Canadian GP 1986

Canadian GP, 1986

The death of Elio de Angelis a month earlier had created an opening at Brabham and the team hired Derek Warwick who had been left out of work after Ayrton Senna refused to have him as his Lotus team mate. Marc Surer was also missing having been very seriously injured while competing on the Hessen Rally in a Ford RS200. Christian Danner was hired by Arrows but because of contractual problems had to race in Canada for Osella and so there was only one Arrows.

Qualifying resulted in pole position for Nigel Mansell's Williams-Honda with Ayrton Senna's Lotus-Renault right with him. Nelson Piquet was third in the second Williams while Alain Prost was fourth for McLaren ahead of Rene Arnoux (Ligier), Keke Rosberg (McLaren), Gerhard Berger (Benetton), Jacques Laffite (Ligier), Riccardo Patrese (Brabham) and Warwick. Michele Alboreto was 11th in his Ferrari.

In the morning warm-up Patrick Tambay suffered a suspension failure on his Lola-Ford and injured his feet in the resulting accident and so he did not start.

Mansell took the lead and with Senna holding up those behind him, Mansell seemed to be in a very strong position. Behind Senna were Prost, Piquet, Rosberg, Arnoux and the rest. Rosberg soon overtook Piquet. On the fifth lap Prost finally made it ahead of Senna and the Brazilian went wide and was pushed back to sixth behind Piquet and Arnoux. On lap 13 Rosberg overtook Prost for second and four laps later the Finn took the lead. His fuel consumption was too much., however, and so Rosberg had to back off which enabled Mansell and Prost to close up. As they came up to lap Jones on lap 22 Rosberg left a small gap and Mansell took the lead again. He pulled away to win the race.

Prost retook Rosberg for second place but he then had a slow pit stop caused by a sticking wheelnut and dropped back to fifth. He spent the rest of the race charging back to take second by the finish. Piquet was third with Rosberg fourth having had to slow to conserve fuel in the closing laps while the troubled Senna was fifth and Arnoux sixth.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
Nigel Mansell Williams-Honda  69 1h42m26.415s  
Alain Prost McLaren-TAG Porsche  69 1h42m47.074s  
Nelson Piquet Williams-Honda  69 1h43m02.677s  
Keke Rosberg McLaren-TAG Porsche  69 1h44m02.088s  
12 Ayrton Senna Lotus-Renault  68  
25 Rene Arnoux Ligier-Renault  68  
26 Jacques Laffite Ligier-Renault  68  
27 Michele Alboreto Ferrari  68  11 
Martin Brundle Tyrrell-Renault  67  18 
10 15 Alan Jones Lola-Hart  66  13 
11 Philippe Streiff Tyrrell-Renault  65  16 
12 29 Huub Rothengatter Zakspeed  63  23 
Riccardo Patrese Brabham-BMW  44 Turbo 
21 Piercarlo Ghinzani Osella-Alfa Romeo  43 Gearbox 22 
23 Andrea de Cesaris Minardi-Motori Moderni  40 Gearbox 20 
18 Thierry Boutsen Arrows-BMW  38 Electrics 12 
20 Gerhard Berger Benetton-BMW  34 Turbo Boost Pressure 
28 Stefan Johansson Ferrari  29 Accident 17 
11 Johnny Dumfries Lotus-Renault  28 Accident 15 
14 Jonathan Palmer Zakspeed  24 Engine 21 
Derek Warwick Brabham-BMW  20 Engine 10 
24 Alessandro Nannini Minardi-Motori Moderni  17 Turbo 19 
19 Teo Fabi Benetton-BMW  13 Battery 14 
22 Christian Danner Osella-Alfa Romeo  Turbo 24 
ns 16 Patrick Tambay Lola-Hart   Accident/injury 25