[Race] The GROAT - Round 1 - 2016 Catalunya vs 1986 Adelaide vs 1992 Monaco

[crmalcolm]

All summaries from Wikipedia

2016 Catalunya
At the start, Nico Rosberg got around the outside of Hamilton in turn one, while Räikkönen lost positions due to a slow getaway. Sebastian Vettel got past Verstappen, but was immediately repassed on the approach to turn four. At the front of the race, coming out of turn three, Hamilton tried to retake the position from Rosberg. As the latter defended his position, Hamilton went off the track and spun and they collided at turn 4, ending the race of both Mercedes drivers. The collision resulted in a safety car period, with the order standing: Ricciardo, Verstappen, Sainz, Vettel and Räikkönen. The safety car came in at the end of lap four. Vettel got past Sainz on lap eight and Räikkönen tried to follow suit two laps later, but was forced off track into turn two. He completed the move one lap later at the same spot. Sainz and Button were the first to come into the pit lane for new tyres on lap 12, followed by race leader Ricciardo one lap later, making Verstappen the first Dutchman to lead a Grand Prix, before he came in another lap later. When Vettel made a pit stop on lap 16, he emerged third behind the two Red Bull drivers, all on the medium compound tyre.
By lap 20, Sebastian Vettel was closing the gap to the two Red Bulls ahead of him, coming within three seconds of Verstappen. On lap 22, Nico Hülkenberg retired when his power unit caught fire and he had to stop on the sidelines. While Massa had fought from 18th on the grid into tenth, his teammate Bottas was lying fifth by lap 25, ahead of Sainz. On lap 28, Ricciardo was again the first of the front runners to pit, taking on the soft compound. Vettel came in two laps later, making the same choice in tyres. This left Verstappen to lead Kimi Räikkönen, as it emerged that both would run on a different strategy, pitting only twice in contrast to the three stopping Vettel and Ricciardo. On lap 34, the gap between the two leaders was 2.1 seconds, before Verstappen came in on the following lap. Räikkönen responded one lap later, emerging behind Verstappen. On lap 39, Vettel came in for his third and final stop, while Ricciardo stayed out for another four laps. When he returned to the track, he was behind Vettel, but on fresher tyres.

While Räikkönen closed on Verstappen at the front, Fernando Alonso's home race ended on lap 47, pulling over to the side of the track at turn three. Räikkönen managed to get into the one-second window to activate the drag reduction system (DRS), as Vettel was eight seconds behind him with Ricciardo closing on him in fourth place. By lap 57, Ricciardo was close enough to use DRS as well, but unable to pass. Three laps later, Ricciardo made an attempt at overtaking into turn one, but braking too late left him running wide, allowing Vettel back through. As the front runners lapped backmarkers, Kvyat, after scoring the first fastest lap for himself and Toro Rosso, overtook Gutiérrez for tenth place. Two laps from finish, Ricciardo suffered a puncture and was forced to pit, but retained fourth place ahead of Bottas. On the last lap, Renault drivers Kevin Magnussen and Jolyon Palmer collided, but both made it to the finish. As Verstappen crossed the finish line, he became the youngest ever and first Dutch race winner in Formula One.


1986 Adelaide
Mansell took pole position for the race with a time of 1 minute 18.403 seconds. Piquet and Lotus's Ayrton Senna were the only drivers within a second of Mansell's time. Prost was fourth, 1.2 seconds behind.

The prospect of a three-way battle for the Drivers' Championship crown attracted a capacity crowd of 150,000 to the Adelaide circuit.

Mansell started from pole position but yielded the lead to Ayrton Senna's Lotus at the second corner on lap 1 and fell behind both Piquet and Keke Rosberg on the same lap. Piquet also overtook Senna on lap 1 to take the lead but it would last only six laps as on lap 7, Rosberg took the lead from Piquet and began to build a sizeable gap between himself and the rest of the field.

On lap 23 Piquet spun, although no damage was sustained to the car, and he continued the race despite dropping back several places. Prost suffered a puncture a few laps later and he dropped to fourth position after having to pit. Piquet charged back through the field, passing Mansell for second place on lap 44, but Prost closed on the two Williams cars and, with 25 laps to go, all three championship contenders were running together in positions 2, 3 and 4.

The battle became one for the lead on lap 63 when Rosberg suffered a right rear tyre failure and retired from the race. Rosberg later revealed that he would never have won the race anyway unless Prost failed to finish or had sufficient problem not to be able to challenge, as he had promised Prost and the team that he would give best to his teammate to help his bid to win back-to-back championships. Prost had just passed Mansell for third which became second when Rosberg retired, with Piquet now leading. Mansell only needed a third-place finish to win the championship.

