San Marino GP 1983
San Marino GP, 1983
The entry was as it had been at the French GP a fortnight earlier except that RAM had gone back to one car for Eliseo Salazar. Osella had an Alfa Romeo V12 engine in Piercarlo Ghinzani's car but he failed to qualify. It being Italy a Ferrari was on pole and that honor went to Rene Arnoux who beat Nelson Piquet (Brabham-BMW) by seven-tenths of a second. The second Ferrari of Patrick Tambay was juts hundredths behind Piquet while Alain Prost (Renault) was a couple of tenths behind. Then came Riccardo Patrese (Brabham-BMW), Eddie Cheever (Renault), Manfred Winkelhock (ATS-BMW), Andrea de Cesaris (Alfa Romeo), Elio de Angelis (Lotus-Renault), and Mauro Baldi (Alfa Romeo). Keke Rosberg (Williams) was the fastest normally-aspirated runner in 11th place although he was just four-tenths quicker than Marc Surer's Arrows. At the start Piquet stalled and so Arnoux took the lead from Tambay, Patrese, Prost and de Cesaris. Cheever went out early with an engine failure and it was quickly clear that the Brabham was the quickest car was Patrese took the lead on the sixth lap and led until his pit stop on lap 34. This was not a success as Riccardo overshot his mark and everything was badly delayed and so when he reemerged Tambay was in the lead. Piquet had charged back up to sixth but he then suffered an engine failure and so it was left to Patrese and Tambay to fight it out. With six laps to go Patrese went ahead at Tosa but at the top of the hill he made a mistake at Acque Minerale and ran off the road and into the barriers. Tambay was back in the lead and duly took an emotional victory. Prost was second with Arnoux third while Rosberg led the normally-aspirated cars as usual, finishing fourth ahead of John Watson (McLaren) and Marc Surer (Arrows).