British GP 1982

British GP, 1982

There were no big changes to the entry for the British GP but there was plenty of excitement as John Watson was leading the World Championship by one point from Didier Pironi. There was a new Fittipaldi chassis and Nigel Mansell was back in action for Team Lotus having missed the Dutch GP.

Qualifying resulted in a rare non-turbocharged pole position for Keke Rosberg with the two Brabham-BMWs right behind him, Nelson Piquet ahead of Riccardo Patrese. Fourth on the grid was Pironi's Ferrari with the top 10 being completed by Niki Lauda (McLaren), Rene Arnoux (Renault), Elio de Angelis (Lotus), Alan Prost (Renault), Michele Alboreto's Tyrrell and the second Williams of Derek Daly. Andrea de Cesaris was 11th in his Alfa Romeo but he had demolished a car in qualifying when his rear wing broke.

There was some excitement as the Brabham team had brought along refueling equipment and seemed to be planning to race with soft tires and half tanks and stop at the halfway point. As the field set off on the parade lap, Rosberg's car did not go and so Patrese became the pole position man. When the lights changed he did not move and so Piquet took off into the lead with Pironi jinking to the right to miss the Brabham but Rene Arnoux banging into the back of it. This forced Watson to go onto the grass while a wheel bounced into the path of Teo Fabi's Toleman and ended his race.

Piquet led Lauda while Rosberg drove a remarkable first lap to make up eight places. There was a spectacular accident on the second lap when Chico Serra (Fittipaldi) collided with Jean-Pierre Jarier's Osella, the Brazilian's car becoming airborne before crashing back onto the track and going backwards into the barriers and flipping upside-down. Serra emerged rather shaken.

Watson had to spin the avoid the crash and he was out.

At the front Piquet continued to lead Lauda with Pironi, de Angelis, Daly and de Cesaris following with Derek Warwick up to sixth place.

On the 10th lap Piquet suddenly slowed with a fuel injection pump failure, leaving Lauda ahead of Pironi while the fans became increasingly excited as Daly and Warwick moved into third and fourth places. Warwick eventually overtook Daly and on lap 26 went past Pironi as well. Rosberg's charge ended with a pit stop and Warwick's run also came to an end with a broken CV joint. This put Pironi back to second and there he stayed. De Angelis was third but was robbed of the place on the last lap by fuel starvation. Daly finished fifth with the final point going to Prost.

POS	NO	DRIVER	ENTRANT	LAPS	TIME/RETIREMENT	QUAL POS
1	8	Niki Lauda	McLaren-Cosworth	76	1h35m33.812s	5
2	28	Didier Pironi	Ferrari	76	1h35m59.538s	4
3	27	Patrick Tambay	Ferrari	76	1h36m12.248s	13
4	11	Elio de Angelis	Lotus-Cosworth	76	1h36m15.054s	7
5	5	Derek Daly	Williams-Cosworth	76	1h36m15.242s	10
6	15	Alain Prost	Renault	76	1h36m15.448s	8
7	23	Bruno Giacomelli	Alfa Romeo	75		14
8	4	Brian Henton	Tyrrell-Cosworth	75		17
9	30	Mauro Baldi	Arrows-Cosworth	74		26
10	17	Jochen Mass	March-Cosworth	73		25
r	22	Andrea de Cesaris	Alfa Romeo	66	Electrics	11
r	25	Eddie Cheever	Talbot Ligier-Matra	60	Engine	24
r	29	Marc Surer	Arrows-Cosworth	59	Engine	22
r	6	Keke Rosberg	Williams-Cosworth	50	Fuel Pressure	1
nc	3	Michele Alboreto	Tyrrell-Cosworth	44		9
r	26	Jacques Laffite	Talbot Ligier-Matra	41	Gearbox	20
r	35	Derek Warwick	Toleman-Hart	40	Cv Joint	16
r	12	Nigel Mansell	Lotus-Cosworth	29	Broken Skirt/driver Discomfort	23
r	1	Nelson Piquet	Brabham-BMW	9	Fuel Injection Pump Belt	3
r	14	Roberto Guerrero	Ensign-Cosworth	3	Accident/oil Pipe/engine	19
r	31	Jean-Pierre Jarier	Osella-Cosworth	2	Accident	18
r	20	Chico Serra	Fittipaldi-Cosworth	2	Accident/fire	21
r	7	John Watson	McLaren-Cosworth	2	Spin	12
r	36	Teo Fabi	Toleman-Hart	0	Accident	15
r	16	Rene Arnoux	Renault	0	Accident	6
r	2	Riccardo Patrese	Brabham-BMW	0	Stalled On Grid/accident	2
nq	9	Manfred Winkelhock	ATS-Cosworth			27
nq	33	Jan Lammers	Theodore-Cosworth			28
nq	10	Eliseo Salazar	ATS-Cosworth			29
nq	18	Raul Boesel	March-Cosworth			30