1986 German Grand Prix

Hockenheimring
27 July 1986
The good news in the paddock was that Jacques Laffite was expected to make a full recovery; however, he would not be racing again this season at least, and Philippe Alliot was drafted in to replace him. Arrows had their new A9 chassis finally ready for both drivers, while Lotus announced that they would be using Honda engines from 1987 – a deal which came with Japanese driver Satoru Nakajima attached, meaning that poor Johnny Dumfries would have to find a new job at the end of the year. Finally, Keke Rosberg announced that he would be retiring from Formula One at the end of the season after a frustrating year so far.

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26. Philippe Alliot

Alliot had last been seen struggling around with the RAM team in 1985, and hadn’t impressed many – though few would have looked good in that car. He had tested for Ligier at the end of the season but with the capture of Arnoux he was not retained and returned to driving Formula 3000 with the ORECA team. After winning the race at Spa he was recalled by Ligier to replace the injured Laffite. With the blue cars having a good year, this could be his chance to show what he really had.

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The Finn, however, ended Saturday on Pole Position for the race – his first with the McLaren team – with Alain Prost alongside to make the first McLaren front-row lockout for some time. Ayrton Senna was third, with Berger alongside in the Benetton, its straight-line speed a real advantage at Hockenheim. The previously-dominant Williams cars were 5th (Piquet) and 6th (Mansell), with Patrese, Arnoux, Fabi and Alboreto rounding out the top ten. Johansson’s Ferrari was 11th, Palmer’s Zakspeed a fine 16th at the team’s home race (Rothengatter was back in a more accustomed 24th) and the Osella team took their usual places on the back row, Ghinzani 25th and Berg 26th.

The lights went green and the two McLarens got away slowly, but behind them Senna got a flyer and barged his way through the middle, banging wheels with Prost in the process and sending the Frenchman skidding wide and allowing Berger to wriggle through into second. Further back, Johansson tripped over Alliot’s fast-starting Ligier and slewed across the track, punting Fabi into the sand-trap in the process. The Ferrari and the Ligier managed to limp around to the pits, while the luckless Fabi was out. Rosberg, meanwhile, had got back past Berger into second place (only to lose it again shortly afterwards) while Piquet had got ahead of Prost, now down in fifth.

Senna finished the first lap with Berger’s BMW, roared on by the German crowd, hanging right on his rear wing, with Rosberg slightly behind the pair – until the first chicane, at which point Rosberg pulled an audacious move to overtake both and take the lead. He began pulling away as Piquet started worrying at Berger in third place. Before long he was past, and Senna found himself leading a multi-car train including Piquet, Berger, Prost, Mansell, Alboreto, Patrese and Arnoux. Before the end of the lap, Piquet was past Senna and heading off in pursuit of Rosberg. Berger was now dropping back with first Prost then Mansell coming past, and would stop in the pits on lap 5 for the team to tinker with his engine – he rejoined three laps behind. The following lap, Piquet made his way past Rosberg and into the lead, while Prost was up to third ahead of Senna. Behind them, Alboreto had got past Mansell, struggling with steering issues, but the Ferrari was out on lap 6 with a transmission failure.

Arnoux now took fifth from Mansell, and things began to settle down a little as the field strung out and the Hockenheimring’s reputation as a car-breaker was confirmed with a series of technical gremlins – Streiff with a blown engine on lap 8, Ghinzani with a clutch failure on 11, Alliot a lap later with an engine failure, and Boutsen toured in on lap 14 with a blown turbo, which proceeded to catch fire while the pit crew tried to take the engine cover off. Piquet was the first of the major runners to pit for tyres, a stop of 9.1s dropping him to 4th behind Rosberg, Prost and Senna. Next in was Mansell, a quick 8.8s stop on lap 17 as his team-mate put up the fastest lap so far on his fresh tyres.

A few laps later, Rosberg came in from the lead, and the McLaren team turned him round in just 7.5s, putting him back on the road third, while Arnoux stopped from 5th at the same time. The following lap it was Prost’s turn, a relatively slow 8.4, which put Piquet back in the lead with Senna, still second, yet to stop. The Brazilian Lotus driver finally came in on lap 21, just before half-distance, leaving Piquet leading the McLarens of Rosberg and Prost. However, his stop had been early enough it looked like a two-stop strategy against McLaren’s single-stop – would he be able to get far enough ahead of them to make another stop?

