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  • 18/05/2025
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Transcript
00:00:00You always hear great things about it, and when you arrive, you're not disappointed.
00:00:04They really do have miles of dikes that hold back the North Sea from their low, flat lands.
00:00:10Since 1830, 1,000 square miles have been reclaimed.
00:00:15Windmills are scattered across flowering countryside near charming villages
00:00:20built in the distinctive Dutch architecture.
00:00:23Amsterdam is a fabulous city.
00:00:25Lively, it has more canals than Venice.
00:00:28The people are friendly, and English is considered their second language.
00:00:33So Holland is a place that meets high expectations,
00:00:36and the same is true for their Formula One Grand Prix event.
00:00:41When people attend a championship GP,
00:00:44they expect international teams and drivers to challenge one another
00:00:48using the finest race machinery possible
00:00:51on a demanding track that requires perfect performances from men and equipment.
00:00:57Well, the Dutch Grand Prix fills the bill,
00:00:59especially with the Zandvoort circuit,
00:01:02which is considered one of the most challenging on the world tour.
00:01:06Second-gear hairpins, long 200-mile-an-hour straights,
00:01:10flat-out sweeping bends that test the driver's courage and ability
00:01:14to sense the most delicate changes from both car and track.
00:01:19A mistake here is usually a big one,
00:01:22especially in the appropriately named Tarzan Corner.
00:01:27It's located at the end of the extra-long pit straight,
00:01:30along which the cars accelerate for nearly a mile.
00:01:34Many a brave battle has been won and lost
00:01:37during only 2.5 seconds of super-hard braking
00:01:41from 200 miles an hour down to 60 for this on-the-limit curve.
00:01:47Recently, the corner has produced three spectacular accidents,
00:01:51with drivers hitting the Tarzan tire wall head-on
00:01:54at more than 150 miles an hour.
00:01:57Miraculously, all emerged from their totally shattered cars
00:02:01without serious injuries.
00:02:04Last year, many of the people felt
00:02:06that Alain Prost lost the world championship right here
00:02:10by trying too hard to squeeze past Nelson Piquet,
00:02:13eliminating them both from the 83 Dutch event.
00:02:17Even Grand Prix titles can be claimed or granted
00:02:21by this most difficult and favorite passing place.
00:02:24At Tarzan Corner, it's the cars' and drivers' ability
00:02:28to stop or de-accelerate that secures victory.
00:02:32Precise judgment to the millisecond
00:02:35of when to put on the binders is the key.
00:02:38A second too soon, and two cars will streak past.
00:02:41A second too late, and you're spinning in the sand.
00:02:45This is John Bisignano with Simon Taylor,
00:02:48about 20 miles directly west of Amsterdam
00:02:50in the beautiful seaside town of Zandvoort, Holland.
00:02:54We'll be your hosts for this ESPN Auto Racing 84
00:02:57coverage of the Dutch Grand Prix for Formula 1 race cars.
00:03:01During the next 90 minutes,
00:03:03Simon and I will be presenting the complete Grand Prix story,
00:03:06including driver interviews, technical reports,
00:03:09all the latest F1 updates,
00:03:11plus the fantastic Grand Prix race action.
00:03:14So please join us after these short messages
00:03:17when we return with hopefully the lucky 13th round
00:03:20of the 1984 season
00:03:22and a detailed look at the black magic of Formula 1.
00:03:28♪♪
00:03:33About the most powerful turbo motors,
00:03:35sophisticated suspensions, stiff chassis,
00:03:38effective brakes, and the latest aerodynamics.
00:03:41But all these features have only one medium of contact
00:03:44with the road, the four black patches
00:03:47where the tires meet the track.
00:03:49Even a driver's style and ability
00:03:51is subject to how well his tires are working
00:03:54and how well he manages them throughout an event.
00:03:58When all these components are in harmony with the tires,
00:04:01things turn to magic, lap times fall,
00:04:04and victory can be made to look easy.
00:04:07Getting the tires right is the black magic of Formula 1.
00:04:12Currently, there are three major tire companies
00:04:15gripped in a technical war for supremacy
00:04:17over the black magic.
00:04:19So far, it's been Michelin's year,
00:04:21scoring 10 wins for 12 starts
00:04:23via teams Brabham and McLaren.
00:04:26Goodyear, with 19 years of F1 experience,
00:04:29has pulled out all the stops
00:04:31to regain the mountaintop they enjoyed for so long.
00:04:35Pirelli has had moments of glory,
00:04:37but they need a strong team to carry through the effort.
00:04:41Basically, each of these manufacturers
00:04:44supply three kinds of F1 tires.
00:04:47Because Formula 1 races in the rain,
00:04:49wet tires are essential.
00:04:52The wets.
00:04:53Now, as you can see, this tire has a very deep tread pattern,
00:04:56deep grooves.
00:04:58What that allows for is the water to be expelled
00:05:00from underneath the tire,
00:05:02even at high speed going down the track.
00:05:04That helps stop aquaplaning.
00:05:07The compound is extremely soft,
00:05:09so soft that it'll actually heat up
00:05:12on a cold day and flooded track conditions.
00:05:15The problem with that is,
00:05:16if the track begins to dry out,
00:05:18this tire will be finished in just a few laps.
00:05:21And that's where the intermediate comes in.
00:05:23Again, another wet tire,
00:05:25but designed for partially dry and wet conditions.
00:05:29Deep grooves to stop the aquaplaning,
00:05:32but more rubber to put on the road and create more grip.
00:05:36The intermediate will actually last
00:05:38a complete Grand Prix race distance.
00:05:41The racing slick.
00:05:43This is the tire that does all the work.
00:05:46As you can see, there's no tread design whatsoever,
00:05:49no grooves.
00:05:50If there was a tread here,
00:05:52that wouldn't be rubber touching the ground,
00:05:54that would be an airspace.
00:05:56And the whole principle of this tire
00:05:58is to put as much sticky rubber compound
00:06:00in contact with the track as possible.
00:06:03Now, they come in about five different categories
00:06:06for the different circuits and current track conditions.
00:06:09And that is where the selection becomes extremely important.
00:06:13The qualifier.
00:06:14As you can see, it is of the slick-type race design
00:06:17with no treads.
00:06:19And the compound is extremely sticky.
00:06:21In fact, as you can see,
00:06:23it picks up virtually everything it comes in contact with.
00:06:26Now, each driver is given two sets of these tires
00:06:29for each qualifying session.
00:06:30And he must do his best lap in only two or three tries.
00:06:35After that, the tire will be completely gone.
00:06:37That's a dangerous situation for most drivers to be in.
00:06:41Now, the reason for the rear tires to be wider than the front
00:06:45is because the back of the car takes about 65% of the weight.
00:06:49As you can see, the engine is located in the rear.
00:06:52Also, under acceleration, if the tire was more narrow,
00:06:56it would just spin going down the track.
00:06:58Very dramatic, but not the quick way of doing it.
00:07:01The centrifugal force of cornering
00:07:03is mostly generated at the rear of the car.
00:07:05So the wider the tire,
00:07:07the more sticky rubber compound you have
00:07:09touching the surface of the track.
00:07:12Hopefully, the black magic begins
00:07:14by selecting the proper tires
00:07:16for the track's surface and general conditions.
00:07:19This is one of the most important judgment calls
00:07:21a driver, team manager, and their tire engineer
00:07:24must make throughout a Grand Prix weekend.
00:07:27Nothing is given more in-depth consideration
00:07:30because if you're not right on the tires,
00:07:32all the other settings are useless.
00:07:34We asked Derek Wark, driver of Team Renault, about the problem.
00:07:39How important are the tires to the success of a Grand Prix weekend?
00:07:43Very much so.
00:07:45Probably the single most important thing
00:07:47of the complete makeup of the car
00:07:49because in the race situation,
00:07:52if you don't pick the right tire,
00:07:54you have to end up either pit-stopping
00:07:56or just struggling on for the duration of the race.
00:08:00As for qualifying,
00:08:01we generally use what's known as a one-lap qualifier.
00:08:05And you go, you do your one-time lap,
00:08:08and after that, the tire is completely finished.
00:08:11And you get two sets of tires.
00:08:13So normally, the grid positions are set
00:08:16with four one-lap specials.
00:08:19What do you think of that system?
00:08:20First of all, it's a bit dangerous,
00:08:22and second, it's difficult to have one lap
00:08:24be your absolute quickest.
00:08:26That's right.
00:08:27Every driver likes to get into a rhythm
00:08:29and do three or four laps,
00:08:30and then he can get his ultimate out of himself.
00:08:33But as far as the one-lap specials are concerned,
00:08:36the tires can make up for more than what the driver can.
00:08:40You get so much grip in that one lap
00:08:43that it way outlays any other possibility
00:08:46of using a tire that's maybe good for four or five laps.
