1984 Australian Grand Prix

The 1984 Australian Grand Prix was a Formula Mondial race held at Calder Park Raceway on 18 November 1984.

It was the forty ninth Australian Grand Prix and the fourth to be held at Calder specifically for Formula Pacific or Formula Mondial racecars. It was the last domestic Australian Grand Prix to be held prior to the arrival of the Formula One World Drivers' Championship the following year. The race was contested over a distance of 160.9 km (100 laps x 1.609 km) or an even 100 miles.

The race was won by Brazilian racer Roberto Moreno, his third win in four years, securing his dominance of the four years the Grand Prix was held for the Formula Mondial/Pacific category. While Mondial would continue as the premier Australian open-wheel racing category for another two years, and would not be completely replaced until the rise of Formula Holden in 1989, this was the last year the category would be associated with the Grand Prix. In many ways Australian domestic open-wheel would be robbed of a signature race by the arrival of Formula One, something which is only now being address by the Tasmanian Formula 3 Super Prix.

The trend of the race organiser Bob Jane of importing overseas star racers continued, in addition to Moreno the starters included newly crowned world champion Niki Lauda, 1982 world champion Keke Rosberg and both Ligier F1 drivers Andrea de Cesaris and François Hesnault.

De Cesaris started from an unguarded pit lane ahead of the field and led the race briefly, although official lap scoring started his race when he started his second lap. Front row qualifier John Bowe led the race early until over taken by Moreno when a plug lead needed replacing on his engine. Poor starts by Lauda, Rosberg and de Cesaris were overcome as the race progressed. Hesnault, running as a team mate to Bowe, retired after a clash with Bruce Connolly. Lauda and Rosberg diced briefly for third before Rosberg and Terry Ryan clashed when Ryan was being lapped with the closely following Lauda also colliding with Ryan, the result being Rosberg and Ryan were able to continue while Lauda was out. Bowe dropped down the field with electrical problems. First Rosberg, then de Cesaris hunted down and overtook Alfredo Costanzo in his Tiga FA81/83 to fill the podium positions. 1984 Australian Champion Bowe finished sixth behind David McMillan.

The Ralt RT4 was the choice of car for ¾ the field with 18 of the 24 starters driving one. Other cars included a Tiga FA81/83, 2 Cheetah Mk8's, a Kaditcha Australian Formula 1 car, 1 Liston BF2 and 1 Dart 83M. All cars that started the race were powered by the 1.6L Ford-Cosworth BDA engine. Touring car driver Peter Williamson was to be the odd man out in his Toyota powered Toleman TG860 but a crash in early practice that knocked a front corner off the car saw him announce his retirement from open wheel racing and his team was in fact almost packed up and ready to leave before qualifying had started. Consequently the Toleman was withdrawn from the meeting.

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