford	1:44.404	1:45.478	+11.942
DNS	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Honda	1:34.191		+1.729

Race

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	7	Nelson Piquet	Brabham-BMW	53	1:31:46.266	5	9
2	6	Keke Rosberg	Williams-Honda	53	+ 6.660	1	6
3	2	Alain Prost	McLaren-TAG	53	+ 9.285	4	4
4	28	Stefan Johansson	Ferrari	53	+ 53.491	16	3
5	11	Elio de Angelis	Lotus-Renault	53	+ 53.690	7	2
6	15	Patrick Tambay	Renault	53	+ 1:15.167[1]	10	1
7	16	Derek Warwick	Renault	53	+ 1:44.212	11
8	8	Marc Surer	Brabham-BMW	52	+ 1 Lap	14
9	18	Thierry Boutsen	Arrows-BMW	52	+ 1 Lap	12
10	23	Eddie Cheever	Alfa Romeo	52	+ 1 Lap	18
11	22	Riccardo Patrese	Alfa Romeo	52	+ 1 Lap	17
12	9	Manfred Winkelhock	RAM-Hart	50	+ 3 Laps	20
13	4	Stefan Bellof	Tyrrell-Ford	50	+ 3 Laps	26
14	19	Teo Fabi	Toleman-Hart	49	Fuel System	19
15	24	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Osella-Alfa Romeo	49	+ 4 Laps	24
Ret	3	Martin Brundle	Tyrrell-Renault	32	Gearbox	21
Ret	1	Niki Lauda	McLaren-TAG	30	Gearbox	6
Ret	12	Ayrton Senna	Lotus-Renault	26	Engine, accident[2]	2
Ret	17	Gerhard Berger	Arrows-BMW	20	Accident	9
Ret	29	Pierluigi Martini	Minardi-Motori Moderni	19	Accident	25
Ret	10	Philippe Alliot	RAM-Hart	8	Fuel System	23
Ret	30	Jonathan Palmer	Zakspeed	6	Engine	22
Ret	27	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari	5	Turbo	3
Ret	25	Andrea de Cesaris	Ligier-Renault	4	Steering	13
Ret	26	Jacques Laffite	Ligier-Renault	2	Turbo	15
DNS	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Honda	0	Injury	8
Source:[3]

Lap leaders

• Race leaders: Keke Rosberg (1-10), Nelson Piquet (11-53)

Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Michele Alboreto 31 2 Alain Prost 26 3 Elio de Angelis 26 4 Keke Rosberg 18 5 Stefan Johansson 16

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Ferrari 50 2 Lotus-Renault 35 3 McLaren-TAG 29 4 Williams-Honda 23 5 Renault 13

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

References