00:08:49Even though you can put a better lap together,
00:08:52the tire will just produce so much grip
00:08:55that you have to use a qualifier.
00:08:57Derek, once you've made the choice,
00:08:59you still have to manage the tires throughout the race.
00:09:03What's that process like?
00:09:04Sometimes very difficult.
00:09:06Like my last race in Austria,
00:09:07we actually chose the wrong tires.
00:09:10And after about eight laps,
00:09:13I started to blister the left rear,
00:09:14and I could see it in the mirrors.
00:09:16And you just have to sit there for as long as possible
00:09:19and see the blisters growing bigger and bigger,
00:09:22hoping to get over a certain distance
00:09:24so you can come in, change tires again,
00:09:27and get to the finish,
00:09:28because you obviously don't want two pit stops.
00:09:30That can be a bit of a disturbing situation to sit there,
00:09:33sometimes at 180 miles an hour plus,
00:09:36and watch your tires slowly falling away on you.
00:09:40Well, you know, it's down to you
00:09:43choosing the wrong tires in the first place.
00:09:45So I suppose you have to bear it up
00:09:47when that actually happens to you.
00:09:49In Austria, it was quite hairy,
00:09:51because you have some very fast corners,
00:09:53170, 180 mile an hour corners.
00:09:55And when you know you have a blister,
00:09:57it's sometimes very difficult to go into that corner
00:09:59as fast as you normally would.
00:10:01There's really very few tire failures nowadays.
00:10:04Sometimes you pick something up on the track,
00:10:06which will cause it to deflate.
00:10:08But have you ever had an accident
00:10:09because of a tire failure?
00:10:11No, never.
00:10:12I've blamed the tires many times, but never...
00:10:14It's easy.
00:10:15Yes, very easy.
00:10:16I mean, the technology that the tire companies have nowadays,
00:10:19I think they've overcome any kind of problem
00:10:22of disintegration during the course of a lap.
00:10:25The only thing you get, as you say,
00:10:27is hit some debris and get a puncture.
00:10:29Little is left to magic in the design, construction,
00:10:32development, testing, and racing of a Grand Prix tire.
00:10:36We talked to Lee Gogg,
00:10:38manager of International Racing for Goodyear,
00:10:40about their tremendous Formula One effort.
00:10:43Lee, what's involved in developing a new race tire?
00:10:48Well, John, it's a matter of experience first.
00:10:51Our engineers, of course, have some sort of an experience
00:10:54in what they need and what they would like to have.
00:10:57Compounds are mixed maybe like a cake.
00:10:59They try different ingredients,
00:11:01different amounts of certain ingredients,
00:11:03different constructions,
00:11:04different stiffnesses, sidewalls, and so on.
00:11:06So whenever our engineers think they have a better idea,
00:11:10they'll write what we call the specs back in the office,
00:11:14build the tire.
00:11:15And, of course, all this takes
00:11:16approximately a week or maybe ten days.
00:11:19Build the tire.
00:11:20We have to ship it to the racetrack
00:11:21and put it on the racetrack
00:11:23and compare it against something proven ahead of time.
00:11:26And it's a continuing operation.
00:11:27So the real testing actually comes on track.
00:11:30There's a lot of testing done in the office
00:11:32and machines back in the factory,
00:11:34but the real test is always at the track.
00:11:36In other words, it's got to show on the track.
00:11:38Theory moving into practice.
00:11:40Yes, it's a combination of theory.
00:11:42Theory has a lot to do with it,
00:11:44but the results on a track is the only criteria you go by.
00:11:47Ali, you have a tremendous logistical program here
00:11:51that goes with your racing setup.
00:11:54How many tires do you bring to a racetrack?
00:11:57Well, this year we're bringing probably 1,100 to 1,200 tires.
00:12:01We have 12 cars we're supporting.
00:12:03This includes qualifying tires and rain tires.
00:12:07We make them all in Akron, Ohio,
00:12:09and unfortunately most of the races
00:12:11are in Europe, South America, or Africa.
00:12:13So it's a tremendous logistic expense and job
00:12:16getting them to the right place at the right time.
00:12:18Are those all air freighted then, right from Akron?
00:12:21Air freight bill is horrendous.
00:12:23I mean, we're supporting some airlines, I'm sure.
00:12:25Well, you must have great marketing rewards then.
00:12:28Do you think it pays off in a marketing concept?
00:12:32I think it does, certainly.
00:12:34Especially here in Europe,
00:12:36where the people are so proud of their cars and tires.
00:12:39Most tires are round and black,
00:12:41and you can't say much about them
00:12:42unless you can prove or say they've done this
00:12:44or they've done that, they've beaten this guy
00:12:46or that fella, they're so fast.
00:12:48Yes, it's definitely rewarding.
00:12:49It's the only reason we're doing it.
00:12:51Formula One black magic comes in two categories,
00:12:54good and bad.
00:12:56A team's racing tires can be their strongest
00:12:59or weakest link in the chain to Grand Prix success.
00:13:04Stay with us.
00:13:05After these short messages,
00:13:07Simon Taylor will return with the qualifying story
00:13:10here at Zandvoort.
00:13:22We're in the last quarter of the 1984 Grand Prix season now,
00:13:26and here at Zandvoort, championship points
00:13:28are absolutely crucial for the two men
00:13:31who are fighting over the championship title.
00:13:33Niki Lauda and Alain Prost.
00:13:36Both of them drive for McLaren.
00:13:38But the man that neither of them can ever forget
00:13:40is Nelson Piquet.
00:13:42The Brabham driver is always very fast.
00:13:44For a lot of the season, he's been the fastest.
00:13:47Of the three Grand Prix races that he's finished without trouble,
00:13:51he's won two and finished second in the other.
00:13:54His chances of winning the championship title
00:13:56are now almost finished.
00:13:58But he wants pole position.
00:14:01And the battle throughout qualifying
00:14:03for who will get the pole between Alain Prost and Nelson Piquet
00:14:07is as good as any we've seen this season.
00:14:10In the first day of qualifying,
00:14:12Piquet and the Brabham were easily fastest.
00:14:15Prost set a stunning time on Saturday.
00:14:18Piquet went out to try to better it,
00:14:20but spun off the track.
00:14:22And it was when the news of that spin came through
00:14:24that the little Frenchman knew that the pole position was his.
00:14:29Alain Prost in his fourth pole position
00:14:32during the Grand Prix season here in Zandvoort.
00:14:34Alain, you were a second and a half faster today than yesterday.
00:14:38Where did you find that much time in this afternoon's qualifying?
00:14:42Yesterday we chose some very small turbos on the engine,
00:14:45and I think it was good for the delay,
00:14:47but not enough power.
00:14:49So for qualifying, where we need to put much more boost,
00:14:52we changed to a bigger turbo.
00:14:55And with a fresh engine, it was much, much better.
00:14:57Alain, do you enjoy trying to go out
00:14:59and get the last tenth of a second out of your car?
00:15:02The qualifying process, do you like that?
00:15:05Yeah, I like that.
00:15:06But this morning I tried to set up the car for race,
00:15:09and I chose many tires, many race tires.
00:15:12So I did not know this afternoon
00:15:14if I was able to do the pole position or not.
00:15:16So I was very happy to get it,
00:15:18because it's important for the race.
00:15:20That means my car is almost perfect.
00:15:23Alain, your teammate, Niki Lauda,
00:15:25took over the World Championship lead in the last event.
00:15:28You're going to push harder now than ever before
00:15:30to try and get nine more points.
00:15:32I have to push a bit harder, but it's not a big problem,
00:15:35because I like to push hard.
00:15:37It's natural.
00:15:38Yeah, that's natural.
00:15:39I don't like to stay like I did for the last few races.
00:15:42And even, you know, I was leading the race in Brands,
00:15:45and I was in a good position in Zellweg,
00:15:47but I have to push a bit harder now.
00:15:50It's better for my character.
00:15:52Are you pleased with the track here in Zandvoort?
00:15:55Last year, you had some problems here.
00:15:58Do you have a reoccurring nightmare about that?
00:16:00No problem for me. It's a new year,
00:16:03and I think it was more a problem for all the people
00:16:06around the track than for me.
00:16:08I mean, it's only an accident,
00:16:11like everybody and every driver gets sometimes.
00:16:14Maybe I did a mistake, maybe not,
00:16:16but I did not try to find some excuse.
00:16:19I lost the race, and I don't think I lost the championship
00:16:22because of this race.
00:16:24Everybody is reminded of this race,
00:16:27but I don't care.
00:16:29That's another one, and I want to win it.
00:16:31Well, tomorrow we hope that the great battle
00:16:33that you and Nelson had last year reoccurs,
00:16:35but all the way to the checkered flag.
00:16:37That would be best.
00:16:38Thank you. I think with Nelson it's no problem,
00:16:40and I hope to finish the race anyway,
00:16:42even if he's winning less.
00:16:43You're going to go play some golf now.
