Formula One Down Under

1985

KEKE ROSBERG

Williams FW10 Honda

The accolades came pouring in after the running of Australia’s first World Championship Grand Prix on 3 November 1985. The 1985 race was the 50th running of the Australian Grand Prix, and it was entirely appropriate that it be the grand occasion it was and probably the most important single event in the long and noble history of Australian motorsport.

The first World Championship AGP took its time in coming. Since the early 1960s there had been regular ‘announcements’ by various organisations and circuits that such a race was to be held in the very near future. Yet it took the ‘smarts’ of the South Australian Government to make it happen.

The 107,500 spectators who attended the race saw a good one, won by a favourite of the Australians, Finn Keke Rosberg and his Williams FW10 Honda. The fact that this was a remarkable race was underlined by the fact Rosberg made three pit stops but was still able to win. His nearest rivals – teammate Nigel Mansell, Lotus hotshot Ayrton Senna, both the McLarens and Brabham’s Nelson Piquet – all retired. Two factors were dominant: brakes and the length of the race. The Williams’ were fitted with cast-iron brakes, most of the rest had carbon-fibre units which simply didn’t last; and two hours is the maximum allowable time for a World Championship Grand Prix and this one ran to that limit. Everyone agreed the race was about a dozen laps too long.

The Ligiers of Jacques Laffite and Philippe Streiff filled second and third places on the same lap as the winner, while a lap down were Ivan Capelli (Tyrrell), Stefan Johansson (Ferrari) and Gerhard Berger (Arrows). There were only two other finishers from a field of 25, notable retirements including 1985 Champion elect Alain Prost and his McLaren teammate Niki Lauda, whose illustrious triple-championship career ended at Adelaide.

Qualifying saw Ayrton Senna put his Lotus on pole after a fascinating practice duel with Mansell. Over 30,000 spectators were at the circuit on the Saturday to witness this seesawing battle. Rosberg was third fastest, from Prost, Michele Alboreto (Ferrari) and Marc Surer (Brabham).

Of interest to the locals was Alan Jones in the new Lola with its troublesome Hart engine. Jones qualified 19th and had little qualms about using power plants up as required – his race tactic would be to go for it, high boost and all, and see what happened. After all, the engines would probably break anyway and were scheduled to be replaced by the new Ford V6 turbo in 1986.

If ever there was a place with atmosphere, it was Adelaide as the GP field formed up to make a little Australian history. The huge crowd, the celebrities, the warm summer’s day, the hype, the so-far successful organisation, the whole thing. There was something almost magical about it: the idea of a city-street circuit was completely new to Australian race fans, and that only added lustre to the momentous occasion of an AGP finally being run for F1 cars as a round of the World Championship.

The field is set – at long last, the Australian Grand Prix is part of the World Drivers’ Championship.

Left: It’s lap one and Mansell had his nose in front of Senna.

Right: Australia was represented by Alan Jones.

The first such race for Australia was also to be the last for Niki Lauda, as well as Renault – at least for the moment.

It didn’t take long for the fun to start, three corners to be precise, and the point at which Nigel Mansell lost any chance of a 1986 hat-trick. He had won the start with Senna close behind but was punted off by the Brazilian at that point. Naturally, both later blamed the other, but for Senna it was the first of several apparently silly things he was to do over the next couple of hours. It was as if he was determined not to win. But now Mansell was out and Rosberg had found himself in the lead when the dust cleared, a lead he would hold for the next 41 laps or exactly half race distance. Senna stayed with him for the first half dozen laps but then began to grain up his rear tyres. He dropped back about 10s and waited for his tyres to settle down again.

The casualty list already had some names on it. Apart from Mansell, de Angelis had been black-flagged for wending his way through the stationary grid to start from his allotted space after his Lotus’s Renault engine failed to fire as the field got away on its warm-up laps – he should have started from the pitlane and was ultimately excluded for his trouble after completing 18 laps. Both the Renaults were having transmission problems, Tambay would last 20 laps before his crown wheel and pinion broke, and Warwick’s gearbox finally broke after 57. Eddie Cheever’s Alfa was out with engine problems on lap 5, Piquet managed 14 before his electrics caught fire, and Alan Jones – who stalled on the grid – recovered to an incredible seventh place by lap 18 at which point his engine’s timing failed. And Prost was out after two dozen laps with a failed turbo wastegate.

By the 25th tour, Senna had some grip in his tyres once again, and moved up on Rosberg, taking advantage of slower traffic, although he lost a little when Alboreto baulked him. Then the young Brazilian made a mistake coming onto the 300km/h main straight, clipping a kerb on the corner’s entry, flicking sideways and running wide over the ripple strip on the outside and onto the dirt. This gave Rosberg the breathing space he wanted as the time for his first (scheduled) stop for tyres grew near. But there was sensation here too. As Rosberg pulled into the pitlane, Senna’s Lotus clipped the rear of the Williams breaking off a front wing. Senna claimed Rosberg slowed suddenly in front of him, while Rosberg claimed he hadn’t even realised they’d touched until after the race when some damage on his rear wing was noticed, something which explained the Williams’s propensity to oversteer in the second half of the race. Rosberg had thought it was his tyres.

‘On behalf of the drivers,

Adelaide has done the

best job in the world.

It’s as simple as that.’

KEKE ROSBERG

So Senna found himself in the lead, albeit temporarily. His front wings completely detached themselves on the following lap but he did not back off. As a result, the Lotus slid straight ahead onto the dirt at the hairpin before the pits, its driver doing an almost complete lap – and only 10s off the pace – in that condition before stopping for tyres and a new nose cone. The stop cost Senna two minutes, well over a lap, putting Rosberg back into the lead with a certain Niki Lauda in second place.

