The 1986 Australian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 26 October 1986 at the Adelaide Street Circuit, Adelaide, Australia. It was the sixteenth and final race of the 1986 Formula One World Championship. The race decided a three-way battle for the Drivers' Championship between Brit Nigel Mansell, driving a Williams-Honda; his Brazilian teammate Nelson Piquet; and Frenchman Alain Prost, driving a McLaren-TAG.
Mansell took pole position for the race, but a poor start off the grid enabled teammate Piquet, Ayrton Senna and Keke Rosberg to overtake him and demote him to fourth by the end of the first lap.
A few laps into the race, Finland's Keke Rosberg, in his final Grand Prix, took the lead from Piquet. However, the Finn retired with a puncture on lap 63, handing the lead back to Piquet and elevating Mansell into third place, which would have been sufficient to secure the championship. One lap later, Mansell's race ended as his left-rear tyre exploded on the main straight with 19 laps remaining. The title was then between Piquet and Prost with the latter needing to finish ahead of the former to successfully defend his title. Following the tyre failures of Rosberg and Mansell, the Williams team called Piquet in for a precautionary tyre change leaving him 15 seconds behind. He made a late charge to close the gap to 4.2 seconds but Prost took victory to win his second of four titles.
It was not until the 2007 Brazilian Grand Prix that there were again three possible drivers' title contenders entering the final race of the season.
This was the final Grand Prix for 1980 World Champion Alan Jones and for 1982 World Champion Keke Rosberg.
Contents
Background
Going into the race, three drivers were in contention for the World Championship. Nigel Mansell, driving a Williams-Honda, led with 70 points, while reigning champion Alain Prost, driving a McLaren-TAG, was second on 64 and Mansell's teammate Nelson Piquet was third on 63.
The Williams-Honda was superior in speed to the McLaren-TAG, with Mansell and Piquet having won nine of the previous fifteen races between them, and the team sealing the Constructors' Championship at the Portuguese Grand Prix in late September. However, Mansell and Piquet had been battling with one another and had taken points from each other on a number of occasions, while Prost's consistency had seen him accumulate points all year and thus remain in touch with the Williams drivers.
Championship permutations
After being outscored by Piquet and Prost at the preceding Mexican Grand Prix, Mansell therefore failed to prematurely secure the Drivers' Championship. Nonetheless, he went into the race in the strongest position among the three title contenders as he only needed a third place to win the championship, as opposed to his title rivals who needed to win the race in order to keep their respective title hopes alive. It was the first time in two years that the championship was decided at the final round and the first time since 1983 that three drivers were still in contention for the Drivers' Championship at the season finale. Mansell had the opportunity to both winning his first Drivers' Championship overall and becoming Britain's first World Drivers' Champion since James Hunt in 1976. If Prost won, he would have successfully defended his title, while Piquet had the chance to win his third world championship overall, becoming Brazil's most successful Formula One driver by the number of Drivers' Championships in the process, as he was tied with Emerson Fittipaldi, who won the drivers' title in 1972 and 1974.
The championship would have been won by either of the top three drivers in the following manner:
Qualifying report
Qualifying saw Mansell take pole position from teammate Piquet by 0.3 seconds, with Ayrton Senna third in his Lotus, a further 0.2 seconds back. Prost was fourth but 1.2 seconds behind Mansell, followed by René Arnoux in the Ligier and Gerhard Berger in the Benetton. Completing the top ten were Keke Rosberg in the second McLaren, Philippe Alliot in the second Ligier, Michele Alboreto in the Ferrari and Philippe Streiff in the Tyrrell. Andrea de Cesaris surprised by taking eleventh, the best grid position for the Minardi team up to this point, ahead of Stefan Johansson in the second Ferrari, Teo Fabi in the second Benetton and Johnny Dumfries in the second Lotus.