00:16:45Is that a relaxing way for you to spend your Saturday afternoon?
00:16:49I need to relax because it's more and more difficult for me.
00:16:53Everybody, especially the French press, French people,
00:16:56are waiting for the first champion,
00:16:58and I have more and more pressure,
00:17:00so I need to relax, but I'm in a very good shape.
00:17:03Despite his spin on Saturday,
00:17:06Nelson Piquet's Friday time was still good enough
00:17:08to put him on the front row of the grid with Alain Prost,
00:17:11although the Brazilian was no doubt disappointed
00:17:13not to have the pole.
00:17:16Nelson, you were trying very hard at the end there.
00:17:19I was starting with a car that was low on the power,
00:17:22and in the end we went for another car,
00:17:25and I didn't have much chance
00:17:27because I spun in the second corner of the lap
00:17:29and finished everything.
00:17:31Was that going out with absolutely cold tires
00:17:33and trying to get them heated up as soon as possible?
00:17:36No, it's normal.
00:17:38The tire's good enough for one lap,
00:17:40and if you don't do it, that's it.
00:17:42At the beginning of the lap, the tire's a little bit cold,
00:17:45but if you don't do that,
00:17:47before you finish the lap, you finish the tire.
00:17:49Of course, you and Alain Prost will be starting
00:17:51right next to each other tomorrow,
00:17:53and everyone remembers your battle here last year.
00:17:56How do you look back on that now, a year later?
00:18:01Well, now he's in a better position.
00:18:03He's much in front of the championship.
00:18:05He still has a good chance to win the championship.
00:18:07I don't, and I have nothing to lose.
00:18:11Now I try to do the race to win the race.
00:18:14Is it harder to keep your enthusiasm up
00:18:17for going as hard as you can
00:18:19when you know the championship is out of your grasp?
00:18:22No, it's completely opposite,
00:18:24because when you don't have the championship and the balance,
00:18:27then you can try much harder.
00:18:29You can even, if you lose a race,
00:18:33you don't lose a championship.
00:18:35If you make a mistake, you don't lose a championship.
00:18:37You lose only one race.
00:18:39So you can actually take more chances
00:18:41than if every race was going for the championship.
00:18:43Oh, yeah, no doubt.
00:18:45You're in a good position.
00:18:46Yes.
00:18:47You do.
00:18:48You like going out and just taking every last second
00:18:50of every last lap possible.
00:18:52What about this circuit, Nelson?
00:18:55Well, every year it suits the car very well,
00:18:57suits the Brabham very well,
00:18:59and I've been driving, been doing very good races,
00:19:05but it's not my best circuit.
00:19:09So, Prost's McLaren and Piquet's Brabham
00:19:12on the front row for the Dutch Grand Prix
00:19:14and a recipe for a great race.
00:19:16News of the rest of the starting grid
00:19:18after this short message.
00:19:29If there were a consistency award for Grand Prix racing,
00:19:32the man who'd probably be winning it this year
00:19:34is the Italian Elio De Angelis
00:19:36with his Renault-powered Lotus.
00:19:38He's scored championship points
00:19:40in nine out of the 12 Grand Prixs so far this year,
00:19:44and he still has an outside chance
00:19:46of winning this year's title
00:19:48if the McLaren men run into a real bar of bad luck.
00:19:52This is Peter Waugh, the Lotus team manager,
00:19:55who's just announced that the brilliant young Brazilian
00:19:58Ayrton Senna will join Lotus next year.
00:20:00Nobody knows whether he's replacing Elio De Angelis
00:20:03or Nigel Mansell.
00:20:05They're still talking.
00:20:06But Elio De Angelis has got third position on the grid,
00:20:09ahead of the two Renaults.
00:20:11Derek Warwick, the Englishman,
00:20:13is once again marginally quicker
00:20:15than his teammate Patrick Tambay.
00:20:17But both the Renault drivers feel
00:20:19that their cars can still go faster,
00:20:21and they're not totally happy with their times.
00:20:24Warwick is currently sixth in the World Championship,
00:20:28but he's only scored points in five outings this year.
00:20:32So the Goodyear-shod Renault-powered Lotus
00:20:35is faster than both the Michelin-shod
00:20:38Renault-powered Renaults.
00:20:40And that's bound to mean an interesting battle
00:20:43during the race tomorrow.
00:20:45Three out of the first five qualifiers are Renault-powered.
00:20:48Is that a problem on a power circuit like this,
00:20:51to know that they have the same exact engine
00:20:54or the same amount of power to deal with as you do?
00:20:57Well, it shows that Renault is providing
00:21:00the same kind of equipment to all the teams,
00:21:03and so I think it's a good thing
00:21:06because it's a possibility to do a lot of development research,
00:21:10not only in your own team,
00:21:12but also in all the different teams.
00:21:14Sometimes it could be...
00:21:16I mean, you'd like to be the only one
00:21:19to use all that nice power,
00:21:21but, I mean, it's only fair.
00:21:23Renault is in racing for commercial reasons
00:21:26as well as the sporty ones,
00:21:28and it's only fair that all the teams
00:21:31be capable of using the Renault power.
00:21:33Can you see any difference in the chassis handling
00:21:36between the Lotus, which is Renault-powered,
00:21:39and your Renault?
00:21:41Do they have an advantage someplace else on the circuit?
00:21:44Well, I think it's probably fairly close to chassis.
00:21:47I think the biggest difference is obviously
00:21:50that one is equipped with Goodyears
00:21:52and the other one with Michelins.
00:21:54Whether that is a handicap for them or an asset, I don't know.
00:21:58They seem to have been the one team on Goodyear this year
00:22:02who have been capable of really developing the product,
00:22:06to really cope with the product,
00:22:08the new radial Goodyears.
00:22:10But if you look at the grid,
00:22:12it's basically all the front runners are all Michelin runners.
00:22:15Well, the Goodyears have shown extremely well in qualifying,
00:22:18but still, the Michelins this year
00:22:20have won so many of the races
00:22:22via Brabham and McLaren.
00:22:25I think we could...
00:22:27I hope not, but I think we could see a Goodyear win here.
00:22:30It's a track where Goodyear have always done very, very well.
00:22:33I remember last year,
00:22:35we were in an extremely good position with them.
00:22:38Hopefully, it's not going to be the case this year.
00:22:41Last year, you finished second here.
00:22:43A very good race.
00:22:45Does that help psychologically to come back to a track like this
00:22:48where you've had a good previous finish
00:22:50and come back to do battle again?
00:22:52Yes, it does, but you're really only coping
00:22:55with the equipment you have at the time you're doing the job.
00:22:58If I was sitting in an Osella,
00:23:01probably today I would not be very, very far up the grid
00:23:04and I would have some problem for the race.
00:23:06So, yes, in fact, I'm pretty happy
00:23:09and pretty optimistic for tomorrow,
00:23:11bearing in mind that I didn't miss the start last year
00:23:14and I should have won without that big mistake.
00:23:17You're right on schedule for your recovery plan
00:23:20from the broken ankle you talked about earlier.
00:23:23Yes, I thought that the belt bag would have been a nice proof of that.
00:23:28When I was with the leaders
00:23:31and when two of them were wounded,
00:23:34I was catching them pretty strongly
00:23:37and could have taken the lead probably and won the race.
00:23:40But in order to finish first, you must first finish
00:23:43and it's been my problem this year,
00:23:45always a few miles from home.
00:23:48Well, Niki Lauda, the current world championship leader,
00:23:52not as quick in practice as his teammate Alain Prost.
00:23:55Prost on pole, Lauda back in sixth place on the grid.
00:23:58After various problems in practice,
00:24:01he was quick, but just not quick enough.
00:24:03And that will no doubt be a point that's disappointed him.
00:24:06But we've seen Niki Lauda make storming starts
00:24:09from well down the grid in several races this year.
00:24:12And we'll have the full news of the race
00:24:15of the Dutch Grand Prix here at Zandvoort,
00:24:17here on ESPN Auto Racing 84,
00:24:20after these short messages.
00:24:31Stay at Zandvoort for the Dutch Grand Prix.
00:24:35It's round 13 of the long 16 race season,
00:24:38so we're into the final quarter of the world championship now.
00:24:42And that battle between Alain Prost and Niki Lauda,
00:24:45the McLaren teammates, is becoming very close indeed.
00:24:49Meanwhile, Nelson Piquet, relaxed about the fact
00:24:52that he's almost bound to lose his 1983 championship title,
00:24:56can now settle down to the business of scoring some race wins.
00:25:00The huge crowd pours in, mainly on foot,
00:25:03because the little seaside town of Zandvoort
00:25:06is one big traffic jam this weekend.
00:25:08And the best way to get to the track
00:25:10is to come by train and walk from the station.
00:25:1327 cars on the grid,
00:25:15with local hero Huub Rottengatter at the back
00:25:18and Alain Prost, of course, with the McLaren at the front.