The retirements continued – both Minardis within a lap of each other with engine (Nannini) and gearbox (de Cesaris) problems, Patrese with a faulty sparkplug, By lap 23, the top six were back where they had been before the stops: Piquet, Rosberg, Prost, Senna, Arnoux and Mansell, with Piquet having a lead of just over 5.5s over Rosberg – but the Finn was gaining, not dropping back. With 18 laps to go, Piquet peeled back into the pits for his second stop, just shy of 8s, and rejoined third but just 5s behind Prost. On fresh tyres, the Williams reeled in the McLaren and caught him when Prost was delayed by backmarkers Berg and Tambay having their own battle. Both were passed successfully and half a lap later, as Mansell came in for his second stop, Piquet pulled out and breezed past Prost. Now there was an 11-second gap to Rosberg and Piquet set about chasing him down with just 12 laps to go. Two laps later it was 8.25s, the lap after that 5.6s, then 4.1, then 2.7. With 7 laps to go, Piquet was right on Rosberg’s tail as they lapped Warwick and as they began the following lap he made a slingshot move around the outside at the first chicane and took the lead.

The race looked set for the finish, but then, with just one lap to go, the McLarens suddenly both began to slow – first Prost, who was rapidly caught and passed by Senna, then Rosberg who toured off at the back chicane. Both were out of fuel – and Piquet was now zigzagging around the track to slosh the last bits of fuel into his engine as Senna tore into his lead. The double champion made it across the line to take the win with Senna second. Prost was still third, but his engine had stopped and he was coasting around the last corner, desperately trying to urge his car forward before leaping out and pushing it, but to no avail – Mansell surged past for third and Arnoux for fourth, so Prost pushed his car over to the side and gave up. Rosberg stuttered past to take 5th for the final insult, leaving Prost with a single point for his afternoon’s efforts.

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Drivers Championship
1	Nigel Mansell	51
2	Alain Prost	44
3	Ayrton Senna	42
4	Nelson Piquet	38
5	Keke Rosberg	19
6=	Jacques Laffite	14
6=	René Arnoux	14
8	Stefan Johansson	7
9=	Gerhard Berger	6
9=	Michele Alboreto	6
11	Martin Brundle	4
12=	Teo Fabi	2
12=	Riccardo Patrese	2
14	Phillippe Streiff	1

Constructors Championship
1	Williams-Honda	89
2	McLaren-TAG	63
3	Lotus-Renault	42
4	Ligier-Renault	28
5	Ferrari	13
6	Benetton-BMW	8
7	Tyrrell-Renault	5
8	Brabham-BMW	2

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1984 German Grand Prix

Hockenheimring

5 August 1984

The gang all arrived in a West Germany recovering from one of the biggest industrial disputes in her history, particularly in the engineering sector, which had coincided with the national football team’s embarrassing early exit from the European Championships in France. Despite the best efforts of the ATS team, Stefan Bellof and Manfred Winkelhock, the real point of German pride in Formula One at the moment was that – with the exception of Alboreto’s win for Ferrari in Belgium – every race so far this year had been won by a German built engine. For although McLaren’s engines were badged as TAG (a Saudi-owned, Luxembourg-based firm) everyone knew they were Porsche-built. The fans would just have to hope that they could last the distance at a high-speed car-breaker of a circuit.

Tyrrell were here again, pending a full appeal to FISA (and running with extra extra ballast just to make sure they weren’t underweight) , but with Brundle still injured and Stefan Bellof now away honouring his Rothmans Porsche sportscar championship, Mike Thackwell would join Tyrrell after his solo race at Canada for RAM. Toleman, meanwhile, had not replaced Johnny Cecotto and would run a solo entry for Ayrton Senna, and Teo Fabi had negotiated his way out of his CART contract and would complete the season for Brabham.

With all the attention on the McLarens and Piquet, it was Elio de Angelis who set the pace in practice, only to be pipped to pole by Prost. The Renault engines had the pace, though, with the works cars locking out the second row, Warwick ahead of Tambay. Only Mansell wasn’t happy – he had been balked by de Cesaris on his fast lap and starting 16th. Piquet was 5th, alongside Alboreto, with Lauda, Fabi, Senna and Arnoux making up the top ten. The Tyrrells, with their extra weight and non-turbo engines, struggled to even beat their 1983 times and were 26th (Johansson) and 27th (Thackwell), a full 3 seconds adrift of 25th placed Palmer. Ken Tyrrell asked for dispensation for Thackwell to start as Gartner had at Brands, but Ferrari refused to sign a petition to that effect and the New Zealander would sit the race out.

