How the 1986 Australian GP played out in the pitlane

A tense title battle in 1986 between Nigel Mansell, Nelson Piquet and eventual winner Alain Prost came to a conclusion in the Adelaide season finale, as Prost's victory meant that he became the first back-to-back title winner since Jack Brabham in 1960. But what's it like to be heavily involved in such a tight and terse finale? Our technical guru Tim Wright was Alain Prost's race engineer at the time, and has kindly recounted the events as they unfolded on that weekend in Australia... We arrived in Adelaide knowing that there was only an outside chance of winning the championship. The season had been tough with the Williams pairing of Mansell and Piquet having the best of the first half of the season, and although we at McLaren picked up good results in the middle, Williams again were incredibly strong towards the end. In amongst all this was Ayrton Senna in the Lotus, so the finale was a tense affair. However, we should have been in a much stronger position, but we'd had bad results in Germany (running out of fuel, below) and in Italy, where Prost was ultimately disqualified. Alain Prost, McLaren MP4/2C ran out of fuel Photo by: Sutton Images Alain Prost pushes his McLaren MP4-2C TAG after running out of fuel on the last lap Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch Alain Prost pushes his McLaren MP4-2C TAG after running out of fuel on the last lap Photo by: Motorsport Images At Monza, Alain had been on the front row, but when sitting on the grid the engine refused to fire up and the dashboard was blank. He ran to take the spare car, which we had radioed to the mechanics to bring to the end of the pitlane, but the stewards decided half way through the race that they would black flag Alain as it was not allowed to change cars once the green flag was shown. When you go to Adelaide in October, you expect the weather to be good as it had been in '85, but this year it was overcast and threatening to rain every day. The other strange thing was that, when he turned up at the circuit, Alain was not in a good mood. His luggage had gone missing and he wasn't feeling well, so told me he was going off to play golf instead. Ron Dennis, McLaren Chief Executive, and Alain Prost Photo by: Sutton Images Practice and first qualifying showed that both the McLarens were running well and we felt confident, until it rained heavily on the Saturday morning. Ultimately the circuit was cleaned of all its rubber and grip and we ended up with both Williams on the front row, with Alain fourth behind Ayrton [Senna] and Keke Rosberg [Prost's teammate] seventh. The warm-up went well and the confidence was back, but Goodyear, who had brought a softer compound to this race, then announced that its engineers weren't confident that the 'C' tyre would go the whole distance. However, having looked at more information after the warm-up they changed their mind again. We had mixed feelings about this and convened a quick meeting with Tony Shakespeare, of Goodyear, who assured us that they really were now confident in the tyres. Nigel Mansell, Williams FW11 Honda leads the field on the warm up lap Photo by: Motorsport Images The race started with Mansell, Senna and Piquet racing off into a healthy lead, with Prost and Rosberg in pursuit. Keke had decided that, as this was to be his last race, he would push to the limit and after a few laps had soon taken a commanding lead. Alain made steady progress and when Piquet spun he was up to second place – we were looking good. Then things started to go wrong. Alain suffered a puncture when he touched Berger's car, which was limping back to the pits. Alain pitted for four tyres and rejoined in fourth place, where he stayed until Keke suddenly slowed on the back straight, thinking that his engine had expired. Alain Prost, McLaren MP4/2C TAG Porsche takes a pit stop on the way to victory Photo by: Motorsport Images Keke Rosberg, McLaren MP4/2C Photo by: Sutton Images But what Keke heard was actually the right rear tyre delaminating and thumping against the floor, but he hadn't seen this in his mirror and so abandoned his car. Alain had just passed Mansell and [Stefan] Johansson in the Ferrari to claim second place behind Piquet, but then the real drama unfolded when Mansell's rear tyre exploded almost in the same place where Keke had suffered his failure. We couldn't believe our luck and now felt that Williams would be worried about the state of Piquet's tyres. Goodyear then stepped in and advised Patrick Head that they should pit Piquet as a precaution, which they duly did. Nigel Mansell, Williams FW11 Photo by: Sutton Images Nigel Mansell, Williams FW11 returns to the pits after losing the championship Photo by: Sutton Images That let Alain into the lead, but there wasn't time for elation. The Bosch fuel monitoring system we used that was still in early days of development was telling us that we were on the limit to finish the race. The last few laps were agony as we watched the fuel consumption go into the red as much as minus 5 litres, so we feared the worst – especially as Piquet, now on fresher rubber, was quickly catching Alain. Alain Prost, McLaren MP4/2C TAG Porsche Photo by: Motorsport Images Checker Flag Photo by: Motorsport Images We calculated that Alain could afford to drop his pace, which he did, and as the last section of the lap inside Victoria Park is a series of twisty corners, this helped to slosh what remaining fuel there was into the corners of the fuel tank where the slave pumps were situated. Piquet had closed the gap to four seconds by the last lap, so we just held our collective breaths for the car to keep going...and of course it did; Alain crossed the line to become world champion against all the odds. Read Also: Gallery: All of Alain Prost's F1 race wins Gallery: All 33 Formula 1 world champions It was the earlier stop for tyres that had worked in our favour, but it hadn't seemed fortunate at the time! For me, as his engineer, it was the most exhausting and exhilarating race of my career and one that I will never forget. Podium: race winner Alain Prost, McLaren TAG Porsche, second place Nelson Piquet, Williams Honda, third place Stefan Johansson, Ferrari Photo by: Motorsport Images

Series	Formula 1
Author	Jake Boxall-Legge

Motorsport.com's Prime content

How the 1986 Australian GP played out in the pitlane

The 1986 Australian Grand Prix was the climax of a tense title battle between McLaren's Alain Prost and Williams duo Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet - but what was it like to be involved? Autosport's technical expert TIM WRIGHT recounts his experiences...

About this article