1985 South African Grand Prix

  1985 South African Grand Prix

Race details
Race 15 of 16 in the 1985 Formula One season
Date	19 October 1985
Location	Kyalami Gauteng, South Africa
Course	Permanent racing facility
Course length	4.104 km (2.55 mi)
Distance	75 laps, 308.8 km (191.248 mi)
Weather	Dry
Pole position
Driver	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Honda
Time	1:02.366
Fastest lap
Driver	Keke Rosberg	Williams-Honda
Time	1:08.149 on lap 74
Podium
First	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Honda
Second	Keke Rosberg	Williams-Honda
Third	Alain Prost	McLaren-TAG

The 1985 South African Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 19 October 1985 at the Kyalami Circuit in South Africa. It was the fifteenth and penultimate round of the 1985 FIA Formula One World Championship.

The race was marked with some teams boycotting the event due to apartheid -- the segregation of blacks and whites -- and was the last South African Formula One race until apartheid ended in 1992. The race was won by Nigel Mansell in a Williams, who also took pole position.

The event was boycotted by several Formula One teams, namely Ligier and Renault due to mounting international pressures against tolerating the country's system of apartheid. French teams Ligier and Renault's boycotts were in lockstep with the French government's boycott and sanctioning of South Africa,^[1] apparently doing so under pressure.^[2] Most of the Formula One drivers, including Alain Prost, Niki Lauda and Nigel Mansell were personally very much against racing in South Africa, but the drivers held the mentality that because they were contracted to drive at every Grand Prix, they would race at Kyalami. ^[3]

Some governments tried to force their drivers from entering the race. Brazil's sanctions on South Africa nearly prevented Nelson Piquet or Ayrton Senna from racing.^[4]

Finland and Sweden held similar reservations regarding Finn Keke Rosberg and Swede Stefan Johansson competing.^[4] Sweden's National Automobile Federation had announced Johansson could not race in South Africa before the event,^[4] but he did race.

Ayrton Senna changed his mind on personally boycotting the race, saying he would race if his Lotus team went.^[5] It did and he did, retiring outside the points.

It was the final South African Grand Prix until apartheid ended, with FIA president Jean-Marie Balestre announcing days after the race that a grand prix would not return to the nation because of apartheid.^[2] Even without the political pressures, this may well have been the final Formula One race held at Kyalami in its then form. The FIA had long since deemed that circuits where lap times were under 60 seconds were considered too small for Grand Prix racing and with car speeds increasing all the time it was reasonable to conclude that lap times from 1986 would be under 60 seconds (the same fate had also fallen on the French track Dijon-Prenois and would after 1990 claim the French Paul Ricard "club circuit". Kyalami had actually seen a drop in pole position time of over 10 seconds since the 1981 race and Mansell's 1985 pole position time of 1:02.366 was 2.505 seconds faster than Nelson Piquet's 1984 pole time of 1:04.871.

The South African Grand Prix would only return in 1992, after the apartheid ended, in a new configuration of the Kyalami circuit. Nigel Mansell, driving a V10 Williams-Renault, would also win the race when it returned to the Grand Prix calendar in 1992. ^[6]

Classification

Qualifying

Pole position went to Nigel Mansell, averaging 236.898 km/h (147.201 mph).

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Q1	Q2	Gap
1	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Honda	1:03.188	1:02.366	—
2	7	Nelson Piquet	Brabham-BMW	1:03.844	1:02.490	+0.124
3	6	Keke Rosberg	Williams-Honda	1:03.073	1:02.504	+0.138
4	12	Ayrton Senna	Lotus-Renault	1:04.517	1:02.825	+0.459
5	8	Marc Surer	Brabham-BMW	1:05.411	1:04.088	+1.722
6	11	Elio de Angelis	Lotus-Renault	1:04.611	1:04.129	+1.763
7	19	Teo Fabi	Toleman-Hart	1:06.083	1:04.215	+1.849
8	1	Niki Lauda	McLaren-TAG	1:05.357	1:04.283	+1.917
9	2	Alain Prost	McLaren-TAG	1:05.757	1:04.376	+2.010
10	18	Thierry Boutsen	Arrows-BMW	1:05.079	1:04.518	+2.152
11	17	Gerhard Berger	Arrows-BMW	1:06.546	1:04.780	+2.414
12	22	Riccardo Patrese	Alfa Romeo	1:06.386	1:04.948	+2.582
13	20	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Toleman-Hart	1:07.800	1:05.114	+2.748
14	23	Eddie Cheever	Alfa Romeo	1:07.159	1:05.260	+2.894
15	27	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari	1:05.268	1:05.757	+2.902
16	28	Stefan Johansson	Ferrari	1:05.406	1:05.388	+3.022
17	3	Martin Brundle	Tyrrell-Renault	1:06.709	1:05.649	+3.283
18	4	Philippe Streiff	Tyrrell-Renault	1:07.935	1:06.205	+3.839
19	29	Pierluigi Martini	Minardi-Motori Moderni	1:10.025	1:08.658	+6.292
20	24	Huub Rothengatter	Osella-Alfa Romeo	1:09.904	1:09.873	+7.507
DNS	33	Alan Jones	Lola-Hart	1:07.144	1:05.731	+3.365

Race

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Honda	75	1:28:22.866	1	9
2	6	Keke Rosberg	Williams-Honda	75	+ 7.572	3	6
3	2	Alain Prost	McLaren-TAG	74	+ 1 Lap	9	4
4	28	Stefan Johansson	Ferrari	74	+ 1 Lap	16	3
5	17	Gerhard Berger	Arrows-BMW	74	+ 1 Lap	11	2
6	18	Thierry Boutsen	Arrows-BMW	74	+ 1 Lap	10	1
7	3	Martin Brundle	Tyrrell-Renault	73	+ 2 Laps	17
Ret	11	Elio de Angelis	Lotus-Renault	52	Engine	6
Ret	29	Pierluigi Martini	Minardi-Motori Moderni	45	Radiator	20
Ret	1	Niki Lauda	McLaren-TAG	37	Turbo	8
Ret	4	Philippe Streiff	Tyrrell-Renault	16	Accident	19
Ret	12	Ayrton Senna	Lotus-Renault	8	Engine	4
Ret	27	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari	8	Turbo	15
Ret	7	Nelson Piquet	Brabham-BMW	6	Engine	2
Ret	20	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Toleman-Hart	4	Engine	13
Ret	19	Teo Fabi	Toleman-Hart	3	Engine	7
Ret	8	Marc Surer	Brabham-BMW	3	Engine	5
Ret	24	Huub Rothengatter	Osella-Alfa Romeo	1	Electrical	21
Ret	22	Riccardo Patrese	Alfa Romeo	0	Collision	12
Ret	23	Eddie Cheever	Alfa Romeo	0	Collision	14
DNS	33	Alan Jones	Lola-Hart		Unwell	18
Source:[7]

Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Alain Prost 73 (76) 2 Michele Alboreto 53 3 Ayrton Senna 38 4 Elio de Angelis 33 5 Nigel Mansell 31

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 McLaren-TAG 90 2 Ferrari 80 3 Lotus-Renault 71 4 Williams-Honda 62 5 Brabham-BMW 26

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. Only the best 11 results counted towards the Drivers' Championship. Numbers without parentheses are Championship points; numbers in parentheses are total points scored.

References