The 1985 Italian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Monza on September 8, 1985. It was the twelfth round of the 1985 Formula One season. It was the 55th Italian Grand Prix and the 50th to be held at Monza. The race was held over 51 laps of the five kilometre circuit for a total race distance of 295.8 kilometres.
The race was won by Frenchman Alain Prost driving a McLaren MP4/2B. It was Prost's fifth and final victory of the 1985 season as he powered towards the first of his four Formula One world championships. Prost won by almost 52 seconds over the Brazilian duo Nelson Piquet (Brabham BT54) and Ayrton Senna (Lotus 97T).
It was the last Formula One Grand Prix where the winning driver received a laurel wreath. It was also the debut race for the American owned Haas Lola team with their new car, the Lola THL1 running the Hart 415T turbocharged engine, driven by 1980 World Champion Australian Alan Jones. Jones was making a full-time return to Formula One after one race with Arrows in 1983.
Missing from the grid was popular German driver Stefan Bellof who was killed a week earlier in a sportscar race at the Spa Circuit in Belgium. With his funeral set for the day after the Italian Grand Prix the Tyrrell team only ran the one car for Martin Brundle feeling it would be disrespectful to Bellof to bring a driver in to replace him for the race.
Read more about 1985 Italian Grand Prix: Standings After The Race
Famous quotes containing the words italian and/or grand:
“Master of Trinity: Is he an Italian?
Harold Abrahams: Of Italian extraction, yes.
Master of Trinity: I see.
Harold Abrahams: But not all Italian.
Master of Trinity: I’m relieved to hear it.
Harold Abrahams: He’s half-Arab.”
—Colin Welland (b. 1934)
“We had heard of a Grand Fall on this stream, and thought that each fall we came to must be it, but after christening several in succession with this name, we gave up the search. There were more Grand or Petty Falls than I can remember.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)