The weekend so far had been intermittently damp and there were threatening clouds on race day but the track was dry and when the lights went green it was the black & gold Lotus of de Angelis and not the red & white McLaren of Prost that led into the first corner, also keeping the lively Warwick behind him – the Englishman got over on the wrong side of the track while trying to get past and was crowded out and threatened by Piquet who had got ahead of Tambay. Coming out of the first chicane, Piquet used his BMW power to get past Warwick, while at the second chicane, Senna had a go at Tambay but put a wheel on the dirt and had to pull out of the move.

De Angelis was looking calm in the lead, and the leading trio of himself, Prost and Piquet were beginning to leave Warwick and the others behind. Marc Surer had worked his way up into the top ten only for a blown turbo to end his race on the first lap, and Ayrton Senna followed him into retirement on lap 5 when his rear wing suddenly collapsed and pitched him into a barrier. Piquet challenged Prost for second place, which became the lead on lap 9 when de Angelis’ engine went and put him out.

The Brazilian went past the Frenchman to take the lead on the same lap, while behind them Lauda had got past Warwick but was unable to make much impact on their pace. Rosberg, meanwhile, had made his way up from 19th on the grid to fourth behind Lauda by lap 9, but at that point his electrics cut out and he pulled off, with Laffite’s engine going in sympathy and both Williamses out on the same lap. A couple of laps later Alboreto joined them; Ferrari’s season not getting any better now back in Europe. Piquet was leading Prost but the McLaren was stuck resolutely to the Brabham’s rear and on lap 24 his gearbox started dropping gears and he toured round to the pits to retire (but waited until the mechanics had changed the tyres before climbing out in fits of laughter. The mechanics’ response is not recorded).

That left Prost in a commanding lead, with Lauda some distance behind. The Austrian started eating into his lead, but Prost simply reeled off a series of fastest laps to demonstrate his speed and that was that. Warwick was once again ploughing a lonely furrow in third place, but had Teo Fabi closing on him – the Italian seemed invigorated by his renewed commitment to F1 – until the Brabham’s engine blew just five laps after Piquet’s retirement. Patrick Tambay thus regained fourth position with Mansell now up to fifth after having husbanded his tyres and fuel and steadily moved up the field. Mansell was chasing Tambay, and behind Arnoux in sixth there was a ding-dong scrap between de Cesaris and Hesnault over seventh place, the two Ligiers putting on quite a show as young Hesnault gave his more experienced teammate a good fight. This lasted until Hesnault’s Renault engine began making terminal noises and he backed off to husband it home for an 8th place finish. Aside from Mansell finally getting past Tambay for fourth, the last ten laps or so of the race was a rather dull affair, the field too strung out for much in the way of action.

So Alain Prost took his first win since Monaco to extend his lead again, with Lauda staying in touch in second. Derek Warwick took his fourth podium of the year, with Mansell, Tambay and Arnoux the other scorers. De Cesaris and Hesnault’s Ligiers, Johansson’s Tyrrell and Rothengatter’s Spirit were the remaining finishers. McLaren had the Constructors’ title pretty much sewn up already, but Mansell’s points put Lotus into joint second place.

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Drivers Championship
1	Alain Prost	43 ½
2	Niki Lauda	39
3	Elio de Angelis	26 ½
4	René Arnoux	24 ½
5	Derek Warwick	23
6	Keke Rosberg	20
7	Nelson Piquet	18
8	Michele Alboreto	11
9=	Patrick Tambay	9
9=	Nigel Mansell	9
(11=	Martin Brundle	8)
11=	Ayrton Senna	8
(13	Stefan Bellof	5)
14	Jacques Laffite	4
15=	Eddie Cheever	3
15=	Riccardo Patrese	3
15=	Teo Fabi	3
18=	Andrea de Cesaris	2
18=	Piercarlo Ghinzani	2
20	Thierry Boutsen	1

Constructors Championship
1	McLaren-TAG	81 ½
2=	Ferrari	35 ½
2=	Lotus-Renault	35 ½
4	Renault	32
5	Williams-Honda	24
5	Brabham-BMW	21
(7	Tyrrell-Ford	13)
8	Toleman-Hart	8
9	Alfa Romeo	6
10=	Ligier-Renault	2
10=	Osella-Alfa Romeo	2
12	Arrows-Ford	1

