German GP 1986

German GP, 1986

Jacques Laffite's accident at Brands Hatch meant that Ligier needed a new driver and Philippe Alliot was hired to replace him. Team Lotus announced that it would be using Honda engines in 1987 with Ayrton Senna being joined by Satoru Nakajima. Arrows had the new A9 chassis for the first time while Keke Rosberg announced that he would be retiring from F1 at the end of the season and then took pole position for McLaren, ahead of his team mate Alain Prost, the team having benefited from the arrival of new turbochargers. Ayrton Senna was third with Gerhard Berger fourth for Benetton with Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell next in their Williams-Hondas. The top 10 was completed by Riccardo Patrese (Brabham-BMW), Rene Arnoux (Ligier-Renault), Teo Fabi (Benetton) and Michele Alboreto's Ferrari.

At the start Senna took the lead as the two McLaren-TAGs were slightly slower off the line. This enabled Berger to grab second from Rosberg and Piquet to get ahead of Prost. Further back Alliot made a good start but then knocked Stefan Johansson into a spin, collecting Fabi's Benetton as it went. Johansson and Alliot both pitted at the end of the lap.

Rosberg soon took the lead from Senna and Berger was overtaken by Piquet and it was not long before Piquet was ahead of Senna as well. Berger pitted on lap five with an engine problem. While this was going on Piquet closed on Rosberg and took the lead on lap six. Prost was ahead of Senna with Arnoux fifth and Mansell sixth, complaining of poor handling. Things were so bad that Nigel was overtaken by Alboreto and only regained sixth when the Ferrari went out with transmission failure on lap seven.

Piquet decided to go for two stops and so pitted early leaving the McLarens running 1-2 ahead of Senna but when they pitted Piquet went ahead again and although he dropped behind them again when he stopped again he was able to overtake both by the finish. On the penultimate lap both McLarens ran out of fuel and so Senna took second place with Mansell third, Arnoux fourth and Rosberg and Prost being classified fifth and sixth.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
1 6 Nelson Piquet Williams-Honda  44 1h22m08.263s  5 
2 12 Ayrton Senna Lotus-Renault  44 1h22m23.700s  3 
3 5 Nigel Mansell Williams-Honda  44 1h22m52.843s  6 
4 25 Rene Arnoux Ligier-Renault  44 1h23m23.439s  8 
5r 2 Keke Rosberg McLaren-TAG Porsche  43 Out Of Fuel 1 
6r 1 Alain Prost McLaren-TAG Porsche  43 Out Of Fuel 2 
7 8 Derek Warwick Brabham-BMW  43  20 
8 16 Patrick Tambay Lola-Hart  43  13 
9 15 Alan Jones Lola-Hart  42  19 
10 20 Gerhard Berger Benetton-BMW  42  4 
11r 28 Stefan Johansson Ferrari  41 Rear Wing 11 
12 22 Allen Berg Osella-Alfa Romeo  40  26 
r 17 Christian Danner Arrows-BMW  38 Turbo 17 
r 29 Huub Rothengatter Zakspeed  38 Gearbox 24 
r 14 Jonathan Palmer Zakspeed  37 Engine 16 
r 3 Martin Brundle Tyrrell-Renault  34 Electric/fire 15 
r 7 Riccardo Patrese Brabham-BMW  22 Spark Plug 7 
r 23 Andrea de Cesaris Minardi-Motori Moderni  20 Gearbox 23 
r 24 Alessandro Nannini Minardi-Motori Moderni  19 Engine Overheating 22 
r 11 Johnny Dumfries Lotus-Renault  17 Radiator Leak 12 
r 18 Thierry Boutsen Arrows-BMW  13 Turbo/fire 21 
r 26 Philippe Alliot Ligier-Renault  11 Engine 14 
r 21 Piercarlo Ghinzani Osella-Alfa Romeo  10 Clutch 25 
r 4 Philippe Streiff Tyrrell-Renault  7 Engine 18 
r 27 Michele Alboreto Ferrari  6 Transmission 10 
r 19 Teo Fabi Benetton-BMW  0 Accident 9