1984 San Marino Grand Prix race report

Dull 
Imola, May 6th 

One thing about Italians, you know exactly where you stand with them; they are either deliriously happy or tragically sad, there is nothing in between. When they are happy they let you know in no uncertain manner, with cheering and shouting, flag waving, arm waving, jumping up and down and anything else they can think of to express their joy. When they are sad there is nothing, merely a total silence and a greyness that could be cut with a knife. There is no such thing as “the grim smile” or “the stiff upper lip” in Italian life.

The Italian motor racing enthusiast is a simple soul. A Ferrari winning is happiness, a Ferrari losing is sadness, that is all there is to life and the whole three days of the fourth San Marino GP was total sadness, and the weather did not help. When we arrived in Milan on the Thursday the rain was pouring down and the direction signs reading Autostrada delle Sole should have been changed to Autostrada delle Pioggia. As Modena and then Bologna came into view the rain stopped pouring down, but that was all you could say, the whole area of Emilia was grey and foreboding. I was looking forward to this Grand Prix for Imola is a splendid circuit, calling for skill and bravery, it is fast, it climbs and falls, the surroundings are pleasant and the memories of last year’s race still linger. If you haven’t savoured a Ferrari victory in an Italian race you haven’t savoured Grand Prix racing and with Alboreto’s fine victory in the Belgian GP only days old the anticipation of another memorable Grand Prix of San Marino was uppermost in the minds of most enthusiasts. The anticipation of the forthcoming excitement even made the dull grey skies bearable.

Qualifying

On Friday morning the skies were still grey and the air was cool, but no matter there was a large crowd of spectators and four Ferraris in the pits. There were also three Renaults, three McLarens, three Williams, three Lotuses, three Tyrrells, three Alfa Romeos and all the rest, and even two Osellas, the extra one being one of last year’s Southgate designed cars with V12 Alfa Romeo engine for new boy Jo Gartner from Vienna. In other words, in spite of the previous race having been only five days before and 1,000 miles away, everyone was ready to go. When the start of the first morning of testing was delayed by 30 minutes because of the non-arrival of the medical helicopter we should have taken note of the warning. At 10.30 am activity began, and for Cheever ended almost immediately as he returned to the pits in a cloud of smoke from a wrecked turbo on his Alfa Romeo V8 engine. There was much to see around the pits, for Lauda’s McLaren was being taken apart to investigate some water-pump trouble. Warwick’s Renault was having its springs changed, Surer was trying the BMW-powered Arrows for this race and the Osella mechanics stuffed asbestos bungs up the tail-pipes of their turbocharged Alfa Romeo V8 engine when Ghinzani stopped, to suppress the frightening-looking flames that come out as the driver switches off.

With so much activity in the pits and pits garages I had overlooked the outside world, and when I did look up for a moment I was reminded of Alex Henshaw’s classic remark, used the title for a series of articles in Aeroplane Monthly about testing Spitfire aircraft in wartime. There was a “deafening silence”. Not a cheer, not a scream no flags waving, no arms waving, nothing, the stands might have been empty. Just the harsh boom of a Porsche engine, the flat drone of a Renault engine, the hard crackle of a BMW engine, the scream of a Cosworth engine and then the sight of a Ferrari passing the stands and not a movement. This was bad news. A look at the Longines-Olivetti read-out of lap times on the VDU in the Renault pit revealed all. Renault were fastest, followed by McLaren and the best that Ferrari could do was Arnoux in fourth place. Yesterday’s hero, Alboreto, was in tenth place. This didn’t call for a stiff upper lip, it was sadness time. The two Renault drivers seemed to be having it all their own way, if Tambay wasn’t fastest, then Warwick was, but Lauda was keeping them both on their toes.

When this first session ended the rain began to fall and the final order was Tambay, Warwick, Lauda, Arnoux, Winkelhock and Piquet, but as it had only been a test-session the times were unofficial and did not count for grid position. The huge crowd sat like a solid block of stone, now huddled under umbrellas and once more the “silence was deafening”. In the Renault pit a “roastbeef” could be heard saying “damn good show of young Warwick, always knew he had it in him, y’know”. Outside you could actually hear the rain falling. While the rain did not develop into anything catastrophic it was enough to thoroughly wet the track so that everyone prepared to tackle the qualifying hour on heavily treaded rain tyres. With the morning session starting a half-hour late the regulations insisted that the afternoon times session should also start a half-hour late so it ran from 1.30 pm to 2.30 pm. The silence was broken only by the Renaults droning sound in the first and second places, Arnoux was in this T-car, but nowhere near the front and there was a panic to prepare Alboreto’s T-car as he came walking back having parked his number one car on the grass when it broke. Lauda was back in his own car, as was Cheever, but Piquet was in the “lightweight” spare Brabham.