1983 German Grand Prix

Hockenheim

7 August 1983

Despite rumours that the West German-owned ATS team would run a second car at their “home” race, the entry remained the same as for Silverstone, and conversation centred around two things: the exciting three-way title race between Tambay, Prost and Piquet, and the prospects for the new Lotus-Renault and Spirit-Honda cars that had shown so much promise last time out. Honda’s intent to have a low-key debut had been shattered in the best possible way by Johansson qualifying 14th, and there was immediate talk that Honda would be courted by a major team, for which read Williams, before the season was out.

The long straights of Hockenheim suited the turbos down to the ground and it was a Ferrari front row with Tambay taking the top spot to break Arnoux’s run of poles. Behind them was Andrea de Cesaris, the Alfa Romeo finally working right – team-mate Baldi was up in 7th as well – ahead of Piquet. Row 3 held the Renaults of Prost and Cheever, then behind Baldi was Patrese, with the two Tolemans making up the top ten. De Angelis lined up alongside Rosberg in 11th and 12th (the Finn was six whole seconds off Pole, demonstrating the increasing turbo gap), Johansson went another place better to put the Spirit 13th, Mansell was 17th in the old Lotus 93T, Lauda 18th, Watson 24th and Ghinzani propping up the grid in 26th. Nobody was surprised when Kenny Acheson and Corrado Fabi didn’t qualify, but Manfred Winkelhock’s ATS would also not make the grid, having suffered technical problems on Friday and then had Saturday’s session washed out by rain.

Sunday was cool, dry and overcast but there was one ray of sunshine in the pits – Didier Pironi, on crutches but all smiles in the Ferrari pit and talking confidently of testing the new Ferrari before the end of the season. Meanwhile, Andrea de Cesaris provided some humour when, running late for the race, he hit two security men in his road car on the way to the circuit. He was fined $10,000 and bailed a further $15,000 to be allowed to race. An expensive mistake but nobody was seriously hurt.

The Ferraris led away from the start, while Piquet got into the first corner ahead of de Cesaris, with Prost and Cheever chasing. The Alfa Romeo driver seemed distracted by his earlier incident and Prost was soon past, with Cheever harrying him as well. De Cesaris seemed to shut the door hard at one point, putting Cheever on the grass, and Eddie responded by banging wheels on his way past. Up front, Tambay was leading conservatively to preserve his tyres and conserve fuel, but Arnoux was impatient and overtook, quickly stretching out a lead while Tambay motored serenely on at his own pace. Unfortunately, it was Tambay’s turn to have the bad luck that had plagued Arnoux at the start of the season, and his engine started sputtering on lap 12, taking him into the pits to see if it could be fixed. It couldn’t. By this time, both Loti were out – Mansell with a second-lap engine failure and de Angelis with an overheating Renault on lap 11, while Johansson again parked the Spirit-Honda combo up, this time on lap 12 with a dropped valve.

Arnoux thus held a sizeable lead from Prost, Cheever, Patrese and de Cesaris and in the cooler temperatures his tyres didn’t seem to be a problem like they had been at Silverstone. More engine failures peppered the first half of the race as the Hockenheim circuit maintained its reputation as a car-breaker. The Tolemans expired on lap 17 (Warwick) and 19 (Giacomelli), Mauro Baldi on lap 24 just as the first stoppers were coming in and Raul Boesel three laps later. Arnoux came in for tyres and fuel on lap 24, Cheever a lap later and Piquet the lap after that. Prost had a gearbox problem and had lost first gear – not a problem on Hockenheim’s flat-out straights, but it meant a slow pit getaway and he dropped places. Things got worse for him as his gearbox gradually shook itself apart, first skipping out of top gear on the straights, then losing 5th entirely and limiting him to fourth – forcing the Frenchman to settle for nursing his car home for as many points as he could find.

The Brabham team tried a different strategy, filling the car’s tank as far as it would go, only stopping for tyres midway for a much quicker stop, and being ready for a splash-and-dash stop towards the end if need be. However, Arnoux was so far ahead, it made little difference to Piquet and Patrese even lost 5th to a charging de Cesaris as his tyres warmed. Prost’s gearbox woes saw him drop behind de Cesaris and Piquet. Two more retirements in the top six affected the result – Cheever lost third place with a sticking throttle on lap 39, and three laps later (and three before the end) Piquet’s Brabham spurted flames and he pulled over smartly and hopped out while a marshal flailed ineffectively at the flames with an empty extinguisher.

