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 circuit for a total race distance of .
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 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 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 and he had unsuccessfully tried to get Lauda to continue racing into the 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 . 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 Alain Prost McLaren-TAG 1:25.490 no time 2 5 Nigel Mansell Williams-Honda 1:26.453 1:26.052 +0.562 3 1 Niki Lauda McLaren-TAG 1:26.250 1:26.727 +0.760 4 6 Keke Rosberg Williams-Honda 1:26.333 1:26.762 +0.843 5 7 Nelson Piquet Brabham-BMW 1:26.568 1:26.404 +0.914 6 19 Teo Fabi Toleman-Hart 1:26.664 11:12.639 +1.174 7 11 Elio de Angelis Lotus-Renault 1:26.799 no time +1.309 8 15 Patrick Tambay Renault 1:27.722 1:27.502 +2.012 9 27 Michele Alboreto Ferrari 1:29.774 1:27.516 +2.026 10 22 Riccardo Patrese Alfa Romeo 1:29.485 1:27.851 +2.361 11 8 Marc Surer Brabham-BMW 1:27.954 1:50.796 +2.464 12 28 Stefan Johansson Ferrari 1:28.134 1:27.961 +2.471 13 16 Derek Warwick Renault 1:30.602 1:28.006 +2.516 14 12 Ayrton Senna Lotus-Renault 1:28.123 3:04.856 +2.633 15 26 Jacques Laffite Ligier-Renault 1:29.181 1:28.249 +2.759 16 18 Thierry Boutsen Arrows-BMW 1:28.617 1:28.262 +2.772 17 17 Gerhard Berger Arrows-BMW 1:28.566 1:28.762 +3.076 18 25 Andrea de Cesaris Ligier-Renault 1:28.666 no time +3.176 19 20 Piercarlo Ghinzani Toleman-Hart 1:28.894 no time +3.404 20 23 Eddie Cheever Alfa Romeo 1:29.031 1:29.608 +3.541 21 10 Philippe Alliot RAM-Hart 1:32.766 1:29.827 +4.337 22 3 Stefan Bellof Tyrrell-Renault 1:31.022 1:30.514 +5.024 23 9 Kenny Acheson RAM-Hart no time 1:35.072 +9.582 24 24 Huub Rothengatter Osella-Alfa Romeo 1:35.329 1:58.090 +9.839 25 30 Jonathan Palmer Zakspeed 1:36.060 1:35.787 +10.297 26 29 Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Motori Moderni 10:36.417 1:36.765 +11.275 4 Martin Brundle Tyrrell-Ford 1:39.247 1:37.317 +11.827
Race Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 2 Alain Prost McLaren-TAG 52 1:20:12.583 1 9 2 12 Ayrton Senna Lotus-Renault 52 + 30.002 14 6 3 27 Michele Alboreto Ferrari 52 + 34.356 9 4 4 28 Stefan Johansson Ferrari 52 + 39.073 12 3 5 11 Elio de Angelis Lotus-Renault 52 + 1:22.092 7 2 6 8 Marc Surer Brabham-BMW 51 + 1 lap 11 1 7 3 Stefan Bellof Tyrrell-Renault 49 Out of fuel 22 8 18 Thierry Boutsen Arrows-BMW 49 + 3 laps 16 9 24 Huub Rothengatter Osella-Alfa Romeo 48 + 4 laps 24 10 15 Patrick Tambay Renault 46 Engine 8 26 Jacques Laffite Ligier-Renault 43 Accident 15 29 Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Motori Moderni 40 Suspension 26 1 Niki Lauda McLaren-TAG 39 Engine 3 17 Gerhard Berger Arrows-BMW 33 Turbo 17 19 Teo Fabi Toleman-Hart 31 Electrical 6 16 Derek Warwick Renault 29 Engine 13 10 Kenny Acheson RAM-Hart 28 Engine 23 7 Nelson Piquet Brabham-BMW 26 Exhaust 5 5 Nigel Mansell Williams-Honda 25 Engine 2 22 Riccardo Patrese Alfa Romeo 25 Engine 10 30 Jonathan Palmer Zakspeed 17 Engine 25 9 Philippe Alliot RAM-Hart 16 Turbo 21 25 Andrea de Cesaris Ligier-Renault 13 Accident 18 23 Eddie Cheever Alfa Romeo 6 Turbo 20 6 Keke Rosberg Williams-Honda 4 Oil pressure 4 20 Piercarlo Ghinzani Toleman-Hart 0 Car raced by Fabi 19
Championship standings after the race
Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Alain Prost 50 2 Michele Alboreto 50 3 Elio de Angelis 28 4 Stefan Johansson 19 5 Keke Rosberg 18Source:
Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Ferrari 72 2 McLaren-TAG 55 3 Lotus-Renault 43 4 Williams-Honda 24 5 Brabham-BMW 15Source:
References