The 1983 South African Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Kyalami on 15 October 1983. It was the final race of the 1983 Formula One season.
Before the race, three drivers were still in a position to win the World Drivers' Championship: Alain Prost (Renault) led the championship with 57 points, followed by Nelson Piquet (Brabham-BMW) with 55 and René Arnoux (Ferrari) with 49. Piquet qualified second, behind Patrick Tambay (Ferrari) in pole position and ahead of Riccardo Patrese (Brabham), Arnoux and Prost in third, fourth and fifth. At the start Piquet passed Tambay to take the lead, with Patrese moving into second place. Arnoux retired with engine failure on lap 9. Prost fought his way up to third place, but he also retired on lap 35 with turbo failure. Needing only to finish fourth or higher, Piquet slowed and was overtaken by Patrese, Niki Lauda (McLaren) and Andrea de Cesaris (Alfa Romeo). Lauda's engine failed on lap 71. The race finished with Patrese in first place, de Cesaris in second and Piquet in third, and Piquet won the championship by two points. John Watson, completing his last full Formula One season, was disqualified for overtaking other cars on the parade lap.
Famous quotes containing the words south, african and/or grand:
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“The soldier here, as everywhere in Canada, appeared to be put forward, and by his best foot. They were in the proportion of the soldiers to the laborers in an African ant-hill.... On every prominent ledge you could see England’s hands holding the Canadas, and I judged from the redness of her knuckles that she would soon have to let go.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The evolution of humans can not only be seen as the grand total of their wars, it is also defined by the evolution of the human mind and the development of the human consciousness.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)