00:25:22The incredibly successful McLaren team
00:25:25have won eight of the 12 Grand Prixs so far this year.
00:25:28Alain Prost has won four of those eight.
00:25:31And after so nearly winning the world championship last year
00:25:34and being beaten by this man, Nelson Piquet,
00:25:36he is absolutely determined to make 1984 his year.
00:25:40Piquet just wants to win races.
00:25:42He knows that the championship title is virtually gone for him.
00:25:45Elio de Angelis, however, still has an outside chance.
00:25:49And so on the third row of the grid,
00:25:51he's going to want to chalk up more points
00:25:54and perhaps get his first win of the year
00:25:56with the Renault-powered Lotus.
00:25:58Derek Warwick, a year which at the beginning
00:26:01looked as though it was going to be a wonderful one for him,
00:26:04but which since has been plagued by unreliability and bad luck,
00:26:08he's still sick with the championship on 23 points.
00:26:11His team-mate Patrick Tambay just behind him,
00:26:14fifth quickest, the aimable Frenchman,
00:26:16one of the more experienced men in Grand Prix racing,
00:26:19and only nine points to his name so far this year.
00:26:23And sixth on the grid is the legendary Austrian Niki Lauda.
00:26:2723 Grand Prix wins under his belt now
00:26:29and more championship points than any driver in history.
00:26:32And he's the current world championship leader.
00:26:36And as the cars go out on their final warm-up lap,
00:26:39let's look at the rest of the grid.
00:26:41On row four, the two Williams Hondas both together,
00:26:44so the Dallas winner Keke Rosberg is seventh,
00:26:48and Jacques Lafitte, his best grid position for some time, eighth.
00:26:52On the fifth row, Michele Alboreto in the faster of the two Ferraris,
00:26:56but neither of the Ferraris showing particularly well here in practice,
00:27:00and Theo Fabi, Nelson Piquet's team-mate, in Brabham number two.
00:27:05Then it's Thierry Bootsen in one of the Arrows BMWs,
00:27:08and Nigel Mansell in the second Lotus-Renault.
00:27:12Ayrton Senna, the Brazilian who'll be with Lotus next year,
00:27:15is on the seventh row with Andrea de Cesaris in the Ligier.
00:27:19Then it's René Arnoux's Ferrari and Winkelhock's ATS,
00:27:23Cheever and Patrese in the Alfa Romeos,
00:27:25Seurat's Arrows and Heino's Ligier,
00:27:28Ghinzani in the Osella,
00:27:30Dr. Jonathan Palmer in the Skull Bandit Ram,
00:27:33then Gartner, the Austrian in his Osella,
00:27:36then Stefan Bellof's Tyrrell, Stefan Johansson's Tyrrell,
00:27:39Philippe Alliot, the Frenchman in the other Ram,
00:27:42and right at the back, the Dutchman, Hugh Rottengatter,
00:27:45with his spirit heart painted orange,
00:27:48Dutch racing colours, specially for this race.
00:27:51Ahead of them, 71 laps of a 2.64 mile circuit
00:27:56that needs a strong engine, strong brakes, and a strong head.
00:28:01The starting procedure, as ever, a red light,
00:28:04followed by a green, which will unleash thousands of horsepower
00:28:08onto this circuit, which is so often slippery
00:28:11with the sand that's blown off the dunes onto the track.
00:28:15Tyre wear often a problem for that reason.
00:28:17There's the flag across the back which says that it's all clear.
00:28:20There is the red light, there is the green light,
00:28:22and Prost is first to move, but Piquet is making a good start.
00:28:26Piquet is alongside Prost, Piquet is ahead of Prost.
00:28:29And down into Tarzan Corner for the first time,
00:28:31Patrick Tambay has also made a good start with the Renault.
00:28:34It's Tambay third, it's Prost second, it's Nelson Piquet in the lead,
00:28:38Elio de Angelis is up there in fourth place,
00:28:40Derek Warwick is fifth, then it's the two Williams Hondas
00:28:44of Rosberg and Lafitte in sixth and seventh places.
00:28:47But look at this start, that's the current world champion
00:28:52carrying the number one, as the world champion always does,
00:28:55Nelson Piquet in the Brabham, he's moving ahead.
00:28:58And there's problems already for the German, Manfred Winkelhock.
00:29:01Winkelhock coming to a complete halt there
00:29:04on the rise out of the hairpin behind the pits,
00:29:07the Hugenholtzbocht.
00:29:09And as Winkelhock sorts out his problems,
00:29:13the rest of the field are streaming away
00:29:15and Niki Lauda, once again, has not made a good start.
00:29:18There is McLaren number eight, trapped in the traffic.
00:29:21I make it down in about tenth place,
00:29:23they're still trying to get Winkelhock going.
00:29:25Winkelhock has indeed managed to restart his car.
00:29:29And meanwhile, the leaders are streaming
00:29:31into the Panoramabocht at the back.
00:29:33Look at de Cesaris moving up alongside Cheever,
00:29:36and de Cesaris and Cheever have collided.
00:29:38A typical first lap schmuzzle,
00:29:40de Cesaris driving down the grass,
00:29:43trying to get back onto the track.
00:29:44He's waiting for a gap in the traffic, in fact,
00:29:46and he's on the tarmac once more.
00:29:48And meanwhile, the leaders already cross the start-finish line
00:29:51with Prost still second,
00:29:53Tambay still third, de Angelis is fourth.
00:29:56Up into fifth place now comes Keke Rosberg,
00:29:59ahead of Derek Warwick, who is sick,
00:30:01but still the leader is the Brabham, Nelson Piquet.
00:30:04One and a half laps gone, 69 and a half to go,
00:30:08and we'll have more excitement from the Dutch Grand Prix
00:30:11after this short message.
00:30:18Nelson Piquet at the front in the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.
00:30:22Alain Prost in pursuit of championship points
00:30:25and in pursuit of Piquet, the leader.
00:30:27Leading a tremendous queue of cars for third place,
00:30:30it's Patrick Tambay in the Renault.
00:30:32But the man to watch is Niki Lauda,
00:30:34the current world championship leader in McLaren No. 8,
00:30:37because he is moving up.
00:30:39Sixth on the grid, he made a shocking start.
00:30:42He's now ninth, he's behind Michele Alboreto's Ferrari.
00:30:46So there are a lot of fast men in front of him,
00:30:48and he's got a seemingly impossible task
00:30:51to get up to his teammate Alain Prost in second place
00:30:55and start to dispute this championship point situation.
00:30:58Meanwhile, on the long, fast, slightly downhill start-finish straight,
00:31:04up to 200 miles an hour,
00:31:06and then on the brakes they go for the Tarzan corner at the end,
00:31:09and having a little look at the inside line there,
00:31:13seeing if he could pass the black lotus of Elio de Angelis,
00:31:18was Keki Rosberg.
00:31:19So Rosberg seems to be moving up in the Williams Honda.
00:31:22Here is Piquet, the leader.
00:31:23There is Prost in second place.
00:31:26Over the brow goes Prost.
00:31:28There is Tambay third, de Angelis fourth,
00:31:30Rosberg fifth, and Warwick sixth.
00:31:33A tremendous four-car battle for third place
00:31:36through the sweeping left and right of the Hunzerug,
00:31:39over the brow, down to this corner,
00:31:41which is Schieblak, a tight right-hander,
00:31:44then away from that into this chicane here,
00:31:47the Marlborough Bocht,
00:31:48which was introduced onto the very fast back straight section
00:31:52to slow the cars down before they get to the east tunnel,
00:31:57which is here, and then into the Panorama Bocht.
00:32:01That's another slow right-hander,
00:32:04and it's the section after the Panorama Bocht,
00:32:07which is so important.
00:32:09This sweeping brow followed by a long, long right-hander,
00:32:13Bossweet, there it is,
00:32:15because if you get Bossweet absolutely right,
00:32:18it can be worth another five miles an hour
00:32:21on the long straight down to the Tarzan hairpin,
00:32:23and that's where you've got to do your out-braking.
00:32:25This is Prost in second place.
00:32:28Prost currently more or less on his own,
00:32:30but there is Keki Rosberg going round the outside now
00:32:34of Elio de Angelis and taking fourth place.
00:32:37So de Angelis is demoted to fifth,
00:32:39Rosberg is fourth, Patrick Tambay is still third,
00:32:43and there's Piquet, the leader.
00:32:45They're still only on their fourth lap,
00:32:47and Niki Lauda has got past Michele Alboreto's Ferrari,
00:32:51so Niki Lauda is now eighth,
00:32:53Alboreto down to ninth,
00:32:55it's still Jacques Lafitte seventh,
00:32:57it's Derek Warwick sixth,
00:32:59it's now Elio de Angelis fifth,
00:33:01it's now Keki Rosberg fourth,
00:33:05and there they go with de Angelis
00:33:07very, very close up to Keki Rosberg again,
00:33:09as Prost still struggles to keep Nelson Piquet in sight.
