1986 Australian Grand Prix

  1986 Australian Grand Prix

Race details
Race 16 of 16 in the 1986 Formula One season
Date	26 October 1986
Official name	LI Foster's Australian Grand Prix
Location	Adelaide Street Circuit Adelaide, South Australia
Course	Temporary Street circuit 3.780 km (2.362 mi)
Distance	82 laps, 309.960 km (193.864 mi)
Weather	Sunny
Pole position
Driver	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Honda
Time	1:18.403
Fastest lap
Driver	Nelson Piquet	Williams-Honda
Time	1:20.787 on lap 82
Podium
First	Alain Prost	McLaren-TAG
Second	Nelson Piquet	Williams-Honda
Third	Stefan Johansson	Ferrari

The 1986 Australian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 26 October 1986 at the Adelaide Street Circuit, Adelaide, Australia. It was the last of 16 races in the 1986 Formula One season. The event itself was remembered as the race that decided the Drivers' Championship for that season, particularly for it being a three-way tussle for the title and the dramatic manner in which it was settled. The drivers in contention for the title were; Nigel Mansell, Nelson Piquet, both of whom were racing for the Williams-Honda team, and McLaren's Alain Prost.

Mansell took pole position for the race, but this advantage was cancelled out following a poor start off the grid, with teammate Piquet, Ayrton Senna and Keke Rosberg all overtaking him and demoting the Brit down to fourth by the end of the first lap.

A few laps into the race, Finland's Keke Rosberg, in his final Grand Prix, took the lead from Piquet. This lead, however, wasn't to last and the Finn retired with a tyre puncture on lap 63, handing the lead back to Piquet and elevating Mansell into second place, which would have been sufficient for the Englishman to secure the championship. One lap later, Mansell's race ended in a spectacular fashion as his left-rear tyre exploded on the main straight with only 19 laps remaining. The title was then between Piquet and Prost with the Frenchman needing to finish ahead of the Brazilian if he wanted to successfully defend his title. Following the tyre failures of Rosberg and Mansell, the Williams team called Piquet in for a pre-cautionary stop and he came out of the pits 15 seconds behind Prost. Piquet made a late charge to close the gap to 4.2 seconds but Prost took victory to win his second of four titles.

It was not until the 2007 Brazilian Grand Prix that there were again three possible drivers' title contenders entering the final race of the season.

Background

Coming into the race, three drivers had a chance of winning the '86 title. The leader of the championship prior to the race was British driver Nigel Mansell; six points behind him in second was Alain Prost, who was looking to defend his title and one point behind Prost was Mansell's teammate at Williams, Nelson Piquet. In fourth was Ayrton Senna, who was guaranteed to finish in that position regardless of what happened.

The Williams cars of Mansell and Piquet were far superior in speed to Prost's McLaren. However, Prost's consistency had seen him accumulate points all year, while the Williams pair battled with one another and their mind games eroded what would have been a dominant season for the team.

To win the championship Mansell needed either third position or higher, or for both Prost and Piquet to finish in second place or lower. For Prost or Piquet to win the championship, they would have to win the race, and see Mansell finish in fourth position or lower.

Unlike the Drivers' Championship, the Contructors' Championship had already been decided in Williams' favour, as they had a 48 point advantage over McLaren. While the Woking based team couldn't take the title, their place as runners-up was safe, however, as they were 30 points ahead of third placed Lotus.

Race summary

Qualifying

Mansell took pole position for the race with a time of 1 minute 18.403 seconds. His teammate, Nelson Piquet, and Lotus' Ayrton Senna were the only drivers within a second of Mansell's time. The third title contender, Alain Prost, was on the second row of the grid in fourth.

Race

The Prospect of a three way battle for the Drivers' Championship crown attracted a capacity crowd of 150,000 to the tight and twisty Adelaide circuit.^[1]

Mansell started from pole position but yielded the lead to Ayrton Senna's Lotus at the second corner on lap 1 and fell behind both Piquet and Keke Rosberg on the same lap. Piquet also overtook Senna on lap 1 to take the lead but it would last only six laps as on lap 7, Rosberg took the lead from Piquet and began to build a sizeable gap between himself and the rest of the field.

On lap 23 Piquet spun, although no damage was sustained to the car, and he continued the race despite dropping back several places. Prost suffered a tyre puncture a few laps later and he dropped back to fourth after having to pit. Piquet charged back through the field, passing Mansell for second place on lap 44 but Prost closed on the two Williams cars and, with 25 laps to go, all three championship contenders were running together in positions 2, 3 and 4.

The battle became one for the lead on lap 63 when Rosberg suffered a right rear tyre failure and retired from the race. Mansell was elevated to second behind new leader Piquet, but Prost passed him almost immediately. Mansell didn't resist because he only needed a third place finish to win the championship.

Mansell was still in a comfortable third position when, on lap 64, his left rear tyre exploded at 180 miles per hour on the high-speed Brabham Straight. The Williams coasted to a stop in the run-off area at the end of the straight, Mansell having managed to avoid hitting anything, but his championship hopes were over. Fearing the same happening to the second car, Williams called Piquet to the pits and Prost took the lead. Piquet would make a late charge to close the gap but ran out of laps with which to challenge for the lead and Prost claimed both the race and the World Championship. By winning, Alain Prost became the first and so far only driver to ever win the AGP in both non-championship and World Championship form, having won the 1982 non-championship race as well.