The silence continued as neither Arnoux nor Alboeto showed any signs at all of getting near the Renaults and it was made all the worse as others like Prost (McLaren-Porsche), Rosberg (Williams-Honda), Piquet (Brabham-BMW) and de Cesaris (Ligier-Renault) began to move towards the head of the list of times. There was a small ripple of interest as Warwick came into the pits with smoke coming from one of the Garrett Turbo-chargers on his works Renault, but an army of mechanics in asbestos gloves fell upon the car and replaced the offending instrument in a bare 18 minutes.

Meanwhile the track was beginning to dry rapidly and dramatically and every time one of the real factory drivers did a lap it was a new fastest time. In quick succession the Longines-Olivetti screen showed the names of six or seven different drivers as being on pole-position and it was now a last minute battle to see who could be the last one out on a fast lap on qualifying tyres as the minutes ticked away. Neither of the Ferrari drivers were on the pace, but most of the others were and more and more often the name Piquet appears at the top of the list, but Prost was never far away, nor was Rosberg, Lauda and Tambay.

The excitement was instant, the conditions were changing so rapidly that there was no time for the public address to make any announcements for the order would have changed before they had got half way through the first statement. The pity of it all was that the paying public did not have a huge VDU above the pits, with which to follow the split-second drama that went on right to the chequered flag. When it finished Piquet was on top, but one lap more and it could have been Prost, Tambay, Warwick, Fabi, Lauda, de Cesaris, or Rosberg, it was almost like musical chairs.

When the timing machine stopped ticking and the computer stopped sorting out the times, the order was Piquet, Prost, Tambay, de Cesaris, Warwick, Rosberg, Fabi and Lauda. Where were the Ferraris? Arnoux was 10th and Alboreto was 24th and to cap everything the Belgian GP winner had run out of petrol in the last few important minutes. Number 27 came in on the end of a tow-rope when it was all over! Black armbands were on sale everywhere, not only for Ferrari enthusiasts but also for Toleman followers, for neither Senna nor Cecotto had been allowed out all day. A telex from the Toleman Group headquarters had stopped the team in its tracks, while some strange negotiations went on between Toleman and Pirelli. This meant that only 26 cars had been circulating so that everyone had qualified of the grid, even Palmer and Garner, the two mobile chicanes who seemed incapable of keeping out of the way. With more than 15 seconds time-spread from Piquet to Palmer the fast boys were continually falling over the “rabbits” and some of them were pretty unpopular when they didn’t get out of the way.

It was raining on Saturday morning and a light drizzle kept falling throughout the test-session so that nobody really know what they were trying to achieve and nobody really had any useful yard-sticks by which to measure adjustments and alterations. While there is an overall impression created by the drivers that they are all of equal ability in the dry, and only the cars and entries prevent them all being on pole position, it is a different story in the wet. You did not have to go far to see ability and bravery. Arnoux had a brand new engine installed in his Ferrari, with the latest 12 pipe exhaust manifold and Alboreto’s new engine had the earlier siamesed six pipe system.

The RAM team had suffered trouble in both their Hart engines on the previous afternoon, but were now back in good order and the Toleman management had now given permission for their cars to start practising, though it seemed that it was to be their last event on Pirelli tyres. The whole morning was rather wet and meaningless and if there was no improvement in the weather it looked as though the Friday qualifying time would settle the starting grid. As luck would have it, by the time 1pm approached, the rain had stopped, the sun came out and it suddenly got quite warm, while the track dried rapidly. It was now a question of those who know what they were doing applying their knowledge to the rapidly improving conditions.

After trying his own car Prost switched to the spare McLaren and found it even more to his liking and was soon vying with Piquet in the “lightweight” Brabham and Rosberg in the Williams-Honda. Warwick was not far behind them and these four were the only drivers to get below the 1 min 30 sec barrier, a reasonable time considering that the fastest practice lap still stood a 1 min 29.765 sec set up by Arnoux in 1982 in a Renault. By the end of the hour all four had beaten this time, Piquet and Prost being well down into the 1 min 28 sec area. Although the “rabbits” improved, there was still over 10 seconds between the fastest and the slowest on the starting grid, which could mean that in the race the “tail-end-Charlies” would be lapped every ten laps, or six times during the 60 lap race. And the Ferraris? The team never did get all the variables pointing the same direction and neither driver ever looked like making the front of the grid and the crowd had nothing to get excited about.