Friday's qualifying was interrupted about halfway through by a sudden and heavy downpour which caught out both Patrick Tambay (Haas Lola) and Johansson who (in separate accidents) slid off the road behind the pits and across the wet, muddy grass of the Victoria Park Racecourse infield before hitting an unprotected concrete wall side on with both the Lola-Ford and the Ferrari wrecked upon impact. The wall, not previously seen as a problem as it was well off the track, had 2 rows of tyres protecting it by Saturday morning. Both drivers were OK other than general soreness and bruising.
During the morning practice, Prost had been the fastest with a 1:19.121, 4 seconds inside the lap record, faster than Mansell's Friday qualifying time, 7/10ths faster than his own Friday time and faster even than Senna's 1985 pole time. However, while others around them improved on their Friday times, neither the reigning World Champion nor his soon to be retired teammate Rosberg (who was 2nd in the morning session) could get near the morning times in the afternoon, reporting a distinct lack of grip even before Streiff's Renault blew-up and all but ruined the last 20 minutes of qualifying after he coated the racing line down the Brabham Straight and around the right hand hairpin with a good amount of Elf's finest before parking his Tyrrell off to the inside of the hairpin exit.
Home country hero Alan Jones in his last drive in Formula One was ahead of his team mate Tambay on the grid. Using a revised Ford engine, the Lola's qualified 15th and 17th, though both were over 4.3 seconds slower than Mansell's pole time.
The Australian Grand Prix also saw Tambay's Lola and the Lotus of Johnny Dumfries each carrying an onboard camera for television use. During qualifying, Martin Brundle's Tyrrell-Renault was timed at a fastest of all 205 mph (330 km/h) on the 900 metre long Brabham Straight. Due to the FISA mandated turbo boost restrictions in 1987 (4.0 Bar) and 1988 (2.5 Bar), plus the cars having Naturally aspirated engines from 1989, Brundle's speed would be the fastest ever recorded on the Adelaide Street Circuit.
Race report
The prospect of a three-way battle for the Drivers' Championship crown attracted a capacity crowd of 150,000 to the Adelaide circuit.
Mansell yielded the lead to Senna's Lotus at the second corner on lap 1 and fell behind both Piquet and Rosberg on the same lap. Piquet also overtook Senna on lap 1 to take the lead but it would last only six laps as on lap 7, Rosberg took the lead from Piquet and began to build a sizeable gap between himself and the rest of the field.
On lap 23 Piquet spun, although no damage was sustained to the car, and he continued the race despite dropping back several places. Prost suffered a puncture a few laps later and he dropped to fourth position after having to pit. Piquet charged back through the field, passing Mansell for second place on lap 44, but Prost closed on the two Williams cars and, with 25 laps to go, all three championship contenders were running together in positions 2, 3 and 4.
The battle became one for the lead on lap 63 when Rosberg suffered a right rear tyre failure and retired from the race. Rosberg later revealed that he would never have won the race anyway unless Prost failed to finish or had sufficient problem not to be able to challenge, as he had promised Prost and the team that he would give best to his teammate to help his bid to win back-to-back championships. Prost had just passed Mansell for third which became second when Rosberg retired, with Piquet now leading. Mansell only needed a third-place finish to win the championship.
Mansell was still in third position when, on lap 64, his left rear tyre exploded at 290 km/h (180 mph) on the high-speed Brabham Straight as he was lapping Alliot's Ligier, sending a shower of sparks flying behind him and severely damaging his left rear suspension. The Williams coasted to a stop in the run-off area at the end of the straight, Mansell managing to avoid hitting anything. Fearing the same happening to the second car, Williams called Piquet to the pits and Prost took the lead. Piquet would make a late charge, closing the gap from 15.484 seconds with 2 laps remaining to just 4.205 at the finish and Prost claimed both the race and the World Championship. Prost had so little fuel left that he pulled up only metres past the finish line.
Championship standings after the race
Bold text indicates the World Champions.
Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.