With just over half the race gone, it had been classic Lauda: maintaining a good pace, looking after his tyres, methodically improving his position, waiting …

Top left: The Renaults of Patrick Tambay and Derek Warwick head a mixed bunch. After nine years without a World Championship win, the marque which pioneered turbos in F1 was about to withdraw from F1.

Bottom left: Philippe Streiff gave Ligier an incredible 2-3 result.

Right: Australians fell in love with emerging star Senna in 1985.

Senna stormed back after his forced stop and regained second place from Lauda on lap 50, while up ahead, Rosberg was in trouble. His new tyres had already gone off, and two laps later he would once again pit for more. Rosberg’s stop was a lengthy one – a wheel nut jammed – and he rejoined in third position a full quarter minute behind Senna and Lauda.

But ‘enna’s minutes in the lead were also numbered. Like Rosberg, he too had allowed his new tyres to get too hot too soon, and on lap 56 Lauda easily took over the front running. Once again, Senna dropped back in an attempt to resuscitate his tyres, and for a brief while it looked as though Adelaide was going to witness a fairytale … Niki Lauda winning his last Grand Prix. Certainly the crowd was with him. But the fairytale lasted just one lap. Lauda’s carbon-fibre brakes failed and the McLaren was into a wall.

Philippe Streiff finished third despite a mishap or two.

Suddenly Rosberg was looking a winner, because Senna was also on carbon-fibre brakes – Rosberg’s were cast iron – and the heat and distance were beginning to tell. Also – probably most importantly – Rosberg appeared to have his thought processes a little better organised than his opponent did.

Rosberg won the battle on lap 61. At that stage Senna was in the lead, but his tyres had not recovered sufficiently to offer maximum grip, while Rosberg was travelling quickly and keeping his rubber at a workable temperature. Rosberg well and truly had Senna’s measure when the Brazilian’s fate was decided for him – a piston broke and the Lotus was driven into the pits for retirement.

Rosberg had sewn it up with 21 laps to run. The two Ligiers of Laffite and Streiff now filled second and third, but the gap between them and the leading Williams was a whopping 70s. Retirements had helped them on their way. Almost unnoticed, Marc Surer had taken his Brabham to third on lap 18 and, apart from when Lauda went past, held that spot until just after half distance when a series of strange events put paid to his chances.

The Swiss had suffered a puncture after clipping Piercarlo Ghinzani’s Toleman while lapping him. Then on his way back to the pits Brabham’s throttle began jamming, the BMW engine stalled and simply refused to restart.

The mainly processional final 20 laps were livened up considerably by the antics of the two Ligiers on the last one. With Rosberg well in the clear – he even had time to make a precautionary stop for new rear tyres on lap 65 – the Ligiers of Laffite and Streiff had a coming together on the last lap which bordered on the comic.

There was obviously a misunderstanding somewhere. As Streiff came up behind his team leader he – like everyone else – noticed the Frenchman waving. Whether these signals meant ‘go past’ or ‘tuck in behind’ is open to conjecture, but Streiff took them to be the former. As he began to move past, Laffite seemed to change course and the front left corner of Streiff’s car struck the rear of Laffite’s. Streiff completed the final lap with that wheel bouncing around as if with a mind of its own, at times reaching an angle perpendicular to its intended one, while various bits of suspension parted company with the chassis. Streiff made it, 43s behind Laffite and 1:29s behind the winner.

Ken Tyrell collected some valuable points thanks to Capelli’s gutsy drive to fourth place, a drive which resulted in the young Italian needing medical attention due to a lack of a drink tube in his car. Johansson survived the strange handling and balance of the Ferrari to score two points and Berger picked up the final point for Arrows after surviving a straight-on nudge into a tyre barrier a few laps from the end.

The other finishers were Huub Rothengatter’s Osella and Pierluigi Martini’s Minardi, both four laps down and both enjoying the rare luxury of actually finishing a Grand Prix. Tyrrell’s Martin Brundle was running at the end but a bout of electrical woes had reduced his lap tally to 49, not enough to be regarded as a finisher.

Rosberg’s win was the third in a row for Williams and moved him up to third in the championship final standings behind Prost and Alboreto. McLaren scored the double by also winning the Constructors’ title ahead of Ferrari, Williams and Lotus.

This was also Rosberg’s last drive for Williams before replacing Niki Lauda at McLaren for 1986. It had been a long association which had brought a World Championship and some memorable performances. An even longer association which ended at Adelaide was Nelson Piquet and Brabham, a partnership which had two championships behind it. Piquet was moving to Williams to replace Rosberg, while into the Brazilian’s shoes would be stepping the man with the longest single-team association of them all – Elio de Angelis, leaving Lotus under a cloud that had the name ‘Senna’ etched onto it.

Left: Adelaide in 1985 was Niki Lauda’s last ever F1 race.

Right: Adelaide’s distinctive architectural style provides the backdrop here to the latest in F1 design.

There was no doubt that this 50th AGP was a resounding success from all angles, as the praise lavished on it by all and sundry (including those harshest of all critics, the F1 drivers) proved. When people like Rosberg and Lauda wax lyrical, you know they mean it.

The hiccups were relatively minor – a bump on the main straight at the braking point, the excessive length of the race (remember, the organisers had no benchmark from which to work, the distance/time equation had to be calculated and Rosberg actually completed his 82nd lap just 40s after the two-hour limit had been reached) and some viewing problems from certain spectator areas – all of which were promised to be remedied by the time of the 51st AGP in 1986.

There is no doubt Australia’s international image received a major boost as a result of the 1985 Grand Prix, an event that not long before seemed to be just another pipedream.

It was the perfect way to celebrate the 50th running of the AGP.

Winner Keke Rosberg is flanked on the podium by Ligier teammates Jacques Laffite (left) and Philippe Streiff.