This was the last race for the Renault turbo engine, as well as the last race for Renault until the 1989 Brazilian Grand Prix. It was also the last Formula One race for Alan Jones, Patrick Tambay and Johnny Dumfries.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Lap	Gap
1	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Honda	1:18.403	—
2	6	Nelson Piquet	Williams-Honda	1:18.714	+0.311
3	12	Ayrton Senna	Lotus-Renault	1:18.906	+0.503
4	1	Alain Prost	McLaren-TAG	1:19.654	+1.251
5	25	René Arnoux	Ligier-Renault	1:19.976	+1.573
6	20	Gerhard Berger	Benetton-BMW	1:20.554	+2.151
7	2	Keke Rosberg	McLaren-TAG	1:20.778	+2.375
8	26	Philippe Alliot	Ligier-Renault	1:20.981	+2.578
9	27	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari	1:21.709	+3.306
10	4	Philippe Streiff	Tyrrell-Renault	1:21.720	+3.317
11	23	Andrea de Cesaris	Minardi-Motori Moderni	1:22.012	+3.609
12	28	Stefan Johansson	Ferrari	1:22.050	+3.647
13	19	Teo Fabi	Benetton-BMW	1:22.129	+3.726
14	11	Johnny Dumfries	Lotus-Renault	1:22.664	+4.261
15	15	Alan Jones	Lola-Ford	1:22.796	+4.393
16	3	Martin Brundle	Tyrrell-Renault	1:23.004	+4.601
17	16	Patrick Tambay	Lola-Ford	1:23.008	+4.605
18	24	Alessandro Nannini	Minardi-Motori Moderni	1:23.052	+4.649
19	7	Riccardo Patrese	Brabham-BMW	1:23.230	+4.827
20	8	Derek Warwick	Brabham-BMW	1:23.313	+4.910
21	14	Jonathan Palmer	Zakspeed	1:23.476	+5.073
22	18	Thierry Boutsen	Arrows-BMW	1:24.295	+5.892
23	29	Huub Rothengatter	Zakspeed	1:25.181	+6.778
24	17	Christian Danner	Arrows-BMW	1:25.233	+6.831
25	21	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Osella-Alfa Romeo	1:25.257	+6.855
26	22	Allen Berg	Osella-Alfa Romeo	1:27.208	+8.806

Race

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	1	Alain Prost	McLaren-TAG	82	1:54:20.388	4	9
2	6	Nelson Piquet	Williams-Honda	82	+ 4.205	2	6
3	28	Stefan Johansson	Ferrari	81	+ 1 Lap	12	4
4	3	Martin Brundle	Tyrrell-Renault	81	+ 1 Lap	16	3
5	4	Philippe Streiff	Tyrrell-Renault	80	Out of Fuel	10	2
6	11	Johnny Dumfries	Lotus-Renault	80	+ 2 Laps	14	1
7	25	René Arnoux	Ligier-Renault	79	+ 3 Laps	5
8	26	Philippe Alliot	Ligier-Renault	79	+ 3 Laps	8
9	14	Jonathan Palmer	Zakspeed	77	+ 5 Laps	21
10	19	Teo Fabi	Benetton-BMW	77	+ 5 Laps	13
NC	16	Patrick Tambay	Lola-Ford	70	Not Classified	17
Ret	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Honda	63	Tyre	1
Ret	7	Riccardo Patrese	Brabham-BMW	63	Electrical	19
Ret	2	Keke Rosberg	McLaren-TAG	62	Tyre	7
NC	22	Allen Berg	Osella-Alfa Romeo	61	Not Classified	26
Ret	8	Derek Warwick	Brabham-BMW	57	Brakes	20
Ret	17	Christian Danner	Arrows-BMW	52	Engine	24
Ret	18	Thierry Boutsen	Arrows-BMW	50	Engine	22
Ret	12	Ayrton Senna	Lotus-Renault	43	Engine	3
Ret	23	Andrea de Cesaris	Minardi-Motori Moderni	40	Mechanical	11
Ret	20	Gerhard Berger	Benetton-BMW	40	Engine	6
Ret	29	Huub Rothengatter	Zakspeed	29	Suspension	23
Ret	15	Alan Jones	Lola-Ford	16	Engine	15
Ret	24	Alessandro Nannini	Minardi-Motori Moderni	10	Accident	18
Ret	21	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Osella-Alfa Romeo	2	Transmission	25
Ret	27	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari	0	Collision	9

Lap leaders

Nelson Piquet 8 (1–6, 63–64), Keke Rosberg 56 (7–62), Alain Prost 18 (65–82)

Standings after Grand Prix

• Bold text indicates the World Champions.

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Alain Prost 72 (74) 2 Nigel Mansell 70 (72) 3 Nelson Piquet 69 4 Ayrton Senna 55 5 Stefan Johansson 23

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Williams-Honda 141 2 McLaren-TAG 96 3 Lotus-Renault 58 4 Ferrari 37 5 Ligier-Renault 29

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

References

Unless otherwise indicated, all race results are taken from "The Official Formula 1 website". http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1986/2/. Retrieved 2007-06-17. ^{[dead link]}

External links