1985 South African Grand Prix

The **1985 South African Grand Prix** was a Formula One motor race held at Kyalami on 20th October 1985. It was the eleventh race in both the 1985 Drivers' Championship and the 1985 Constructors' Championship.

## Qualifying

A heavy crash at the beginning of qualifying for Catherine Smythe saw the session red flagged while the British driver was extracted from her car. The extent of her injuries meant that she had to be airlifted to the Johannesburg General Hospital, where she received treatment for a fractured skull.

After a lengthy red flag the session was resumed, and following the conclusion of the session it was Chuck Dingley on pole position by a tenth of a second over Ferrari's Fabiano Margheriti. Championship leader Vivaldo Margheriti struggled to find pace in his FW10 during the session, and was only able to qualify fifth.

## Race Summary

Dingley maintained his lead off the start, while his teammate Stefan Wolff found his way past Fabiano on the run to turn one to promote himself to second. Further back, another poor start for Hugo Kovacs saw him drop from his sixth place qualifying position to 12th by the end of the opening lap.

While Dingley worked on building a gap, Vivaldo was still struggling to find pace, and found himself under heavy pressure from Jack Wilson's Lotus. On lap eight, Wilson was finally able to find a way past into turn one, and bad went to worse for the championship leader when his teammate overtook him a lap later into the same corner. As the race continued however, Vivaldo's pace gradually improved and by the time the pit-stop cycle began he had found his way back past both his teammate Danilo Koren and Wilson, and was hounding his brother for third place.

The two brothers pitted on the same lap and after rejoining the race were narrowly overtaken by Santiago Reyes. Reyes had pitted two laps earlier after starting on a softer tire compound. Fabiano appeared to have trouble getting his new tires up to temperature, and was swiftly overtaken by his brother, and then shortly afterwards pressured by Jack Wilson, who had fresher tyres thanks to a later pit-stop. Wilson attempted a move up the inside of Fabiano into turn one but the two made contact and spun off. Luckily for both drivers they managed to avoid contact with any walls and were able to resume, albeit losing considerable time.

Meanwhile, the other Margheriti brother was hounding Stefan Wolff for second place, after making short work of Reyes a few laps earlier. The championship leader baited Wolff into using a higher boost pressure to keep the position, and after Wolff was forced to turn down his boost or risk blowing the engine, blew past the German and into second. Wolff was unable to defend from Reyes thanks to his wounded engine, and dropped to fourth after running behind his teammate for the majority of the race.

Chuck Dingley crossed the line for his 27th career victory almost 15 seconds ahead of Vivaldo Margheriti, and with his win closed to within a single point of the Italian heading into the final race of the season in Australia.

## Post-Race

Following the race, Fabiano Margheriti was given a five second penalty and a penalty point on his license by the stewards for his incident with Jack Wilson.

## Championship Standings

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