There hasn’t been such a deafening silence at an Italian motor-race for a very long time and you began to wonder if any of them would bother to stay for the race. Of the 29 drivers attempting to get into the race, the two who failed were Ghinzani and Senna, and neither of them deserved the ignominy as both their cars gave trouble before they could really get under way, and in the frantic rush of the qualifying hour there is little time for a second chance, consequently Palmer and Gartner found themselves on the back row of the grid more by luck than speed. With Arnoux in sixth place and Alboreto in 13th place at the end of the day, the grid layout had an unfamiliar look about it, though with Piquet on pole-position, with Prost alongside, Rosberg and Warwick in row two and Lauda in fifth place there wasn’t too much room at the top for anyone else. The first six places on the grid can be considered the worthy ones and Tambay and Alboreto should have been in there, while de Angelis, de Cesaris and Patrese are all capable of being in that select half-dozen. At the moment it is very tough at the top.

Race

At last the weather became normal, Sunday morning saw bright sunshine and clear blue skies, which was fine for the spectators, and a sizeable crowds in spite of the poor showing of the Ferraris. There is always hope. For the teams and drivers it was a different matter altogether. Track conditions were now perfect and the cars had to be adjusted and set-up for the new conditions and tyre choice had to be made and decisions on whether to make a pit-stop halfway through for tyres, or “do a Brabham” and run through non-stop. Ride heights, suspension settings, aerodynamic settings, mixture settings all had to be guessed at for the warm dry conditions and tried out in the brief 30 minutes available on Sunday morning.

The amount of knowledge accrued by the numerous top teams is such that not many wrong decisions were made. Times recorded in this “warm-up” session can usually be considered as genuine race-times, for there is no room for “gamesmanship” at this late stage and the McLarens and Ferraris both looked very strong. Tambay was in trouble when he found his Renault engine overheating which was not surprising when it was discovered that the engine / side-pod cover had been fitted without removing the protective cover from the radiator! A hurried engine change was started. Prost had elected to race the McLaren T-car (MP4/2-3) and Mansell was to race the Lotus T-car (95T/1).

FISA / FOCA regulations call for a four-hour break between the start of the morning “warm-up” session and the start of the race and during that time clouds began to gather but the sun won the battle and though it became overcast it was warm and dry, in fact excellent racing conditions. The leading six drivers in the World Championship points-standing set off on what was supposed to be a FISA-inspired parade for the benefit of the spectators, but once more degenerated into a straggly bit of extra practice for those concerned, some doing a single lap, others doing a couple of laps, but with no semblance of order. Then the pit lane exit was officially opened for all 26 starters and one by one they did a lap (or two laps) and formed up on the starting grid, except that de Cesaris was missing. Eventually he arrived sounding like a Renault V4 and disappeared into the pits. After a bit, the sound of Renault V5 could be heard and then it chimed in on all six, but it was too late, the pit exit had been closed and the Italian driver was destined to start the race from the pit lane, his place on the grid being left empty. The 25 cars set off on the parade lap and Piquet brought them all round in tidy line-astern order through the bends before the start.

They all took their rightful places on the grid, the travelling doctor in the 400i Ferrari on Modena Prova plates and three Alfa Romeo GTV coupés full of fire equipment made ready behind the grid. As far as the starter was concerned it was a good clean start, only some of the drivers messed it up. When the green lights came on Prost was off to a superb start, as were Alboreto and Tambay, but Lauda did not move as he was still struggling to get into first gear. Immediately ahead of him Rosberg had shot off the line and then virtually stopped as the Honda engine hesitated just when he needed full power. Those behind who were dodging round Lauda’s McLaren then had to dodge round the Williams, and at the back of the grid Palmer had stalled and was being push-started, so that the doctor’s Ferrari and the three Alfas were having a busy time avoiding everything. Meanwhile de Cesaris came out of the pit lane like a scalded cat. Laffite and Hesnault had a collision and the Ligier-Renault subsided onto the edge of the track, while at the Tosa hairpin Tambay and Cheever went for the same piece of road at the same time and the result was a Renault on the grass with it right front suspension broken and an Alfa Romeo limping up the hill with a flat left rear tyre. Rosberg and Lauda were in the middle of all the strife and the Finn’s Japanese engine was playing up, coming on song when he didn’t want it to and vice-versa, and before the end of the lap he had had a hair-raising spin without contacting anything. And that was only the opening lap! In fact that was the excitement for the day for after that everyone settled down and Alain Prost cruised away in his rather unemotionally smooth style and nobody, not even Piquet, could get near him.

