Grand Prix Gold: Austrian GP 1986

By:

Nigel Roebuck

Aug 18, 2011, 6:27 PM

The world's most challenging track combined with 1400bhp turbo-charged F1 cars - can only mean the Osterreichring. Gerhard Berger's Benetton nearly took a famous win, but in the end it was Prost who scored a 24 victory

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By 4pm last Sunday afternoon Nelson Piquet had left the circuit. It was his 34th birthday, and he had nothing to celebrate. Nigel Mansell, too was long gone, and so was Ayrton Senna. Keke Rosberg was not in the best of moods. On Alain Prost's face was a broad grin. This had been a good one to win.

Elsewhere some, like Ferrari and Lola and Arrows, smiled for the first time in a while, for they had got something from the afternoon. At Benetton there was something close to despair, for their cars had dominated qualifying and - while all was well with them - the race. Berger put on a brilliant display at home, led, but finished seventh.