Canadian GP 1985

Canadian GP, 1985

There was a month between the Monaco and Canadian Grands Prix. There was to have been a Belgian GP at Spa in the middle weekend and all the teams turned up and qualified but the new track surface was torn up by the cars and on Saturday evening the race was called off. Michele Alboreto had been fastest but it was agreed that racing in the conditions was impossible. Even before Spa there had been other excitements with Francois Hesnault have an enormous testing crash at Paul Ricard, after which he decided that he had had enough of F1, having been trapped in his car by catchfencing which wrapped around the cockpit. This resulted in Marc Surer being hired as his replacement. Zakspeed was also missing, the team deciding to concentrate on development.

Qualifying resulted in pole position for Elio de Angelis (Lotus-Renault) ahead of his team mate Ayrton Senna, then came the two Ferraris of Michele Alboreto and Stefan Johansson with fifth place going to Alain Prost's McLaren-TAG. The top 10 was completed by Derek Warwick (Renault), Thierry Boutsen (Arrows-BMW). Keke Rosberg (Williams-Honda), Nelson Piquet (Brabham-BMW) and Patrick Tambay in the second factory Renault.

In the race the two Lotuses went into the lead at the start but when Senna pitted with a turbo problem, Alboreto moved to second and then took the lead with a brilliant move on the outside of de Angelis while the pair were running flat in fifth gear. Later in the race Johansson was able to move ahead of de Angelis as well and so Ferrari scored a 1-2 with Prost moving to third in the closing laps ahead of Rosberg, de Angelis and Nigel Mansell (Williams-Honda).

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
27 Michele Alboreto Ferrari  70 1h46m01.813s  
28 Stefan Johansson Ferrari  70 1h46m03.770s  
Alain Prost McLaren-TAG Porsche  70 1h46m06.154s  
Keke Rosberg Williams-Honda  70 1h46m06.634s  
11 Elio de Angelis Lotus-Renault  70 1h46m45.162s  
Nigel Mansell Williams-Honda  70 1h47m19.691s  16 
15 Patrick Tambay Renault  69  10 
26 Jacques Laffite Ligier-Renault  69  19 
18 Thierry Boutsen Arrows-BMW  68  
10 22 Riccardo Patrese Alfa Romeo  68  13 
11 Stefan Bellof Tyrrell-Cosworth  68  23 
12 Martin Brundle Tyrrell-Cosworth  68  24 
13 17 Gerhard Berger Arrows-BMW  67  12 
14 25 Andrea de Cesaris Ligier-Renault  67  15 
15 Marc Surer Brabham-BMW  65  20 
16 12 Ayrton Senna Lotus-Renault  65  
17 23 Eddie Cheever Alfa Romeo  64  11 
29 Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Cosworth  57 Accident 25 
Niki Lauda McLaren-TAG Porsche  37 Engine 17 
24 Piercarlo Ghinzani Osella-Alfa Romeo  35 Engine 22 
10 Philippe Alliot RAM-Hart  28 Accident 21 
16 Derek Warwick Renault  25 Accident 
Manfred Winkelhock RAM-Hart  Accident 14 
19 Teo Fabi Toleman-Hart  Turbo 18 
Nelson Piquet Brabham-BMW  Transmission