United States GP 1982

United States GP, 1982

In the fortnight which followed Riccardo Patrese's extraordinary win in Monaco, Ferrari negotiated a deal for Patrick Tambay to take over as the late Gilles Villeneuve's replacement but the Frenchman did not appear in Detroit, the team deciding to run with just one car again.

The entry was it had been in Monaco except that Jan Lammers crashed in practice and broke his thumb and so could not continue with the Theodore and that the Toleman team had not made the trip to North America, deciding to concentrate on developing its car.

There was a bit of a shock for Brabham as Nelson Piquet broke down in his Brabham-BMW on Friday and rain on Saturday meant that the World Champion did not qualify. He was joined as a spectator by Emilio de Villota in the Onyx-run March and Lammers.

Pole position went to Alain Prost's Renault with Andrea de Cesaris second in his Alfa Romeo. Keke Rosberg was third for Williams ahead of Pironi, the impressive Manfred Winkelhock (ATS), Bruno Giacomelli (Alfa Romeo), the Lotuses of Nigel Mansell and Elio de Angelis, Eddie Cheever's Talbot Ligier (the team decided to use old JS17 rather than the troublesome new JS19) and Niki Lauda in the McLaren. Roberto Guerrero did a good job to qualify the Ensign 11th, while Rene Arnoux in particular had a bad time and ended up 14th on the grid.

At the start Prost held off a challenge from Rosberg and went into the first corner ahead with de Cesaris slotting in behind him. Winkelhock disappeared quickly when he hit a wall and on the third lap de Cesaris stopped as well with a driveshaft broken after he had made contact with a concrete barrier. This left Prost leading Rosberg, Pironi, Mansell, Giacomelli, Cheever and Arnoux.

On the seventh lap, however, the race was stopped after a crash between Guerrero and de Angelis which was made worse by the rapid of arrival of Riccardo Patrese (Brabham). He swerved into the barriers.

As the track was cleared the teams got ready for the second part of the race. Once again Prost went into lead with Rosberg behind him while Pironi, Giacomelli and Cheever diced for third place. Prost eventually ran into fuel feed problems and Rosberg was able to close up and on lap 23 he took the lead. Further back, however, Watson was putting in a remarkable drive, fighting up from 13th on the restart grid to move to second, despite a brush which resulted in Giacomelli going into the wall. He then chased, caught and passed Rosberg to take the lead on lap 37. Lauda also charged up to pass Cheever and Pironi and to close on Rosberg. Lauda tried to pass and made a mess of it, bouncing off the Williams and into a barrier. Cheever moved ahead of Pironi and when Rosberg faded he was able to take second place. Laffite charged up to third but then faded back and with Pironi also getting ahead of Rosberg, the Finn ended up fourth ahead of his team mate Derek Daly, while Laffite had to settle for sixth.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
John Watson McLaren-Cosworth  62 1h58m41.043s  17 
25 Eddie Cheever Talbot Ligier-Matra  62 1h58m56.769s  
28 Didier Pironi Ferrari  62 1h59m09.120s  
Keke Rosberg Williams-Cosworth  62 1h59m53.019s  
Derek Daly Williams-Cosworth  62 2h00m04.800s  12 
26 Jacques Laffite Talbot Ligier-Matra  61  13 
17 Jochen Mass March-Cosworth  61  18 
29 Marc Surer Arrows-Cosworth  61  19 
Brian Henton Tyrrell-Cosworth  60  20 
10 16 Rene Arnoux Renault  59  15 
11 20 Chico Serra Fittipaldi-Cosworth  59  26 
nc 15 Alain Prost Renault  54  
12 Nigel Mansell Lotus-Cosworth  44 Engine 
Niki Lauda McLaren-Cosworth  40 Accident 10 
Michele Alboreto Tyrrell-Cosworth  40 Accident 16 
23 Bruno Giacomelli Alfa Romeo  40 Accident 
11 Elio de Angelis Lotus-Cosworth  17 Gearbox 
10 Eliseo Salazar ATS-Cosworth  13 Accident 25 
14 Roberto Guerrero Ensign-Cosworth  Accident 11 
Riccardo Patrese Brabham-BMW  Accident/fire 14 
22 Andrea de Cesaris Alfa Romeo  Transmission 
31 Jean-Pierre Jarier Osella-Cosworth  Electrics 22 
Manfred Winkelhock ATS-Cosworth  Accident 
18 Raul Boesel March-Cosworth  Accident 21 
30 Mauro Baldi Arrows-Cosworth  Accident 24 
ns 32 Riccardo Paletti Osella-Cosworth   Accident 23 
nq 19 Emilio de Villota March-Cosworth    27 
nq Nelson Piquet Brabham-BMW    28 
nq 33 Jan Lammers Theodore-Cosworth   Accident/injury 29