All this promoted de Cesaris to second place and Patrese to third, and there they stayed until the chequered flag – the two Italians may have been lucky today, but it went some way to make up for their previous bad luck. Arnoux took his win by over a minute ahead of de Cesaris, with Prost hanging onto fourth place. Fifth and sixth were Lauda and Watson, but the Austrian was disqualified after overshooting his pit box and reversing into it during the halfway stops, so Watson got the two points and Laffite moved up to sixth.

With neither Tambay nor Piquet scoring, Prost extended his lead a little with his three points, while Arnoux moved ahead of Rosberg into fourth and looked set to make it a four-way fight if results kept going his way.

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Drivers Championship
1	Alain Prost	42
2	Patrick Tambay	31
3	Nelson Piquet	30
4	René Arnoux	28
5	Keke Rosberg	25
6	John Watson	18
7	Eddie Cheever	14
8=	Niki Lauda	11
8=	Jacques Laffite	11
10	Michele Alboreto	9
11	Andrea de Cesaris	6
12=	Marc Surer	4
12=	Nigel Mansell	4
12=	Riccardo Patrese	4
15	Danny Sullivan	2
16=	Johnny Cecotto	1
16=	Mauro Baldi	1

Constructors Championship
1	Ferrari	60
2	Renault	56
3	Brabham-BMW	37
4	Williams-Ford	34
5	McLaren-TAG	31
6=	Tyrrell-Ford	11
6=	Alfa-Romeo	7
8=	Arrows-Ford	4
8=	Lotus-Renault	4
10	Theodore-Ford	1

1982 German Grand Prix

Hockenheimring

8 August 1982

With the British and French races a week apart, there was a fortnight before Hockenheim which allowed Nigel Mansell’s wrist to heal properly and he was back in the number 12 Lotus once more, while over at Theodore the hapless Jan Lammers was dropped after one qualification in six goes and replaced by highly-rated (not least by himself) Irishman Tommy Byrne. Another new – or rather returning – face in the paddock was Rupert Keegan, who was taking over at March for Jochen Mass, still recovering mentally from his horrific crash in France.

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17. Rupert Keegan

Son of maverick pilot and airline owner Mike Keegan, young Rupert was never short on a bit of cash growing up, and in 1973 he began racing in Ford Escorts in Mexico and won his first races the following year. Bankrolled by his father into Formula Three, he developed a reputation for being talented but hotheaded, and with a playboy attitude not unlike the higher-profile James Hunt. Like Hunt, he moved into F1 with the Hesketh team who seemed a good fit, but were on the decline by 1977 and not much came of it, nor his 1978 season with Surtees. Keegan moved into the Aurora AFX series which he won in 1979 before attempting an F1 comeback in a customer Williams run by the RAM management team. No points and three DNQs from 7 entries, but was kept in mind by RAM when a new March driver was needed at Hockenheim.

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33. Tommy Byrne

Tommy Byrne from Drogheda in Ireland was one of the coming men of racing, despite a youth blighted by sectarian divisions and delinquency. Once behind a wheel, Byrne was simply stunning – he seemed to be able to beat anyone in anything as he blew through the junior formulae in a matter of a few years and winning the Formula Three championship in 1981 and being invited to test an F1 McLaren. While still competing in Formula Two in 1982, he was asked to step into the vacant Theodore seat and jumped at the chance to prove himself against the best in the business. He didn’t exactly endear himself to the other drivers, however, by swaggering around the paddock letting it be known he didn’t much care about famous names as long as they stayed out of his way…

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Like Paul Ricard, Hockenheim was built around long straights which would give the turbo cars the advantage and, sure enough, Pironi topped the Friday timing sheets to take pole position in the Ferrari with Prost, Arnoux, Piquet, Tambay and Patrese again putting all the turbos at the sharp end. Top non-turbo was Michele Alboreto’s Tyrrell (nearly 5 seconds off Pironi’s time) with de Cesaris, Rosberg and Watson making up the top ten. Niki Lauda had set 8th fastest time in his McLaren but hurt his wrist having an off in the stadium section while trying to pass Keegan’s March and withdrew. Saturday saw rain, so the grid didn’t change and Marc Surer moved up onto the grid thanks to Lauda’s withdrawal.