Twenty-four cars completed the first lap and last man was Cheever who limped into the pits for a new left rear tyre. The order was Prost (McLaren), Piquet (Brabham), Warwick (Renault), Arnoux (Ferrari), Winkelhock (ATS), Alboreto (Ferrari), Patrese (Alfa Romeo), de Angelis (Lotus), Fabi (Brabham), and Lauda (McLaren), while Rosberg (Williams) was 19th. It looked as though the fighting Finn was going to do another heroic drive up through the field, as he had done in Zolder, but the Honda engine thought otherwise and died on him on the third lap due to an electrical fault and he walked back to the pits. By the fourth lap a pattern had formed, with Prost way out ahead and looking so fast and smooth it was almost boring to see, then came Piquet with Warwick close behind and looking confident enough to overtake when the time was ripe. A fair way back came the two Ferraris of Arnoux and Alboreto but the Italian public did not waste their efforts in urging them on as it was clear that neither of them could approach the flying Prost. The brave Winkelhock was hanging onto the Ferraris, but he was having to abuse his brakes and it was not long before they began to fade. The next group comprised Patrese, Lauda, de Angelis, Fabi and Brundle, the young Tyrrell driver doing a fantastic job with his obsolete Cosworth-powered car. After two slow laps amongst the traffic at the back of the field Lauda now shook himself free and really stormed away, lapping appreciably faster than the leader, who wasn’t hanging about. Two more cars had fallen by the wayside, Mansell’s quite literally when a front brake disc mounting broke in two, which pitched the Lotus off into the gravel run-off area, and Patrese’s Alfa Romeo when electrical trouble stopped the engine.

Lauda zoomed up on the two Ferraris, picked off Alboreto on lap 12 and Arnoux on lap 13 and the crowds were stunned into total silence; this was unbelievable. The McLaren with its dreaded “motore tedeschi” and Lauda the traitor who had left Ferrari to join ranks with Bernie Ecclestone, was now with the “tedeschi” and humiliating the pride of Maranello. As Lauda closed up on Warwick the two Ferraris hung on grimly and there was a sigh of embarrassed relief on lap 16 when smoke came out of the back of the TAG-sponsored Porsche engine and Lauda pulled off on the grass and his race was over. Short and very sweet, but no results. Alboreto was beginning to pressure his team mate, so that was the moment for Arnoux to head for the pit lane for a new set of Goodyears and at the same time Warwick passed Piquet in order to get the remaining red car out of his mirrors, for you can never underestimate a Ferrrari. National pride made me want to cheer as Warwick moved up into second place, but motor racing loyalties suppressed the cheer as Piquet was back in third place and neither of them looked like approaching the leader. One should always be partisan or biased, but at the moment it is all rather confusing and it is hard to decide where one’s loyalties lie. The crowd know full well where their loyalties lay and as Alboreto headed up the pit lane at the end of lap 24 the silence was deafening. And he did not re-appear. One of the multitude of exhaust pipes had split, which would not have been serious in the pre-turbocharger days, but now it is fatal for the turbine relies on all the exhaust gases to keep the compressor spinning, and any loss of exhaust pressure inevitably means loss of compressor pressure, so that was the end of Alboreto’s race. Arnoux had rejoined the race in sixth place, just ahead of de Angelis in the sole remaining Lotus-Renault.

There was really very little to get excited about, Prost was droning away in the lead, fast and unflurried, Warwick was in second place but worried about his fuel consumption, so was easing off on the rpm and the boost-pressure, Piquet had his fingers crossed that his BMW engine would keep going, Fabi was a long way back in fourth place, followed by Arnoux, de Angelis, Winkelhock, de Cesaris and Brundle, The eager young man in the blue Tyrell was going splendidly, a long way ahead of his German team-mate, and about to lap the two RAM cars with their Hart turbo power. He was also ahead of the new Arrows with BMW turbo power, driven by the competent Marx Surer. Yes, Martin Brundle is a real trier. As half-way approached, de Angelis was into the pits for a new set of Goodyears and when he came out again, de Cesaris and Brundle had gone by, and Eddie Cheever had appeared on the scene. The tall American from Rome had been getting really stuck into the job after his disastrous first lap and his perseverance was paying off. He had caught and passed all the tail-end-Charlies and was now dealing with the mid-field runners, passing Bellof, Surer and Winkelhock in quick succession.