Mansell was still in third position when, on lap 64, his left rear tyre exploded at 180 mph (290 km/h) on the high-speed Brabham Straight when he used his overtake boost to attempt to lap the Ligier of Philippe Alliot, sending a shower of sparks flying behind him and severely damaging his left rear suspension. The Williams coasted to a stop in the run-off area at the end of the straight, Mansell managing to avoid hitting anything. Fearing the same happening to the second car, Williams called Piquet to the pits and Prost took the lead. Piquet would make a late charge, closing the gap from 15.484 seconds with 2 laps remaining to just 4.205 at the finish and Prost claimed both the race and the World Championship. Prost had so little fuel left that he pulled up only metres past the finish line.

In his last race for Ferrari, Stefan Johansson completed the podium in third place, albeit a lap down on Prost and Piquet. Martin Brundle ran out of fuel as he crossed the line in fourth place in his Tyrrell-Renault. His teammate Philippe Streiff finished fifth 2 laps down, while Johnny Dumfries finished sixth in his Lotus-Renault.

By winning, Alain Prost became the first and so far only driver to ever win the Australian Grand Prix in both non-championship and World Championship form, having won the non-championship 1982 Australian Grand Prix run for Formula Pacific cars at the Calder Park Raceway in Melbourne.

This was the last race for the Renault turbo engine, the French company being the pioneers in F1 turbocharging back in 1977, as well as Renault's last Formula One race as an engine supplier until their return with Williams at the 1989 Brazilian Grand Prix. It was also the last Formula One race for Australia's 1980 World Champion Alan Jones and his teammate Patrick Tambay, and the last race for Team Haas, whom both Jones and Tambay drove for. It was also the last race for Lotus driver Johnny Dumfries, Osella's Allen Berg, Zakspeed's Huub Rothengatter, and 1982 World Champion Keke Rosberg.



1992 Monaco
The conditions for the race were overcast, but warm and dry. The drivers took to the track on Sunday morning for a 30-minute warm-up session and Williams driver Patrese finished fastest with Mansell down in fifth. Alboreto performed strongly in his Footwork to finish the session second, but his team-mate Aguri Suzuki was sent to hospital for checks after crashing his FA13 at Tabac. The Japanese driver was later pronounced fit to race.

The formation lap started at 15:30 local time. 26 cars qualified for the race, but only 25 took to the grid for the start as Gianni Morbidelli couldn't start his car during the warm-up lap and subsequently had to start from the pit lane.

At the start, Senna passed Patrese into the St. Devote corner. Schumacher also passed Berger into the first corner. Martini also experienced his second crash of the weekend within the opening lap by running into the barrier on the exit of Mirabeau. The order at the end of lap one was Mansell in first, followed by Senna, Patrese, Alesi, Schumacher and Berger. Morbidelli joined the race a couple of laps down but only managed one lap before the gearbox again caused problems and forced him to retire for good.

Moreno had moved up to nineteenth place thanks to the six earlier retirements but was forced to retire on lap 11 in the pits due to engine problems with the Judd GV V10. Patrese began to attack Senna but then began to drop back with gearbox troubles. On lap 12, Schumacher tried to pass Alesi in the Loews Hairpin and the two collided, and an electronic box was damaged in Alesi's car. Alesi continued to stay in fifth for another 16 laps with Schumacher getting ahead of him, before the damage forced him to retire on lap 28, this promoted Berger to fifth. Martin Brundle was chasing Berger, but he made an error in Nouvelle Chicane and not only suffered a puncture but also damaged the Benetton's front wing and had to pit for repairs, giving sixth place to Ivan Capelli. On lap 32 Berger had to retire when his gearbox failed.

On lap 60 Alboreto made a mistake and spun in front of Senna's McLaren-Honda, nearly causing a collision between them. In avoiding Alboreto's Footwork, Senna lost nearly 10 seconds.

Ivan Capelli was running in fifth place despite having been lapped by Nigel Mansell, however on lap 61 he spun at Casino Square, damaging the steering arm. When he reached the swimming pool complex the damage caused him to spin and slide backwards wedging his Ferrari into barrier before Rascasse at a 45-degree angle. His retirement reminded the BBC F1 commentary team of the speculation regarding his future with Ferrari, which had been prominent before the race weekend.

Mansell led the race in his Williams FW14B-Renault up until lap 70, but then suffered a loose wheel nut and was forced into the pits, emerging behind Senna's McLaren. Mansell, on fresh tyres, set a lap record almost two seconds quicker than Senna's and closed from 5.2 to 1.9 seconds in only two laps. The pair duelled around the circuit for the final three laps but Mansell could find no way past, finishing just two-tenths of a second behind the Brazilian. It was Senna's fourth consecutive win at Monaco and fifth overall, equalling Graham Hill's record. Patrese took the final podium position after just holding off Schumacher's Benetton who finished fourth.

[BTCC frog]

Adelaide 1986. What a brilliant finale that was (Autosport rated it second-best finale after Brazil 2008), although I'm not quite sure how Williams managed to throw that championship away.

[S griffin]

2016 Spain was the dawning of a new era, 1992 Monaco was proof again you don't necessarily need overtaking to create excitement

However for sheer drama and excitement, you can't beat 86 Adelaide