1986 Austrian Grand Prix

The 1986 Austrian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Österreichring on 17 August 1986. It was the twelfth race of the 1986 Formula One World Championship.

The 52-lap race was won by Alain Prost, driving a McLaren- TAG, with Ferrari drivers Michele Alboreto and Stefan Johansson second and third respectively. With Drivers' Championship challengers Nigel Mansell, Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna all retiring, Prost moved into second place in the Championship, two points behind Mansell.

Qualifying

Qualifying report

Qualifying saw several surprises as the Benetton-BMWs of Teo Fabi and Gerhard Berger filled the front row, Fabi just under 0.2 seconds ahead, while Riccardo Patrese took fourth in his Brabham despite a crash, just behind Keke Rosberg's McLaren. The four Drivers' Championship challengers occupied fifth to eighth in the order of Alain Prost's McLaren, the two Williams of Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet, and Ayrton Senna's Lotus. Completing the top ten were Michele Alboreto's Ferrari and Derek Warwick in the second Brabham.

Pat Symonds would later claim that following Benetton's front-row lockout, the head of BMW Motorsport, Paul Rosche, demanded to inspect the engine control unit chips installed in the team's engines to see if they had been tampered with in breach of contract (Benetton were using customer engines that were the original upright configuration rather than the special, tilted BMWs Brabham were using. Under the terms of their contract the team was not allowed to modify the engines or their ECUs in any way from the factory supplied settings). However, the team had wisely kept their supply of original BMW Motorsport chips for just such an occurrence and were able to provide Rosche with those rather than the modified ones they had actually been using. The modified chips were said to give the Benetton-BMWs an alleged , some over the official factory units used by Brabham. In fact, 1986 was the high watermark for power figures in Formula One with the BMW, Honda, Renault, Ferrari and TAG-Porsche turbo's all allegedly pumping out over in qualifying trim.

Derek Warwick in his lowline Brabham BT55 was the quickest car through the speed trap heading into the high speed Bosch Kurve being recorded during qualifying at . The low line Brabhams with their factory BMW turbos were proving to be far more effective on the high speed Österreichring where the Hella-Licht chicane was the only really slow section of the track. Showing the difference in car set up (and it must be said, drivers'), Patrese, running more wing than his team mate was some 1.682 seconds faster around the circuit even though his recorded top speed was slower.

Qualifying classification

Race

Race report

Warwick was a non-starter in bizarre circumstances. After the Englishman's car was repaired following a gearbox failure in the morning warm-up, the two Brabhams went to the grid, Patrese in the spare car following his qualifying crash. Then, as Patrese took his place on the grid, his own gearbox broke. As the Italian driver was six places ahead of Warwick, the decision was made on the grid to hand him Warwick's car for the rest of the race. Warwick later admitted that team owner Bernie Ecclestone had to physically drag him from the car as he refused to hand it over.

When the race got underway, local driver Berger took the lead from Fabi, while Rosberg and Patrese made slow starts and were overtaken by Prost, Mansell and Piquet. Patrese retired after two laps with an engine failure, while the same fate befell Senna after 13 laps. On lap 17, Fabi overtook Berger at the Bosch-Kurve, only for his own engine to fail seconds later. Mansell moved into second place when Prost made a pit stop for tyres, then the lead shortly afterwards when Berger pitted with a battery problem. Prost took the lead when Mansell made his own pit stop, before both Williams retired within three laps of each other, Piquet with an overheating engine and Mansell with a broken driveshaft. This left Prost around half a minute clear of team-mate Rosberg, with Alboreto up to third. Five laps from the end, Rosberg suffered an electrical failure, leaving Prost to win by a full lap from Alboreto with a further lap back to the second Ferrari of Stefan Johansson in third; the top six was completed by the two Haas Lolas of Alan Jones and Patrick Tambay and the Arrows of Christian Danner. Berger, having lost four laps as a result of his battery problem, made a charge to finish close behind Danner, setting the fastest lap of the race in the process.

Alan Jones was actually aided by a slipping clutch in his Lola- Ford as it meant much less wheelspin, thus he was able to complete the race (albeit 2 laps down on Prost) without having to stop to change his Goodyears. His 4th place and Tambay's 5th were cause for celebration in the Haas Lola camp as it was their first ever World Championship points and the first for the Cosworth designed and built Ford turbo engine.

With the win, Prost moved from fourth to second in the Drivers' Championship and cut Mansell's lead to two points, 55 to 53, with Senna on 48 and Piquet on 47.

In the post race press conference, Alboreto was asked if the podiums were the start of a Ferrari revival, though he was reluctant to agree, instead pointing out that it was more through on the day reliability over most of their faster rivals than any great leap forward in speed by the F1/86.

Race classification

Championship standings after the race

;Drivers' Championship standings

;Constructors' Championship standings

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References

{{F1GP 80-89

Austrian Grand Prix
Grand Prix
Austrian Grand Prix