F1's Greatest Races: Monaco 1982 - The Race No-One Wanted to Win
The infamous story of Monaco 1982- a race that no one wanted to win!
Next up in our series of greatest races, we head to F1’s crown jewel - Monaco - and an era when motorsport was far more dangerous and unreliable.
Even so, the 1982 race conjured up a finish that even the most creative Hollywood script writer would have struggled to craft.
Background to F1 1982
F1 arrived in Monaco for Round 6 of the 1982 world championship under the darkest of clouds.
The immeasurably talented Gilles Villeneuve had lost his life in a crash at the previous round in Zolder, Belgium.
He hit the back of another car, throwing his Ferrari into a somersault and catapulting him into catch fencing at high speed.
Ferrari only fielded one driver, Didier Pironi, at Monaco as a result.
The other main protagonists of the 1982 season included some of F1’s most famous names.
Veteran Niki Lauda had come out of retirement to drive for McLaren, with Ulsterman John Watson as his team-mate.
Watson was second at this stage of the championship, behind a young Alain Prost, who in turn partnered with Rene Arnoux at Renault.
Keke Rosberg was in his first year at Williams and delivering consistent results to stay in contention for the title.
Reigning world champion Nelson Piquet drove for the Brabham team alongside Brazilian Ricardo Patrese.
The team’s move to turbo BMW engines for 1982 was proving disastrous, with regular failures.
Brabham opted to switch back to Cosworth Engines sporadically during the season. For Monaco, Piquet was fitted with the Cosworth but Patrese was forced to chance the BMW engine.
The 1982 Monaco Grand Prix Race Start
The Renault was quick around the principality and Arnoux qualified on pole, half a second clear of Patrese’s Brabham.
20 cars took the start of the race. Arnoux led away but then span off on lap 14, retiring from the race.
By this point, Prost had worked his way from 4th to 2nd, and inherited the lead from his team-mate.
Prost gradually built up his lead and was comfortably ahead of Patrese in 2nd, followed by Pironi’s Ferrari in 3rd.
Reliability issues mid-race forced Piquet’s Brabham and the McLarens of Watson and Lauda into retirement.
It seemed that nothing could stop Prost from taking an easy win and extending his championship in a relatively uneventful race.
Then, with 15 laps remaining, rain began to fall.
All drivers opted to stay out on dry tyres as the rain was not torrential, and risked losing it all if the weather quickly lightened.
Rosberg was the first to fall foul of the conditions, crashing out of 5th place.
Monaco 1982 - The Chaos
With just 2 laps to go, the craziest few minutes in F1 history left fans, journalists and drivers stunned.
Prost was navigating his way around the swimming pool complex when his Renault, still fitted with dry tyres, lost control on the slippery surface and slammed into the barriers.
A tyre went flying in dramatic fashion, and with it all hope of the race win.
Patrese was now set for his first-ever victory but approaching the Loews hairpin, he too lost control and spun his Brabham on oil from another car..
He was fortunate to avoid the barriers on the slowest corner of the F1 calendar, but lost significant time recovering the car and slipped to third.
It was now Pironi’s turn to lead, but whilst in Monaco’s famous tunnel his Ferrari spluttered to a desperate halt. It later emerged that he ran out of fuel.
With Pironi out, the Alfa Romeo of Andrea De Cesaris was next in line to take a maiden win. But in the time it took the TV cameras to locate him, he had also pulled off out of fuel.
Derek Daly’s Williams was also set for a podium, but crashed out whilst a lap down on the leaders.
Despite his spin, seeking assistance from the marshalls to get going again, and driving an engine that was liable to break at any point, Patrese unknowingly crossed the finish line in first and took his maiden victory.
Pironi and De Cesaris were classified 2nd and 3rd respectively even though they failed to complete the final lap, as they had lapped the 4 other cars that were still running.
For Patrese, this was his first of 6 victories during his career.
Prost still led the championship from Watson, but was eventually overhauled by the consistency of Keke Rosberg that came through to take the title, who only took a single victory across the entire season.
Pironi had looked the most likely winner of the championship, but Ferrari experienced more catastrophe as he suffered career ending injuries in Germany.
The Brabhams of Piquet and Patrese finished just 3 of the remaining 10 races each, with reliability issues blighting their challenge.
Legacy of th 1982 Monaco Grand Prix
Forty years on, the 1982 Monaco Grand Prix remains the most incredible ending to an F1 race.
Given the increased reliability and telemetry available to modern cars - meaning that cars don’t just run out of fuel nowadays - it's likely that it will stay that way.
