Austrian GP 1984

Austrian GP, 1984

In the fortnight between the German and Austrian GPs, Team Lotus tested rising star Johnny Dumfries for the first time but rumors grew that the team would be signing Ayrton Senna for 1985. The fact that he had a Toleman contract was a minor point. Stefan Bellof was back in action with Tyrrell but Toleman continued to run only one car, while ATS expanded to two cars, the being driven by F1 debutante Gerhard Berger.

In qualifying Nelson Piquet was pole in his Brabham-BMW with Alain Prost (McLaren-TAG) alongside. On the second row were the Lotus-Renault of Elio de Angelis and Niki Lauda's McLaren while the third featured the Renaults of Patrick Tambay and Derek Warwick. Teo Fabi (Brabham-BMW) shared the fourth row with Nigel Mansell's Lotus-Renault while the top 10 was completed by Keke Rosberg's Williams-Honda and Ayrton Senna in the Toleman-Hart.

At the start Piquet took the lead from Prost while the two Renaults got ahead of de Angelis's Lotus. Lauda made a poor start but was soon back to fourth place and on the ninth lap he moved to third. The order remained stable until lap 29 when Prost spun off on oil dropped when de Angelis's Renault engine blew up. Lauda was second and Senna fourth. This lasted only a few laps before Tambay overtook the Toleman, which went into the pits to retire soon afterwards with engine failure. Lauda closed up on Piquet and on lap 40 scrambled ahead as the pair lapped the less-than-helpful Ferrari of Michele Alboreto. Tambay's race lasted only until lap 43 when his engine blew and so third place went to the lapped Alboreto with Fabi fourth and the two Arrows-BMWs of Thierry Boutsen and Marc Surer fifth and sixth.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
1 8 Niki Lauda McLaren-TAG Porsche  51 1h21m12.851s  4 
2 1 Nelson Piquet Brabham-BMW  51 1h21m36.376s  1 
3 27 Michele Alboreto Ferrari  51 1h22m01.849s  12 
4 2 Teo Fabi Brabham-BMW  51 1h22m09.163s  7 
5 18 Thierry Boutsen Arrows-Cosworth  50  17 
6 17 Marc Surer Arrows-Cosworth  50  19 
7 28 Rene Arnoux Ferrari  50  15 
8 25 Francois Hesnault Ligier-Renault  49  21 
9 10 Jonathan Palmer RAM-Hart  49  24 
10r 22 Riccardo Patrese Alfa Romeo  48 Out Of Fuel 13 
11 9 Philippe Alliot RAM-Hart  48  25 
12r 31 Gerhard Berger ATS-BMW  48 Gearbox 20 
r 15 Patrick Tambay Renault  42 Engine 5 
r 19 Ayrton Senna Toleman-Hart  35 Oil Pressure 10 
r 12 Nigel Mansell Lotus-Renault  32 Engine 8 
r 7 Alain Prost McLaren-TAG Porsche  28 Spin 2 
r 11 Elio de Angelis Lotus-Renault  28 Engine  3 
nc 21 Huub Rothengatter Spirit-Hart  23  26 
r 23 Eddie Cheever Alfa Romeo  18 Engine  16 
r 16 Derek Warwick Renault  17 Engine 6 
r 26 Andrea de Cesaris Ligier-Renault  15 Fuel Injection 18 
r 6 Keke Rosberg Williams-Honda  15 Handling 9 
r 5 Jacques Laffite Williams-Honda  12 Engine 11 
r 30 Jo Gartner Osella-Alfa Romeo  6 Engine  22 
r 24 Piercarlo Ghinzani Osella-Alfa Romeo  4 Gearbox 23 
ns 14 Manfred Winkelhock ATS-BMW   Gearbox 14 
nq 3 Stefan Johansson Tyrrell-Cosworth    27 
nq 4 Stefan Bellof Tyrrell-Cosworth    28