1986 Belgian Grand Prix

Previous race

At Monaco, Prost won for the third consecutive year, with Rosberg second and Senna third. It was Elio de Angelis’s final race.

Between-race developments

Three days after Monaco, de Angelis was killed in a testing accident at Circuit Paul Ricard. His car caught fire after a rear wing failure and he could not be extracted quickly enough; he died of his injuries the following day. He was 28. Brabham enter only one car at Spa — Riccardo Patrese’s BT55 — with no replacement named yet.

Circuit

The Belgian Grand Prix has been moved to May this year, earlier than its usual summer slot. The change follows the 1985 race, when the tarmac at Spa-Francorchamps broke up in practice under the power of the turbo cars; organisers want to avoid the dry heat that accelerated the damage.