00:33:15Now it may well be that Nelson Piquet's choice of tyre compound
00:33:19was to go for a softer rubber
00:33:21than perhaps Alain Prost felt like risking.
00:33:24It may well be that Prost is determined
00:33:27not to wear out his tyres this early in the race,
00:33:29because an early charge can well leave you
00:33:32with the necessity of an early pit stop
00:33:34because you've worn your tyres out too fast.
00:33:38But there's no doubt that Piquet
00:33:40is absolutely dominating this race.
00:33:42He's able to take a nice, clear, lonely line into Tarzan,
00:33:48and that's not what Keki Rosberg can do.
00:33:51Rosberg absolutely twitching under braking
00:33:53as he forces the Williams Honda
00:33:56alongside Patrick Tambay there,
00:33:59and goes into third place.
00:34:01Keki Rosberg has come storming up.
00:34:04He was seventh on the grid,
00:34:05he was fifth at the end of lap one,
00:34:08and now at the start of lap five,
00:34:11he's gone into third place.
00:34:13Niki Lauda, meanwhile, has taken another place
00:34:15because we've got Niki Lauda ahead of Jacques Lafitte.
00:34:18Niki Lauda is now seventh.
00:34:20So excitement all the way down the field
00:34:23in the Dutch Grand Prix
00:34:24because we've got Piquet dominating,
00:34:26we've got Prost trying to stay in touch in second place,
00:34:30Keki Rosberg going very, very hard indeed
00:34:33now up into third place,
00:34:35and we've got the dark horse Niki Lauda
00:34:37trying to make up time after his disastrous start,
00:34:40and he's already seventh.
00:34:42It was the Australian Grand Prix driver Alan Jones
00:34:45who won the World Championship for Williams back in 1980
00:34:49who said that the specification for an exciting motor race
00:34:53was to have a great big long straight
00:34:55with a great big tight hairpin at the end of it.
00:34:58That's exactly what we've got here at Zandvoort,
00:35:00and we always have a lot of overtaking at Zandvoort.
00:35:02The leaders now on this long straight.
00:35:04Rosberg now in third place.
00:35:05What's going to happen for fourth place now
00:35:07between Tambay and de Angelis?
00:35:09Because de Angelis is having a look at the inside.
00:35:11Tambay holds his braking very, very late.
00:35:14The Renault twitches just a little bit on the braking,
00:35:17but Tambay holds his fourth place.
00:35:19De Angelis is still fifth.
00:35:20It's Derek Warwick in the other Renault's sixth,
00:35:23and you've got a tiny glimpse just then
00:35:25of Niki Lauda who is seventh,
00:35:27and Lauda is now closing on Derek Warwick.
00:35:30So action, overtaking and battling all the way down the field
00:35:36as we always seem to get here at Zandvoort.
00:35:38There'll be more excitement in the next few laps.
00:35:41Rejoin us here on ESPN Auto Racing 84 after this message.
00:35:46Here's this third place battle at Zandvoort
00:35:55with Rosberg, Tambay, de Angelis, Warwick,
00:35:59and Niki Lauda is already on Derek Warwick's tail.
00:36:03There are the positions at the end of five laps
00:36:05with 2.8 seconds already between Piquet and Prost,
00:36:09and there is Niki Lauda moving up another place.
00:36:11Niki Lauda has taken sixth place now from Derek Warwick,
00:36:15so Niki Lauda already in the championship points,
00:36:18and this is a classic drive from the veteran Austrian,
00:36:22the twice world champion,
00:36:23who's been in Grand Prix racing for a decade now.
00:36:27And how much further will Niki Lauda's charge
00:36:31be able to take him up the field?
00:36:33He's already leaving Derek Warwick behind.
00:36:36He's already closing on Elio de Angelis
00:36:38in the Renault-powered Lotus ahead of him.
00:36:40He's got de Angelis, Tambay, and Keke Rosberg in front of him,
00:36:45and then it's his own teammate in second place,
00:36:48but there's a long, long way to go
00:36:50before Lauda can get up to his teammate,
00:36:53and remember it's his teammate who's the man he wants to beat
00:36:56because that's what the World Championship is all about.
00:37:00And Jacques Lafitte going well in eighth place,
00:37:03and look at Lauda having a go at Elio de Angelis
00:37:05under braking for Panorama.
00:37:07That's not a very good place to do it
00:37:09because you have problems if you get alongside people there,
00:37:12as we saw with de Cesaris and Cheever
00:37:15who had their bumping match on lap one.
00:37:17Lauda decides to wait,
00:37:19but they're now in Bossuite,
00:37:22which is the long right-hander
00:37:23that leads to the start-finish straight,
00:37:25and we could be seeing Lauda have another go now.
00:37:27Look at the cars in the background.
00:37:29There's Rosberg, and there's Lauda coming out.
00:37:32Lauda alongside and through and past de Angelis,
00:37:36and he chops ahead of de Angelis,
00:37:38fits himself in between Tambay and de Angelis.
00:37:41So Lauda now fifth, Tambay still fourth,
00:37:44and Tambay now has the black Lotus
00:37:47no longer in his mirrors.
00:37:49He now has the red and white McLaren in his mirrors.
00:37:52Tambay out of the Hugenholtz hairpin,
00:37:55over the Hunzerug Brau.
00:37:57Now what's Lauda going to do?
00:37:58Is he going to wait until the long straight
00:38:01before he tries to pick off his next victim,
00:38:03or is he going to try and do it earlier than that?
00:38:05Tambay closing on the car ahead of him,
00:38:10which is, of course, Keke Rosberg.
00:38:12There's Rosberg, there's Tambay, there's Lauda,
00:38:14there's de Angelis, there's Warwick, there is Lafitte,
00:38:17and we've got a caller at the pits already,
00:38:19and it's Alboreto.
00:38:20It's Michele Alboreto in the Ferrari.
00:38:23What a sorry season the great Ferrari team are having.
00:38:27Once more, Lauda has a think about the inside at Panorama,
00:38:33decides to do nothing about it,
00:38:35and Michele Alboreto out of his car
00:38:37and clearly out of the race.
00:38:39And now we're at Bosswheat once more,
00:38:42and this is where Lauda must have a go at Tambay.
00:38:45He's tucked into the slipstream.
00:38:46He's going to use the suction of the air behind the Renault
00:38:50to try and give himself a little bit of extra pace,
00:38:53and he's alongside.
00:38:54He doesn't even wait for the braking area.
00:38:56He does it on sheer speed,
00:38:58and Lauda is easily past Tambay there.
00:39:02That wasn't a night-braking manoeuvre.
00:39:04That was a flat-out speed manoeuvre,
00:39:06and Lauda is now up to fourth place,
00:39:09and the next one on his shopping list is Keke Rosberg
00:39:12in the Williams Honda, who is third.
00:39:14There's Rosberg, there's Lauda, there's Tambay,
00:39:16there's de Angelis, with Warwick slipping back a little bit,
00:39:21starting to lose contact with that four-car trail,
00:39:25and Warwick currently running out of the championship points
00:39:29in seventh place.
00:39:33Down to the Marlborough Bocht goes Lauda,
00:39:37and out of the Marlborough Bocht he is pursuing, pursuing, pursuing
00:39:43that Williams all the time.
00:39:45We've still got the same position at the front of the field.
00:39:48Still it's the Brabham and the McLaren,
00:39:50but the McLaren we're now watching is Nicky Lauda's.
00:39:54There's Derek Warwick with Lafitte now on his tail.
00:39:59Jacques Lafitte, the Frenchman who is rumoured to be retiring
00:40:02from Grand Prix racing at the end of this season.
00:40:08And now Rosberg has got the McLaren up close to him.
00:40:12Is Nicky Lauda close enough on this lap to make a lunge?
00:40:15He's not.
00:40:16Rosberg isn't taking any chances.
00:40:18Rosberg takes a tight line, keeps the door firmly shut,
00:40:21but Nicky Lauda decides to wait for another lap,
00:40:25and while we're watching that excitement,
00:40:27Piquet is reeling off the laps.
00:40:29There's the fastest lap so far, 1.20.9 for Nelson Piquet.
00:40:33And this early in the race, remember their fuel tanks are still pretty full.
00:40:37Over the brow goes Tambay, de Angelis, Warwick on the kerb,
00:40:41then Lafitte, and the next up Ayrton Senna and Theo Fabin.
00:40:45So two of the young newcomers to Grand Prix racing going very well,
00:40:48just out of the championship points at the moment.
00:40:51And still Keke Rosberg has this third place, but not for long I think.
00:40:56Nicky Lauda on his tail as they go through the fast back section,
00:40:59up into the Marlborough box chicane.
00:41:03Lauda uncharacteristically just nudging the kerb there.