Then, on Saturday morning practice, the curse of 1982 struck again as Didier Pironi thundered through the rain and found Derek Daly in a ball of spray. The Williams moved off the racing line, Pironi moved gratefully through – only to smash into the back of Alain Prost’s Renault, which was running slowly and was being passed by Daly. Pironi’s car took off, then crashed down to earth, breaking both the Frenchman’s legs and seriously injuring his feet. Prost, as well as Piquet and Cheever who arrived on the scene shortly afterwards, ran to help but were unable to extract Pironi from his mangled car. It took marshals over half an hour to cut him free and he was airlifted to hospital in Heidelberg.

By the time the race start came round, news came through that Pironi’s life was not in danger but with such serious injuries his career – not to mention his ability to walk again – certainly was. At the very least, his 1982 season was over and Ferrari were simply stunned at another misfortune befalling them even as they were pleased Pironi had survived such a nasty shunt. They opted not to officially withdraw Pironi’s entry for tactical reasons: doing so would move Tambay over to the less advantageous right-hand side of the grid, so Tommy Byrne would not be moved up onto the grid like Surer had.

Sunday was dry, but glowering grey skies threatened rain later and as the cars set off from the grid, Mauro Baldi’s Arrows (24th) wouldn’t fire, so he had to sprint across to the pits to begin the race from there in the spare car. Arnoux, making the most of an empty space where Pironi should have been, sprinted into the lead at the first corner, followed round by Prost, Piquet and Tambay (whose instructions from the Ferrari team were to drive a solid race and get constructors’ points). Patrese got a terrible start and dropped to ninth, but showing the power of the turbo engine married to the light fuel load, he was back up to fifth by the end of lap 2. Piquet, likewise, had got past Prost and Arnoux in short order and was stretching out a lead already, while Tambay had also got past Prost and was chasing down Arnoux. On lap 11, the Ferrari went through into second place but Piquet was heading off into the distance. It was business as usual for Renault as Prost came in with a faulty exhaust pipe and spent 5 laps having it replaced, before retiring with an unrelated problem not long after rejoining. On lap 13, Patrese was out, coaxing a dying BMW turbo engine back to the pits but no further, and a flurry of other retirements came in the ensuing laps, most notably de Cesaris and Watson colliding while dicing for 6th place, putting the Italian out but allowing the Ulsterman to continue.

On lap 19, Piquet had a 24-second lead over Tambay and was shortly to come in and make his pit stop when he came to lap Eliseo Salazar in the ATS. Piquet got inside into the chicane, Salazar braked, slipped sideways and collided with the leader, taking both of them out. Frustrated at retiring from the lead for the third time in a row, an emotional Piquet took it out on poor Eliseo, landing a couple of punches and aiming a half-hearted kick in the Chilean’s direction before storming off and throwing his helmet on the ground.

Patrick Tambay thus found himself leading only his fourth race for Ferrari, and with a large lead over Arnoux all he had to do was finish. Watson was third, some way behind Arnoux, with Rosberg following, but coming up quickly was Laffite in the Ligier, finally working well and with a powerful V12 engine. He got past Rosberg but as they came to pass backmarkers he was held up by Mansell and ran wide, damaging the car’s skirt and letting Rosberg back through. Laffite would soon retire with irretrievably damaged handling, while Watson’s third place was lost and his championship hopes further dented when his front-right suspension broke, sending him backwards into a tyre wall.

Tambay drove a circumspect final few laps to take his maiden win, with Arnoux 15 seconds behind in second place. They were the only two to go full distance, but Rosberg ended up “best of the rest” and took third place, leading home Alboreto, Giacomelli and a delighted Marc Surer, who had only qualified by dint of Lauda’s withdrawal.

In fact, it was Rosberg who was the winner of the championship contenders – starting the day in fifth, none of the four drivers ahead of him scored so he ended up third.

