1985 French Grand Prix - Race

Race

At the start, Keke Rosberg and Ayrton Senna got to the Verriere Bends in their respective grid positions, followed by Nelson Piquet, who made an excellent start from 5th, Michele Alboreto, Elio de Angelis, Niki Lauda, Gerhard Berger and Alain Prost who made a poor start from 6th place.

As the laps went on, the hot weather began to affect some of the cars. Ligier driver Jacques Laffite's Renault engine blew up on Lap 3, Laffite's teammate Andrea De Cesaris retired on Lap 5 with steering problems and championship leader Alboreto's race ended on the next lap from 4th place as a turbocharger expired on his Ferrari.

But Nelson Piquet, who so far had little success in 1985, started to run at a higher pace than the entire field. Armed with the most powerful engine in Formula One, the BMW straight-4 and better tires than Rosberg and Senna, he was able to pass Senna easily on the Mistral Straight and on Lap 11 he passed Rosberg (whose powerful Honda engine made it difficult for Piquet to pass on the straight) at the corner after Signes. Piquet then started to pull away from Rosberg, who had wrecked his tires pushing hard early on. Berger later retired on lap 20 after a collision with Pierluigi Martini.

Senna went into the pits with problems with his Lotus and was slipping out of contention. Lauda and Prost both passed de Angelis with some difficulty and they then caught and fought with Rosberg for a long period of time. Although the McLaren cars were faster, the more powerful Honda engine in Rosberg's Williams allowed him to pull away on the faster parts on the circuit. The battle went on and on, and Piquet was getting further and further away.

While pushing hard to make up time, Senna had a huge accident at the extremely fast Signes corner at the end of the long Mistral straight when his Lotus's Renault engine blew up, slipped on his own oil that was leaking onto the rear tyres, spun backwards at extremely high speed and went into the catch fencing and the Armco guard-rails. He emerged unscathed albeit a few bruises.

The Rosberg/Lauda/Prost battle continued, but on Lap 31 Lauda's gearbox failed on the pit straight and he was out of the race. And Prost finally got by Rosberg later on at the Verriere bends; and the pace started to hot up as Prost began to push very hard, catching Piquet (who was now 23 seconds ahead) at 1.5 to 2 seconds a lap. Rosberg then went into the pits for new rubber and he stormed after Prost and Piquet.

But Piquet was able to hold off both Prost and Rosberg to take what would be Brabham's last victory. Rosberg caught and passed Prost (who had eased his pace) on the last lap. The 2nd Ferrari driver Stefan Johannson (who had charged through the field from 15th on the grid and was battling with de Angelis) took 4th pace a little over a tenth of a second ahead of de Angelis, and Patrick Tambay in the Renault rounded out the points.

Keke Rosberg overtook Alain Prost on the last lap but the computers recording the final results listed Prost finishing second ahead of Rosberg in third.