1985 German Grand Prix


The 1985 German Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Nürburgring on 4 August 1985. It was the ninth race of the 1985 Formula One season.
This was the first German Grand Prix that was held on the new GP-Strecke section of the track that replaced the old Südschleife section that had not been used since 1970. It was also the first time in nine years the German GP was held at Nürburgring; previously the German GP was held on the dangerous and very long Nordschleife section of the track up until 1976, and at that race Niki Lauda had a near-fatal accident in his Ferrari that forced the Formula One circus to move to the safer, shorter and faster Hockenheimring. The GP-Strecke would not host another Grand Prix until it hosted the 1995 European Grand Prix, and would not host the German Grand Prix again until 2009.
Michele Alboreto won the race, his fifth and last F1 victory. This event was the first occasion on which an onboard camera was used in a race; one was attached to François Hesnault's Renault. That car was not eligible for championship points, and this race marked the last time, as of the end of the 2019 season, that an F1 team entered three cars for a race.
As it was the German Grand Prix Tyrrell team boss Ken Tyrrell gave his German driver Stefan Bellof use of the Renault powered Tyrrell 014 for the weekend instead of the car's usual driver Martin Brundle who was given Bellof's Cosworth powered 012 to drive. To get around a FISA rule that a team and driver can not run more than 2 engines in the one chassis during a season, Tyrrell simply switched the drivers from one car to the other but not their car numbers meaning Bellof drove in car #3 and Brundle in car #4. Bellof qualified the turbo powered car 19th while Brundle was 26th and last with the Cosworth V8, some 10.2 seconds of Fabi's pole time and 6.4 seconds slower than his teammate in his usual car, something Brundle was reported to be not happy with.
This was to be the last Grand Prix for Manfred Winkelhock: the German fatally crashed his Porsche 962C sportscar at the 1000 km of Mosport in Canada the following week.

Classification

Qualifying

A surprise pole position went to Teo Fabi, the first of his career and the only pole for the Toleman team. He set his pole time during the Friday qualifying session; rain on Saturday meant that none of the drivers could improve their times.
PosNoDriverConstructorQ1Q2Gap
119 Teo FabiToleman-Hart1:17.429—
228 Stefan JohanssonFerrari1:18.6161:46.919+1.187
32 Alain ProstMcLaren-TAG1:18.7251:43.088+1.296
46 Keke RosbergWilliams-Honda1:18.7811:39.547+1.352
512 Ayrton SennaLotus-Renault1:18.7921:36.471+1.363
67 Nelson PiquetBrabham-BMW1:18.8021:49.347+1.373
711 Elio de AngelisLotus-Renault1:19.1201:29.714+1.691
827 Michele AlboretoFerrari1:19.1941:41.490+1.765
922 Riccardo PatreseAlfa Romeo1:19.338+1.909
105 Nigel MansellWilliams-Honda1:19.4751:42.050+2.046
118 Marc SurerBrabham-BMW1:19.5581:38.330+2.129
121 Niki LaudaMcLaren-TAG1:19.5621:44.330+2.133
1326 Jacques LaffiteLigier-Renault1:19.656+2.227
1425 Andrea de CesarisLigier-Renault1:19.7381:39.623+2.309
1518 Thierry BoutsenArrows-BMW1:19.7811:54.674+2.352
1615 Patrick TambayRenault1:19.9171:33.373+2.488
1717 Gerhard BergerArrows-BMW1:20.6661:41.131+3.237
1823 Eddie CheeverAlfa Romeo1:21.0741:32.376+3.645
193 Stefan BellofTyrrell-Renault1:21.21914:04.270+3.790
2016 Derek WarwickRenault1:21.2371:08.604+3.808
2110 Philippe AlliotRAM-Hart1:22.017+4.588
229 Manfred WinkelhockRAM-Hart1:22.6071:51.109+5.178
2314 François HesnaultRenault1:23.161+5.732
2430 Jonathan PalmerZakspeed1:24.2171:51.833+6.788
2524 Huub RothengatterOsella-Alfa Romeo1:26.478+9.049
264 Martin BrundleTyrrell-Ford1:27.6211:47.820+10.192
DNQ29 Pierluigi MartiniMinardi-Motori Moderni1:40.506+23.077

Race

Lap leaders

33, Ayrton Senna 11, Michele Alboreto 23

Championship standings after the race

;Drivers' Championship standings
;Constructors' Championship standings