1985 French Grand Prix

This is the complete race as broadcast on LIVE TV.

Pole position went to Keke Rosberg (winner of the previous race in Detroit) in the Williams FW10,
followed by the Lotus of Ayrton Senna, Michele Alboreto’s Ferrari, Alain Prost’s McLaren, and Nelson
Piquet’s Brabham, which was the fastest of the cars riding on Pirelli tires. Also in the top 10 were Niki
Lauda, Gerhard Berger, and Patrick Tambay. Nigel Mansell had a huge accident on Saturday when a tire
blew at high speed. He took no further part in the weekend.

On race day it was very hot and the Pirelli runners felt that this would be an advantage. At the start, Keke
Rosberg went into the lead with Ayrton Senna second, Nelson Piquet third. The French hopes of success
were short-lived as both Ligiers went out in the first four laps, then Michele Alboreto (Ferrari) stopped
on lap five with an engine failure. It was clear early on that Nelson Piquet was very competitive and on the
seventh lap he moved ahead of Senna to take second place. On the eleventh lap, Piquet passed Rosberg
for the lead. On lap 26, Ayrton Senna had a gearbox failure, retiring from the race. The McLarens of
Niki Lauda and Alain Prost moved past Elio de Angelis to take third and forth. That order was unchanged
until lap 30 when Lauda went out with gearbox trouble, moving Prost to third. Eight laps later he caught
and passed the struggling Keke Rosberg who the decided to pit for new tires. He dropped to fourth but
was soon ahead of Elio de Angelis again, and on the last lap he overtook Alain Prost. Stefan Johansson
also passed de Angelis on the last lap to move up to fourth.

Very clear footage, but some of the commentary is in Japanese (along with some Japanese subtitles), but
the bulk of the race is hosted by Murray Walker and James Hunt.