00:41:07You normally seem to notice that however hard Nicky Lauda is driving,
00:41:11he's always neat and tidy, always misses the kerbs, up to Panorama.
00:41:15Lauda doesn't even bother to try to get alongside the Williams this time,
00:41:19but now they're going over the brow towards Boswick.
00:41:24Still the battle continues, and we'll be back with more Dutch Grand Prix action after this.
00:41:39...is still leading the Dutch Grand Prix here at Zandvoort, but he's in trouble.
00:41:44A great plume of oil smoke following the Brabham round,
00:41:47and clearly that car is leaking oil because Alain Prost's car in second place
00:41:52is slithering and sliding behind it.
00:41:54Still the third place battle goes on between Keke Rosberg and Nicky Lauda.
00:42:00The circuit is obviously now very slippery with Piquet's oil.
00:42:04There is the oil flag, and there is Nelson Piquet parking his car,
00:42:10a sight we've seen so often this season.
00:42:13Nelson Piquet leading a Grand Prix only for his car to let him down.
00:42:19And so, Piquet out, Alain Prost has gone through into the lead,
00:42:23so that caption already out of date because of Piquet's retirement.
00:42:27Rosberg is still hanging on to this second place, as it now is,
00:42:31and Nelson Piquet, crash helmet off, waving to the crowd, philosophically walking home.
00:42:39That's another Grand Prix that ends with a short walk back to the pits,
00:42:44and the mechanics will have to come and get the car later.
00:42:47And meanwhile, here is the battle for second place,
00:42:51and Lauda does it, no trouble at all that time.
00:42:55On the now very slippery and oily circuit, Nicky Lauda makes it look so easy.
00:43:01Rosberg twitching behind him, but I don't think Rosberg's going to find an easy way back past that McLaren.
00:43:08Once again, the McLaren was able to get by on power before they ever got to the braking area,
00:43:15and Lauda had obviously got a very good run out of Boswheat.
00:43:20And so now, once again, we have got the sight of these all-conquering McLarens in first and second places.
00:43:28Helped by the retirement of the Brabham BMW of Nelson Piquet,
00:43:32Alain Prost is now the leader, Nicky Lauda the new second place man,
00:43:37Kiki Rosberg is now third, fourth Patrick Tambay with the Renault,
00:43:42fifth Elio de Angelis with the Lotus, sixth is Derek Warwick with his Renault,
00:43:48and already the speed of Alain Prost has taken him up to the back markers.
00:43:52That's Manfred Winkelhock, the German with the ATS, that you saw having trouble at the very first lap of the race.
00:43:59Winkelhock now lapped, and so Alain Prost has now got to work his way through the traffic,
00:44:04and meanwhile, Elio de Angelis is still trying to find a way past Patrick Tambay.
00:44:09It's Tambay now in fourth place, it's de Angelis fifth, Warwick sixth just behind,
00:44:15and Lauda has now set the fastest lap of the race, 1.20.594.
00:44:20Still this early, the cars are heavy with their weight of fuel,
00:44:25and that is still slower than Derek Warwick's existing lap record, 1.19.78,
00:44:31which he set in the Toleman two years ago.
00:44:34That, of course, in the days of ground effects, when these cars had even higher cornering speeds
00:44:41under the then permissible ground effect regulations than they do now.
00:44:48De Angelis, Warwick, Jacques Lafitte still behind, and Tao Fabi in the Brabham has moved up.
00:44:55Tao Fabi is on Jacques Lafitte's tail, there is Rosberg, now all alone because Lauda's gone away,
00:45:01Tambay, de Angelis, there the Italian who has scored points so consistently this year,
00:45:08but he doesn't seem to be able to have the legs of the Renault,
00:45:12and remember, both cars using the same power unit,
00:45:16and it was de Angelis who was quicker than Tambay during practice.
00:45:21It's Tambay who is apparently able to stave off de Angelis during the race.
00:45:26There they are once more, this time de Angelis not close enough even to make an attempt at Tarsen,
00:45:32and as always the crowd at Tarsen getting plenty of value, because that's where most of the overtaking seems to take place.
00:45:39Behind the pits, into Hugenholtz, and backmarkers ahead of these two cars also,
00:45:47so lapping the tail-enders, particularly on this circuit, could well play quite a role later on.
00:45:54Alain Prost already working his way through the traffic, and Lauda with a new fastest lap under his belt,
00:46:01Niki Lauda is closing on Alain Prost.
00:46:04No doubt Alain Prost's pit signals are going to tell him just how close Niki Lauda is getting,
00:46:09and remember, no team orders between these two, they're both allowed to drive to win.
00:46:15We're denied a Prost-Piquet battle with the retirement of Piquet,
00:46:19which we are now able to confirm as being an oil leak, the engine became completely starved of oil,
00:46:26and Piquet was unable to go any further.
00:46:28We're starved of a Piquet-Prost battle, but I think we could be getting a Prost-Lauda battle.
00:46:34And still the de Angelis-Tombé battle, which is coming up now to lap the ram-heart of Jonathan Palmer,
00:46:42they're on the start-finish straight there, and Palmer keeps nicely out of the way,
00:46:48de Angelis is now having a go at Tombé, de Angelis tried to use the moment of the back-marker to catch Tombé unawares,
00:46:55Tombé's too old and wily a hand for that.
00:46:58And behind Palmer, Warwick now under considerable pressure,
00:47:04Derek Warwick in the other Renault under considerable pressure,
00:47:07from not only Jacques Lafitte now, but also Theo Fabi in the other Brabham.
00:47:12We'll have more ESPN Auto Racing 84 action from Zandvoort after these short messages.
00:47:27Welcome back to Zandvoort Holland and the Dutch Grand Prix,
00:47:30where still we have this magnificent battle for the lead between the two McLarens.
00:47:35Alain Prost in the lead in number 7, Niki Lauda in second place in number 8,
00:47:40and remember that the two of them are neck and neck in the World Championship point standings,
00:47:46with only three races to go after today's event.
00:47:49And already, lots of battles down the field,
00:47:52this is Eddie Cheever trying to find a way past François-Enos Ligier,
00:47:58round the notorious Tarzan hairpin,
00:48:01and the gap between the two McLarens has got down to as little as 1.2 seconds,
00:48:09but now Prost seems to have responded, because Prost has opened the gap out a little bit,
00:48:14and on my stopwatch, as they passed me at the end of the previous lap, it was just over 2 seconds.
00:48:20And we've got another caller at the pits, this is André de Cesaris' Ligier,
00:48:24we were just watching François-Enos Ligier, the Ligiers using the Renault turbo engine, as do the Lotuses,
00:48:31and rather slowly into the pits, although the team are ready with the tyres,
00:48:36that looked like a pretty terminal pit stop to me.
00:48:38Meanwhile, Elio de Angelis doesn't really seem to have recovered from that moment
00:48:42when he got rudely bumped onto the grass by Manfred Winkelhock.
00:48:46Winkelhock long since gone, Patrick Tambay still ahead of him,
00:48:50they've got one of the Osellas, driven by the Austrian Joe Gartner, between them,
00:48:56so still de Angelis has not managed to get back onto terms with Patrick Tambay.
00:49:02And meanwhile, behind Elio de Angelis and starting to get onto terms with him,
00:49:07is the other Lotus, number 12, that's Nigel Mansell.
00:49:13So Mansell has come storming up the field, that puts Mansell now into 6th place,
00:49:20ahead of the Ferrari of René Arnoux.
00:49:25And with the knowledge out in the paddock that Peter Waugh of Lotus has already signed Ayrton Senna
00:49:32for the Norwich team next year, that means that one of these two Lotus drivers
00:49:37won't be staying with Lotus for next year.
00:49:40Already Nigel Mansell is alleged to be talking to Williams, but one of them will be moving on.
00:49:45And moving into the pits, Patrick Tambay.
00:49:48So Elio de Angelis' problem is solved for the moment anyway,
00:49:52because into the pits comes the Lotus of Patrick Tambay,
00:49:56already his teammate Derek Warwick out of the race, and it's a tyre change.
00:50:00And I think Tambay stalled the engine there, but he's got it restarted again.
00:50:05And the tyre change is over.
00:50:08One rear wheel not finished, null, all four are done.
00:50:11Away goes Patrick Tambay, back into the race on fresh rubber.
00:50:15But that has dropped him behind de Angelis and behind Nigel Mansell.
00:50:20Another corner at the pits there, that was Thierry Bootsen in the Arrows BMW.
00:50:25And we look now at Alain Prost, the leader.
00:50:29There's Thierry Bootsen having his tyre stop.
00:50:32And that's a shame that he's had to stop,
00:50:34because Bootsen had got up into 8th place behind René Arnoux.
00:50:39And so, with Patrick Tambay dropped down by his pit stop,
00:50:43we've now got this Lotus battle between Elio de Angelis and Nigel Mansell
00:50:48for 4th place it is now.
