1986 Austrian Grand Prix

Seventh out of ten

The Grand Prix circus finished a hectic ten week schedule at the Osterreichring on August 17th during which period no fewer than seven rounds of the World Championship had taken place on two Continents. To say that the pressure was beginning to tell on personnel and equipment would be something of an understatement by the time the transporters were packed up after Alain Prost's success on this superbly spectacular circuit in the Styrian countryside.

When the history books are written about the 1986 season, I wonder just how many historians will recall the significance and the organisational pressure of those seven midsummer weeks. When we all trailed off to Montreal for the Canadian Grand Prix, it was in the wake of Nigel Mansell's first victory of the season. Nelson Piquet's Williams-Honda had stopped with imminent engine trouble whilst commandingly in control of the Belgian GP at Spa Francorchamps and Mansell stepped into the breach like a good team-mate should do. But Piquet was the class of the field and had been under no pressure at all. Many people believed he was already stroking his way to the World Championship.