Niki Lauda was the home favourite heading into this weekend’s classic race, the 1982 Austrian Grand Prix. The McLaren driver was fifth in the championship following the German Grand Prix, but could only muster 10th place in qualifying at the Osterrerichring.
The Brabham BMWs locked out the front row, with Nelson Piquet ahead of Monaco winner Riccardo Patrese. Ferrari entered only one car for this race – driven by Patrick Tambay – after Gilles Villeneuve was killed earlier in the season and Didier Pironi suffered career ending injuries the previous race.
The green light signalled the start of the race, and the two Alfa Romeos of de Cesaris and Giacomelli eliminated themselves and the Williams of Derek Daly.
Patrese overtook Piquet on the second lap, and the Brabhams began to pull away from the rest of the field.
Unbeknown to the rest of the grid, they were running with only half full tanks of fuel. This led to Nelson Piquet pitting for the first ever planned fuel and tyre stop in modern F1, from which he emerged in fourth place.
His team mate Patrese had built up a large lead, so by the time his stop came about he retained the lead – albeit only now a couple of seconds ahead of Alain Prost’s Renault. The gap between the Italian and the Frenchman remained constant for the next few laps, until the BMW engine in the back of the Brabham let go. The rear wheels locked and Patrese spun off in spectacular fashion – almost colliding with a spectator who had jumped the fence.
Piquet would join his team mate in retiring from the race when his electrics failed, promoting Keke Rosberg to third place behind Prost and Ellio de Angelis.
The Finn set about hunting down the Italian, who was over half a minute behind Prost. With five laps to go, the Frenchman looked set for an easy victory. He was in the sole surviving turbo charged car, with the high temperatures of the Austrian summer favouring the naturally aspirated engines.
BANG! Flames were pouring out of the Renault! Prost’s huge lead was eradicated when an injection problem blew up the turbo.
We were left with a monumental battle for the lead in the closing stages. Rosberg had slowly but surely cut down the 10 second gap to de Angelis, and as they crossed the line for the penultimate time the Finnish driver was just 1.6 seconds behind.
The Williams driver looked left right and centre in his attempts to take his maiden win, leaving him with just the final corner to try and make a move at. De Angelis covered the inside line with his JPS Lotus, and Rosberg couldn’t make it the long way around the outside. The Italians tight entrance, though, forced him out wide at the exit. Rosberg darted to the inside, and the Williams drew up alongside the Lotus. The drag to the line saw de Angelis take the win by just 0.05 seconds – less than half a car length.
Rosberg’s maiden win would come at Dijon, and he went on to win the world title that year. De Angelis was joyous on the podium, and took a second win at Imola 3 years later. Sadly, the popular Italian was killed in a testing accident at Paul Ricard in 1986.
Image courtesy of Williams F1 Team and LAT Photographic