00:50:51And seeing these two black and gold Lotuses circulating round Zandvoort so close
00:50:57reminds those of us who've been coming to Grand Prix racing for some years
00:51:01of the 1978 situation, when Mario Andretti, the American,
00:51:05the great American driver, won the World Championship for Lotus.
00:51:09And at this race in 1978, the great Swedish driver, Ronnie Peterson,
00:51:15followed Andretti loyally round.
00:51:18He could perhaps have overtaken him, but he didn't,
00:51:20because the agreement was that Andretti should go for the championship.
00:51:24And just two weeks later, Ronnie Peterson was fatally injured in the crash that he had at Monza.
00:51:30There's René Arnoux in the Ferrari.
00:51:32Now Arnoux will have come up with Tambay's stop to 6th place.
00:51:36So René Arnoux, having had a hard and difficult race
00:51:40on a car that is clearly not competitive with the McLarens, with the Renaults,
00:51:45René Arnoux is now up into the championship points, running in 6th place.
00:51:50Coming through the traffic, Niki Lauda.
00:51:53Niki Lauda having just lapped Tao Fabi.
00:51:56Remember, he had a pit stop with Brabham number 2 after his spin.
00:51:59Ahead of Niki Lauda to be lapped, it's Stefan Johansson in the Cosworth-powered Tyrrell,
00:52:06one of only two non-turbocharged 3-litre cars which started this race.
00:52:12And Niki Lauda has got quite stuck in this traffic.
00:52:16Alain Prost seems to have had a clearer run through the traffic
00:52:20in these last few laps than has Niki Lauda.
00:52:22And by my unofficial hand timing, as Lauda goes past Johansson up to Panorama,
00:52:28I make the gap now 8 seconds.
00:52:31It did come down to as little as 1.2 seconds,
00:52:35and then Alain Prost replied with the fastest lap of the race, so far at least.
00:52:41And Prost does seem to have been able to pull away from Niki Lauda with some ease.
00:52:47The McLaren team hanging out their pit signals,
00:52:50telling both Prost and Lauda of the exact situation,
00:52:54as Lauda goes into Tarsen with the backmarkers now behind him,
00:52:58and for the time being, a clear road ahead.
00:53:01And let's not forget, Dallas winner Keke Rosberg,
00:53:04still running a solid third in the Williams Honda.
00:53:07The Lotus is battling over fourth, the McLaren still at the head of the field,
00:53:11and still some way to go in the Dutch Grand Prix here at Zandvoort.
00:53:15We'll be back after these messages.
00:53:25To rejoin us at Zandvoort, just as the Elio de Angelis-Nigel Mansell battle
00:53:30has come right up to Keke Rosberg in third place.
00:53:33Mansell alongside de Angelis now, trying to go round the outside, he does it!
00:53:37Nigel Mansell goes round the outside of de Angelis, takes fourth place.
00:53:41Alain Prost, the leader, has caught them up to lap them.
00:53:44In fact, Prost does lap de Angelis and goes through.
00:53:47But now, Nigel Mansell is on Rosberg's tail.
00:53:51We've got Eddie Cheever, the American, into the pits with the Alfa Romeo.
00:53:55He's getting a fresh set of tyres.
00:53:57Cheever currently running in tenth place.
00:54:00If this is a quick stop, he may get out without losing his place.
00:54:03He's had a quick shouted word with the team manager,
00:54:05Signor Tonti, it's off the jacks, and on goes the power.
00:54:10Spinning of the wheels, out of the pits again,
00:54:13and now we're back with this wonderful third place battle,
00:54:16which has the leader, Alain Prost, right in the middle of it.
00:54:19We've got four cars, Rosberg is third, Mansell is fourth,
00:54:22Prost in the red and white McLaren is the leader,
00:54:25and Elio de Angelis, for whom all the activity on the last lap
00:54:28seems to have been a bit much, has dropped right back.
00:54:31So, third man Rosberg, he's got fourth man Mansell on his tail.
00:54:36Mansell wants to find a way by, Mansell's having a look now,
00:54:39and Mansell goes through!
00:54:41Oh, and he almost loses it, the car weaving under braking,
00:54:44he very nearly lost the Lotus completely,
00:54:47and Rosberg has an attack back as they go through the curves
00:54:52behind the pits, down towards Hugenholtz,
00:54:54and now through also goes the leader, Alain Prost,
00:54:58who doesn't want to waste any time either.
00:55:00Nigel Mansell has come into third place,
00:55:03and now Rosberg goes past Alain Prost again.
00:55:06But that looked very marginal for Nigel Mansell under braking,
00:55:09he was absolutely on the limit, and the Lotus gave a great big weave,
00:55:13there you see it, the back end of the car almost getting away from him,
00:55:17Rosberg leaves him enough room, puff of flame from the exhaust pipe
00:55:22of the Williams Honda, and Mansell scrabbles through,
00:55:26but he was on the edge of losing the Lotus there.
00:55:29But he's got it, he's got his third place,
00:55:31Rosberg is fourth, there is Riccardo Patrese,
00:55:34jogging home, he, Cheever's teammate in the Alfa Romeo team,
00:55:39has obviously abandoned his car somewhere,
00:55:41now Prost goes back ahead of Rosberg,
00:55:45but Mansell, comfortable now in third place,
00:55:49it's going to take Rosberg a while, if at all,
00:55:52to get back onto terms with the Flying Lotus driver.
00:55:55Nigel Mansell driving as well as we've seen him drive all season,
00:55:59remember he led the Monaco Grand Prix only to spin off in the rain,
00:56:04he led the Dallas Grand Prix only to brush a wall,
00:56:08and eventually to collapse from heat exhaustion
00:56:10when trying to push his crippled car home over the finishing line.
00:56:14Nigel Mansell, a driver who never ever gives up,
00:56:17very determined, very hard-headed driver indeed,
00:56:21and I wonder how he felt passing Keke Rosberg then,
00:56:24because he must know if he has signed for Williams, as is rumoured,
00:56:29that Rosberg is probably going to be his teammate,
00:56:32his team number one next year.
00:56:35Now Prost re-establishes the situation by lapping Mansell,
00:56:41Mansell lets him go, and that means that
00:56:45Alain Prost has now lapped the entire field,
00:56:50except his own teammate Niki Lauda,
00:56:53and he's now in a distant second place.
00:56:57Meanwhile, Elio De Angelis seems to have found some more pace,
00:57:01and he has brought his Lotus right up to fourth man Keke Rosberg,
00:57:05so Rosberg, having lost third, is now under pressure for fourth place
00:57:10from Elio De Angelis.
00:57:12De Angelis once again having a reliable race,
00:57:16so often he's brought that Lotus to the flag,
00:57:18so often he's scored championship points,
00:57:20and remember he is still in third place in the points table.
00:57:25A good finish here could just keep his championship points alive.
00:57:31And Eddie Cheever coming into sight now.
00:57:34Eddie Cheever, you'll remember, has just had a pit stop for fresh tyres,
00:57:38he's a lap behind these cars, but he's now caught them up very fast indeed,
00:57:43obviously helped by the fact that his rubber is fresh.
00:57:46This late in the race, no doubt the tyres on Rosberg's Williams
00:57:50and on De Angelis's Lotus are getting pretty tired.
00:57:55Cheever, despite that pit stop, currently holding ninth place,
00:58:01and I think he's looking for a way past De Angelis,
00:58:04I don't think he's going to be happy with staying behind him for much longer.
00:58:09Through the sand dunes, through Boswiet, down onto the long straight,
00:58:14and Rosberg leads De Angelis, leads Cheever,
00:58:18and De Angelis weaving from side to side,
00:58:21but not close enough to get right under the rear wing of the Williams
00:58:25where he can get the full tow.
00:58:27You can get a good slipstream tow under there,
00:58:30even though it can make your car much less stable in the corners
00:58:34because the front aerofoils aren't getting the maximum amount of air.
00:58:39Out of the Hugenholzbach, and Cheever takes a closer line,
00:58:42Cheever is poised to take the Lotus under acceleration,
00:58:46which he does on the Hunzerug, and immediately pulls away.
00:58:52And that orange car parked is the Dutchman, Huub Rottengatter,
00:58:56who's been going round at the tail of the field in the Spirit Heart
00:59:00with his engine sounding as though it's firing on two or three cylinders at the most.
00:59:04But Rottengatter's car now finally stops,
00:59:07and we'll be back with the closing stages of the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort
00:59:11here on ESPN Auto Racing 84 after this short message.
00:59:24Drama in the closing stages of the Dutch Grand Prix
00:59:27because the Belgian driver Thierry Boetsen is coming to a halt
00:59:31just beneath our commentary box here,
00:59:33with his right-hand front wheel barely still attached to the car,
00:59:37and it happened on the long 200-mile-an-hour straight.
