1985 Portuguese Grand Prix
The spring summer of Portugal was wet and rainy as the drivers woke up in Sunday morning. The rain was just big enough to make the track wet, and many drivers were really lost trying to choose between slicks and rain tyres.Everyone ended up with rain tyres for the warm-up and nobody thought it was very slippery. How wrong they were, and there was many close calls.
Even after the Grand Prix of Monaco in 1984 some people thought that a brazilian youngster called Ayrton Senna was only another beginner, who was very lucky in Monaco, where he was second after Alain Prost in the rain. But after Saturday qualifying the opinions changed a big bit. Senna had taken the pole from Prost, who win the last race, with a marginal of 0.4 seconds. Keke Rosberg was third and Elio de Angelis fourth, over second behind Senna.
The start of the race featured something unusual: Not only one, but three cars started from the pits, including Williams of Nigel Mansell, that had spun in the warm-up lap! Also Martini and Cheever had to start from the pits.
Another driver who had a problem was Keke Rosberg, whose engine stalled right in the start. As everyone else’s rear tyres were spinning,, Senna launched his car to the lead, followed by de Angelis and Prost. That was about the last moment that anyone saw longer than 100 meters to front of them, except Senna. Other drivers tried to follow as good as they could, but Senna just left them standing.
Later in the pack there were some fights, one of them was between Piquet, Patrese and the new Ferrari driver Stefan Johansson. Johansson managed to overtake Patrese’s very wide Alfa, and started to chase down Piquet. But when he was getting ready for the overtake, Patrese forgot the brakes, and hit Johansson. Both of them spun, but Johansson managed to continue in the 18th place, as Patrese was left there standing.
Another unlucky guy was Keke Rosberg, who had dropped down to last position in the start. He had got up to 14th place, but then he’s engine stalled again, this time in the middle of the corner. The car hit the wall and bounced back to track. Keke got away fast, but his hit his hand and it needed three stiches.
There was a fight going on for the second place too, between de Angelis, Prost and Alboreto. Prost was constantly trying to get ahead of de Angelis. Alboreto was keeping an eye on these two. This was propably the best fight of the race.
Our unlucky man Johansson had gotten back up to 13th place and was aiming for points, but again he had bad luck. His car was working fine, but then he had an obstacle called Manfred Winkelhock, who was facing the wrong direction after a spin. Stefan drove to grass to avoid the collision, but hit his front wing to the rear tire of Winkelhock, and had to stop by in the pits.
After all this Senna had already managed to get a lead of 30 seconds, and it wasn’t even 30th lap! This meant over a second per lap! At this point nobody thought that someone could get the victory from him.
Back to second place, where de Angelis was still ahead of Prost, as the cars went over the finish line to start the 30th lap. Prost tried to overtake again, but this time he ran out of luck. His McLaren found some water when he was turning to get by de Angelis, and spun out of the track. His car didn’t seem to get so much damage, but the rear suspension was trashed and he was out. Alboreto saw this perfectly, and became much more cautious.
The men in the track didn’t really care, but it was about now that the track lost all electricity. At least Senna didn’t care, as he had overtaken almost all the cars. Only de Angelis, Albopreto and Patrick Tambay were in the same lap. But even he had his scary moments, as he almost spun in one point. He told later in the interview that it was even more slippery than in Monaco. Also the lapping caused some problems, as the visibility was nearing zero and some didn’t look at their mirrors.
At 54th lap there was a nice indication of the race: Senna, de Angelis and Mansell in the same straight, but all in different lap numbers. de Angelis had already got overtaken by Alboreto, who was now second. Elio had some tire problems, which slowed him down. Nobody took any risks any more, and the the positions didn’t change remarkably in the last ten laps. But Tambay had got ahead of de Angelis too. The race was stopped in 67th lap, as the 2 hour time limit was filled. Senna took his first victory, and was leading by a whole minute from Alborteto. Tambay was already a lap behind, de Angelis was fourth, Mansell fifth after almost spinning in the last straight and another surprise came in sixth as Stefan Bellof got the last point with Cosworth powered Tyrrell. The unlucky man Johansson finished 8th after the difficulties, already 5 laps behind the lead.
After the race Senna was dumbfounded. He had just gotten his first win after controlling the race completely. His expression in the podium told everything. But one thing was certain: There were not many people left to doubt Senna’s ablities on dry conditions.