At exactly half distance 30 laps, Prost was into the pits, new Michelins were put on and he was away before Piquet and Warwick came into view, the Renault driver having reluctantly dropped back to third place. There was no emotion from the crowd, they were not very interested in McLaren, Marlboro, TAG, Porsche, Michelin, Ron Dennis, John Barnard, Hans Mezger or Alain Prost. Suddenly there was a brief ripple of excitement, Arnoux had actually passed a Brabham, but it was only Fabi, so the noise soon died down, though it did put Arnoux into fourth place. Fourth place! Ferraris are supposed to be in the FIRST place, not fourth. On lap 40 there was another feeble cheer as Warwick let the Ferrari go by into third place, as he kept his eye on his fuel contents counter and gave up racing, resigning himself to cruising also on an economy run. His job wasn’t helped by his gear change from third to fourth, so he was missing out fourth gear and changing up into fifth from third. The crowd were not deceived, they knew that Arnoux was not catching the cars ahead and was only in third place because Warwick had let him go by. Brundle had to give way to the superior power of the Lotus-Renault of de Angelis, who regained one lost place, and though he caught up with de Cesaris in the Ligier-Renault there was nothing he could do about passing him. It seemed hard to believe that a Lotus 95T was no better than a Ligier JS23, for it certainly looks better, and they have the same “customer specification” Renault engines, so it must be the tyres, Goodyear against Michelin. It couldn’t be the drivers, they are both Italian!

Brundle now had Cheever chasing after him, and Bellof had latched onto the Alfa Romeo’s slip-stream for a tow, but the Kings Lynn lad was not giving up. We were now at two-thirds distance and the Tyrell came up behind Palmer’s RAM-Hart again, to lap it for the second time, but unfortunately caught it at the wrong point on the circuit and Brundle had to lift off and break his rhythm through a few corners. Palmer did nothing to help and poor Brundle was badly held up for six whole laps, which let Cheever and Bellof close up on him. He had been lapping 1½ seconds quicker than Palmer and was now forced to lose all the advantage he had built up. The Cosworth DFY did not have the power to run round the outside of the RAM-Hart on the long left-hander after the pits, but if Palmer had had the decency to move over to the right, the Tyrell could have scuttled through on the inside. On the straight to the next corner, the Hart power kept the RAM ahead, so that the Tyrell had no hope of out-braking it into the Tosa hairpin. This embarrassing situation went on for lap after lap and one wondered if Palmer was aware that Brundle was lapping him for the second time. On lap 47 Brundle was called into the pits to take on water-ballast and Cheever and Bellof went by in pursuit of the slow moving RAM-Hart and while they were doing this Prost lapped the lot of them, Palmer for the third time and the other two for the first time.

At the end of lap 49 the crowd by the pits raised a small cheer, more from relief than anything else, for as Piquet lifted off and braked for the corners before the pit area a puff of white smoke came out of the back of the Brabham. As he opened up after the first corner a huge cloud of smoke belched from the back of the BMW engine and the reigning World Champion trickled in to the Brabham pits to retire. He had hardly stopped before Fabi appeared going slowly in the second Brabham, with a similar trail of smoke from a ruined turbocharger, and “little” Bernie headed off for his helicopter. Four races and not a single finish between the two Brabham drivers. It can only get better. This left a bewildered Arnoux in second place, but nobody was impressed, for Prost was miles ahead, the McLaren running superbly, its German engine running like a Swiss watch! There had been one anxious moment when a front brake, McLaren’s own carbon-fibre design, had locked on momentarily as Prost was braking heavily downhill on lap 20 and he did a neat 360 degree spin without going off the road. Imperturbable as ever the little Frenchman carried on, keeping an eye open for a recurrence of the trouble, but it did not re-appear.

