“Mass was obviously not thinking along these lines and was pressing on as hard as he could. Andretti saw Mass in his mirrors, clearly going to catch up as they went into the left-hand corner after the pits. Keeping a central-towards-left line into the braking area Andretti expected Mass to charge down on the right-hand side, and take a normal line into the corner. Mass assumed Andretti was still travelling fast and would take the normal line, so headed for the left of the Lotus 80.
“As Andretti turned into the corner he looked in his right-hand mirror and was surprised not to see Mass in it. The Arrows was on the left of the Lotus and its right-rear wheel hit the Lotus left-front and they both went off, fortunately with not too much damage. Even so it resulted in the Lotus 80 not racing, and possibly not winning for it should have been ahead of Scheckter on the starting grid in row three, and Scheckter won the race from row four.”
If only the outcome had been so harmless for Villeneuve in 1982.
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