1985 Italian Grand Prix

Previous race

At Zandvoort, Niki Lauda won his 25th Grand Prix by 0.232 seconds from Prost after the two McLarens diced for the lead over the final twelve laps. Senna finished third. Piquet started from pole — Pirelli’s first pole position — but stalled at the start and was nearly a lap behind the leaders before getting going.

Between-race developments

Stefan Bellof was killed the following week at the 1000 km of Spa World Sportscar Championship race, after coming together with Jacky Ickx. Tyrrell are running only one car this weekend — for Martin Brundle — feeling it would be disrespectful to bring in a replacement driver so close to the accident. Members of the team, including Ken Tyrrell, will attend Bellof’s funeral the day after this race.

Jonathan Palmer, Zakspeed’s driver, also crashed his Porsche 956 at the 1000 km of Spa and broke his leg. With only a week until Monza and no spare driver, Zakspeed miss this race.

Entrants

American-owned Haas Lola make their long-awaited Formula One debut. Delays in the development of their first car — and in the specially designed Ford-Cosworth V6 turbo engine — meant the team has had to run a Hart turbo engine in a heavily modified chassis. 1980 World Champion Alan Jones, who had retired from F1 after 1981, drives for the team in his first full return to the grid.