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Drivers Championship
1	Didier Pironi	39
2	John Watson	30
3	Keke Rosberg	27
4	Alain Prost	25
5	Niki Lauda	24
6=	Riccardo Patrese	19
6=	René Arnoux	19
8	Nelson Piquet	17
9	Patrick Tambay	16
10	Michele Alboreto	14
11	Elio de Angelis	13
12	Eddie Cheever	10
13=	Nigel Mansell	7
13=	Derek Daly	7
15=	Carlos Reutemann	6
15=	Gilles Villeneuve	6
17	Andrea de Cesaris	5
18=	Jean-Pierre Jarier	3
18=	Marc Surer	3
20=	Manfred Winkelhock	2
20=	Eliseo Salazar	2
20=	Bruno Giacomelli	2
23=	Chico Serra	1
23=	Jacques Laffite	1
23=	Mauro Baldi	1

Constructors Championship
1	McLaren-Ford	54
2	Ferrari	52
3	Renault	38
4=	Brabham-BMW	36
4=	Williams-Ford	36
6	Lotus-Ford	20
7=	Ligier-Matra	11
7=	Tyrrell-Ford	11
9	Alfa Romeo	5
10	ATS-Ford	4
11=	Osella-Ford	3
11=	Arrows-Ford	3
13	Fittipaldi-Ford	1

1981 German Grand Prix

Hockenheim
2 August 1981

Lotus returned to the field with two new Lotus 87 chassis but on the long straights of Hockenheim it was always going to be the pure power of the turbo engines that ruled in qualifying, in particular the Renaults which had started to come good since their home win. Renault took pole for the third race running; Alain Prost with a career first pole position alongside team-mate Arnoux. The Williams cars were back on song, with Reutemann third and Jones fourth, then Pironi, outqualifying Villeneuve yet again in the Ferrari, and Piquet sixth in the Brabham. Laffite, Villeneuve and the two McLarens of Watson and de Cesaris completed the top ten. Both Fittipaldis, Gabbiani’s Osella and Alboreto’s Tyrrell would join the Toleman twins in parking up for Sunday’s race.

At the start, Prost got away well and kept the lead, but Reutemann got ahead of Arnoux, who then lost third to Pironi at the first chicane and at the Ostkurve Piquet tried to get through too, only to make contact. Arnoux pitted to replace a punctured right-rear tyre, while Piquet lost his position to Alan Jones. Then, on lap two, Pironi’s engine blew, so it was Prost leading from Reutemann, Jones, Piquet, Laffite, Villeneuve and Tambay’s Ligier.

After several frustrating races, Jones had the bit between his teeth and charged; passing Reutemann cleanly, he set off after Prost, caught him and a terrific scrap ensued as Jones tried everything to get past the Renault, which Prost was having to make as wide as possible – despite the Renault’s power advantage. Piquet

also got ahead of Reutemann and soon it was a three-way battle for the lead. On lap 21, Prost came to lap his hapless teammate Arnoux, who moved out of the way, but Alan Jones saw his chance and pulled a spectacular move to dash between the two Renaults and take the lead. Seven laps later, championship leader Reutemann was out with an engine failure, promoting Hector Rebaque to fifth.

The race remained fairly uneventful after that until, at about ⅔ distance, it began to rain and as Prost began to struggle to control his car, Piquet got past into second place. Then Jones’s engine started to misfire and he reluctantly headed for the pits, confounded by mechanical problems again, while Piquet swept through to take the win, with Prost second and Jacques Laffite picking up another podium finish for the resurgent Talbot Ligier team. Rebaque finished fourth in the other Brabham, with Cheever and Watson picking up the final points.

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Drivers Championship
1	Carlos Reutemann	43
2	Nelson Piquet	35
3	Jacques Laffite	25
4	Alan Jones	24
5	Gilles Villeneuve	21
6	John Watson	20
7	Alain Prost	19
8=	Riccardo Patrese	10
8=	Eddie Cheever	10
10=	Elio de Angelis	8
10=	Hector Rebaque	8
12	Didier Pironi	7
13=	Nigel Mansell	5
13=	René Arnoux	5
15	Marc Surer	4
16	Mario Andretti	3
17=	Patrick Tambay	1
17=	Andrea de Cesaris	1
17=	Slim Borgudd	1

Constructors Championship
1	Williams-Ford	67
2	Brabham-Ford	43
3	Ferrari	27
4	Talbot Ligier-Matra	25
5	McLaren-Ford	21
6	Renault	15
7	Lotus-Ford	13
8=	Arrows-Ford	10
8=	Tyrrell-Ford	10
10	Ensign-Ford	4
11	Alfa Romeo	3
12=	Theodore-Ford	1
12=	ATS-Ford	1