00:59:40That could have been very nasty indeed, but Boetsen got the car,
00:59:43stopped, he's out of the car.
00:59:45What happened was that René Arnoux made a very late decision
00:59:48to dive into the pits with the Ferrari right under Boetsen's nose.
00:59:52Boetsen simply couldn't avoid him and clouted him,
00:59:55but he's stopped, Arnoux is into the pits for fresh tyres,
00:59:59he's out again, and we're now watching the leader, Alain Prost,
01:00:03as Eddie Cheever once more walks away from his car,
01:00:08the American who's such a hard-trier,
01:00:11who so often has retired from Grand Prix races this year,
01:00:14the American who lives in Rome, in Italy, walks back to the pits,
01:00:18and here's Niki Lauda, the second-place man,
01:00:21now over 20 seconds behind leader Alain Prost,
01:00:25and clearly the Austrian has decided to be content
01:00:29with six points for second place and not to try to wear his car out,
01:00:33and René Arnoux seems to have worn his out
01:00:36because Arnoux, on his fresh Goodyears,
01:00:39just out of the pits on his fresh tyres,
01:00:42has come to a halt with the Ferrari, a Marshall pushes it onto the verge,
01:00:47and one can only speculate whether Arnoux's trouble
01:00:51stems from that collision with Thierry Boetsen
01:00:53when he dived into the pits, certainly the two cars hit pretty hard,
01:00:57and Arnoux slowly, wearily gets out of the car,
01:01:01and he is another driver who's going to walk home, back to the pits,
01:01:05watching as he does so, these irresistible McLarens
01:01:09reeling off the closing laps.
01:01:11This is Niki Lauda, over the brow, towards Boswheat,
01:01:15and that is Alain Prost at the far end of the straight,
01:01:20through Tarzan as his teammate comes into the straight.
01:01:24And Nigel Mansell has unlapped himself on Prost,
01:01:27he's now running ahead of Prost, still in a comfortable third place,
01:01:31but the fourth-place man is in the pits,
01:01:33that is Keke Rosberg, after such a hard drive, he's in the pits,
01:01:38it can't surely be tyres this late in the race,
01:01:41they're changing the tyres automatically,
01:01:43but I would suspect that the problem is worse,
01:01:45I can't think that Rosberg would have come in that late just for tyres,
01:01:49and indeed he undoes the life support system,
01:01:53and out of the car comes Keke Rosberg,
01:01:56and that will have promoted Elio de Angelis,
01:02:00who, despite all his efforts, hadn't got past Rosberg,
01:02:04that will have promoted de Angelis to fourth place.
01:02:06So it's McLarens 1 and 2, it's Lotuses 3 and 4,
01:02:11and we've now got in fifth place the Tao Fabi Brabham,
01:02:16the only Brabham remaining in the race, Tao Fabi up into fifth place,
01:02:20and our sixth man now, our new sixth man will be Patrick Tambay,
01:02:25who's been making up his time valiantly
01:02:27after that pit stop for fresh tyres so long ago.
01:02:32And this is the last lap, this is the 71st and final lap,
01:02:37as Alain Prost crosses the start-finish line,
01:02:40just ahead of Joe Gartner in the Osella,
01:02:45through Tarzan for the last time, taking it gently and smoothly,
01:02:49he's got all the time in the world,
01:02:51because his lead is enormous,
01:02:53now 24 seconds by our unofficial hand timing
01:02:57over Niki Lauda, his own teammate,
01:03:00and almost a lap ahead of the man who should finish third,
01:03:04Nigel Mansell.
01:03:05This is going to be Alain Prost's fifth victory this year,
01:03:09it's going to be McLaren's ninth victory this year,
01:03:13and it is going to clinch, without any doubt,
01:03:16with three races still left to run,
01:03:19the Constructors' Championship title for the McLaren team,
01:03:23a great reward for all the work by Ron Dennis, the team manager,
01:03:28for John Barnard, the car's designer,
01:03:31and for all the people who've developed not only the McLaren car,
01:03:35but also the TAG turbo engine.
01:03:37Alain Prost then, on his way, down into Panorama for the last time.
01:03:43The track oily, but the pace now relaxed,
01:03:47as Prost comes over the brow, down to Bosweat,
01:03:51through that long, long right-hander that leads onto the straight,
01:03:55for the final time, as he comes into sight here,
01:03:58onto the start-finish straight,
01:04:00the chequered flag is waiting for Alain Prost,
01:04:02Alain Prost comes down over the start-finish line,
01:04:06the McLaren mechanics are in the road, showing their delight,
01:04:10Alain Prost shows his with a rather more nonchalant
01:04:14and restrained wave to the crowds at Tarzan,
01:04:17and Niki Lauda comes through, to more jubilation,
01:04:21from the McLaren team.
01:04:23That's the third McLaren won two this year,
01:04:26Alain Prost the winner, Niki Lauda in second place,
01:04:29closing to within ten seconds at the end,
01:04:31Nigel Mansell, third for Lotus,
01:04:33De Angelis, fourth for Lotus,
01:04:35Tao Fabi's Brabham is fifth,
01:04:37and Patrick Tambay comes home sixth, in the Renault.
01:04:40In the Championship points, therefore,
01:04:43Alain Prost closes to within one-and-a-half points
01:04:46of Niki Lauda, but Niki Lauda retains the lead,
01:04:49and Elio De Angelis the only other driver
01:04:51with even a theoretical chance of beating them
01:04:54in the three remaining races.
01:04:56And in the Constructors' Championship,
01:04:58McLaren's total means they're already the champions.
01:05:02ESPN Auto Racing 84 will be back,
01:05:04with John Bisignano talking to the winner,
01:05:07after this short message.
01:05:13This fifth win of the 1984 season,
01:05:16Alain, a fantastic start.
01:05:18You and Nelson got away very cleanly.
01:05:20How strong did he seem in the opening laps?
01:05:23I was careful, you know.
01:05:25Nelson chose some softer tyres than me,
01:05:28same as Niki.
01:05:30So I had to be careful at the beginning,
01:05:32because I had harder tyres,
01:05:34but I did not want to push hard to get him,
01:05:36because the race was long,
01:05:38and I didn't want to push too hard.
01:05:40So I was just waiting,
01:05:42and when Niki was just behind me,
01:05:44I had to push a bit harder,
01:05:46but everything was perfect today.
01:05:48There was nothing to do against me today.
01:05:50Niki got within three seconds of you.
01:05:52Of course, you were aware of that
01:05:54from your pit signs and so forth, and your mirrors.
01:05:56I had a big problem,
01:05:58because they showed me Rosberg plus 17
01:06:00and Niki plus 3,
01:06:02but I was sure that Niki was behind Rosberg.
01:06:04So I went a bit more slow.
01:06:06I said, it's no problem.
01:06:0817 seconds lead, it's no problem.
01:06:10And I've seen in my mirrors
01:06:12that Niki was behind me.
01:06:14So I had to push harder after that,
01:06:16but it was no problem.
01:06:18I was much quicker.
01:06:20And at the same time,
01:06:22you were having some problems with traffic,
01:06:24just when he was close.
01:06:26Yeah, I had some traffic.
01:06:28That was a big problem for me.
01:06:30Now, some of the cars were running out of fuel
01:06:32at the end, having to run that hard.
01:06:34Were you worried about your fuel consumption?
01:06:36I had a problem with Niki,
01:06:38so the end of the race was very slow for me,
01:06:40so I had no problem.
01:06:42I think I have no problem,
01:06:44because we have no gauge on the car.
01:06:46It could come as a surprise, that problem.
01:06:48Yeah, exactly.
01:06:50The fact that you're 1.5 points behind
01:06:52in the championship now,
01:06:54that's still a heck of an improvement
01:06:56over last weekend.
01:06:58Yeah, I mean, 1.5 points is nothing.
01:07:00I have to be in front of Niki the next race,
01:07:02and it's no problem.
01:07:04How'd your golf game go yesterday?
01:07:06Did you win?
01:07:08No, I play so bad at the moment.
01:07:10I have many things to think,
01:07:12and I don't play so well.
01:07:14Well, it seemed to have worked for you here, though.
01:07:16It must have helped a little bit to relax.
01:07:18Yeah, it's good for relaxing,
01:07:20but I have to think about Formula 1,
01:07:22and it's difficult to think about golf at the same time.
01:07:24This has been John Bisignano and Simon Taylor.
01:07:26We've enjoyed bringing you this ESPN coverage
01:07:28of the Dutch Grand Prix.
01:07:30Thanks for being with us.
01:07:32Please watch your local listings for more
01:07:34ESPN Auto Racing 84
01:07:36as we move from the seaside of Holland
01:07:38to the foot of the Alps
01:07:40in the Italian Grand Prix in Monza.
01:07:42Please be with us.
01:07:44So long from Zandvoort, Holland.
01:07:46♪♪♪
01:07:50♪♪♪
01:07:54♪♪♪