It was now all over and Derek Warwick would have loved to have got stuck in and done some racing, but his pit signals and his fuel contents gauge prevented it, and he even had to grit his teeth and let the battling Italians go by, de Cesaris still leading de Angelis. The Tyrell pit called Bellof in for water ballast and as they did so Brundle’s Cosworth engine died on him as his fuel pick-up system went on the blink, and he coasted to a stop out on the circuit. With five laps remaining, the unruffled Alain Prost lapped poor Warwick and, with two laps to go, de Cesaris pulled off the track his Ligier-Renault out of petrol, which meant that de Angelis was now third. Prost set off on his last lap, followed by Arnoux’s Ferrari and the Lotus of de Angelis, then Warwick, Cheever and Bellof, all a lap down. Prost completed the 60 laps to some feeble cheering, Arnoux did like wise to slightly louder cheers and the wave of a flag or two, and that was it. It was all over, and de Angelis was stationary on the far side of the circuit, his Lotus out of petrol. Warwick completed 59 laps, but Cheever did not appear, his Alfa Romeo also running out of petrol, so Bellof took fifth place, a position rightfully belonging to Martin Brundle.

If ever a race fizzled out at the end, the 1984 San Marino GP did, but perhaps this was reality and those previous races on the splendid Imola circuit didn’t really happen. Racing in 1984 is for engineers and Research and Development departments more than ever before, and after this race there were a lot of furrowed brows and steely looking faces of English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and South African origin. D.S.J.
Results
San marino Grand Prix – Formula One — 60 laps — Autodromo di Imola – – 5.040 kilometres per lap — 302.400 kilometres — Warm and overcast 
1st : Alain Prost …………………….(McLaren MP4/2-3) (T) ……..1 hr 36 min 53.679 sec — 187.254 kph
2nd : Rene Arnoux …………………(Ferrari 126C4/073) ………….1 hr 37 min 07.095 sec
3rd : Elio de Angelis ……………….(Lotus95T/3) ……………………1 lap behind — (not running) — out of petrol
4th : Derek Warwick ………………(Renault RE50/04) ……………1 lap behind
5th : Stefan Bellof ………………….(Tyrrell 012/1) ………………….1 lap behind
6th : Thierry Boutsen ……………..(Arrows A6/4) …………………..1 lap behind
7th : Andrea de Cesaris …………..(Ligier JS23/04) ………………..2 laps behind — (not running) — out of petrol
8th : Eddie Cheever ……………….(Alfa Romeo 184T/04) ……….2 laps behind — (not running) — out of petrol
9th : Mauro Baldi …………………..(Spirit 101/1B) ………………….2 laps behind
10th : Jonathan Palmer …………..(RAM 02/02) …………………….3 laps behind
11th : Martin Brundle ………………(Tyrrell 012/3) ………………….5 laps behind — (not running) — fuel pick-up
12th : Philippe Alliot ………………..(RAM 02/01) ……………………retired on lap 54 –turbo failure
13th : Johnny Cecotto ………………(Toleman TG183B/03) ……….retired on lap 55 — turbo failure
14th : Nelson Piquet …………………(Brabham BT53/5) ……………retired on lap 49 — turbo failure
15th : Teo Fabi …………………………(Brabham BT53/2) …………..retired on lap 49 — turbo failure
16th : Jo Gartner ………………………(Osella FA/1E/02) ……………retired on lap 47 — engine failure
17th : Marc Surer ……………………..(Arrows A7/1) ……………… ..retired on lap 41 –engine trouble
18th : Manfred Winkelhock ………..(ATS-D7/1) ……………………..retired on lap 32 — engine trouble
19th : Michele Alboreto …………….(Ferrari 126C4/074) ………….retired on lap 24 — exhaust failure
20th : Niki Lauda ……………………….(McLaren MP4/2-1) …………retired on lap 16 — engine failure
21st : Jacques Laffite ………………….(Williams FW09/3) ………….retired on lap 12 — engine trouble
22nd : Riccardo Patrese ……………..(Alfa Romeo 184T/02) ………retired on lap 7 — engine trouble
23rd : Nigel Mansell …………………..(Lotus 95T/1) (T)…………….. retired on lap 3 — broken front brake mounting
24th : Keijo Rosberg …………………..(Williams FW09/1) (T) ………retired on lap 3 — engine trouble
25th : Patrick Tambay ………………..(Renault RE50/05) …………..retired on lap 1 — accident with Cheever
26th : Francois Hesnault ……………..(Ligier JS23/02) ………………retired on lap 1 — accident with Laffite

*NB. Mansell and Rosberg retired out on the circuit on lap 3: Rosberg was furthest round the lap but official results are given from the last time competitors passed the timing line.
Fastest Lap: Nelson Piquet (Brabham BT53/5) on lap 48 in 1 min 33.275 sec — 194.521 kph
26 starters — 11 finishers