1982 Detroit Grand Prix
| Race details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 7 of 16 in the 1982 Formula One season | |||
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|||
| Date | June 6, 1982 | ||
| Official name | 1st Detroit Grand Prix | ||
| Location |
Detroit street circuit Detroit, Michigan |
||
| Course | Temporary street course | ||
| Course length | 4.168 km (2.59 mi) | ||
| Distance | 62 laps, 258.428 km (160.58 mi) | ||
| Weather | Sunny, warm | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | Renault | ||
| Time | 1:48.537 | ||
| Fastest lap | |||
| Driver |
 Alain Prost
|
Renault | |
| Time | 1:50.438 on lap 45 | ||
| Podium | |||
| First | McLaren-Ford | ||
| Second | Ligier-Matra | ||
| Third | Ferrari | ||
The 1982 Detroit Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on June 6, 1982, in Detroit, Michigan.
Starting from seventeenth position on the grid, Northern Ireland's John Watson stormed through the field to win the first Detroit Grand Prix, at America's sixth different Formula One venue.
Due to organizational problems, extra practice planned for Thursday was cancelled, and the first qualifying session on Friday had to be postponed. There was time for only a one-hour practice session on Friday, and so qualifying would take place on Saturday in two one-hour sessions, four hours apart. Saturday was cold and overcast with a very real threat of rain, and nearly all the drivers scrambled to get a time in on the dry track while they could, with lots of spins and trips down the escape roads of the unfamiliar circuit. The afternoon session was wet throughout, as expected, and the times from the morning session did indeed determine the grid.
Alain Prost took Renault's sixth pole in seven races on the season with a lap of 1:48.537, an average of less than 83 miles per hour (134 kilometers per hour), slower than Monaco. Andrea de Cesaris, the only non-Renault driver with a pole so far in 1982 (Long Beach), put his Alfa Romeo alongside Prost on the front row with a 1:48.872, ahead of the Williams of Keke Rosberg. For the second straight race, Ferrari had only one entry following the death of Gilles Villeneuve in Belgium four weeks earlier, and Didier Pironi qualified it in fourth spot.
The lone American driver in the race, Eddie Cheever, put on a fine show for the home crowd, placing his Ligier ninth, behind the Lotus pair of Nigel Mansell and Elio de Angelis and just ahead of Niki Lauda's McLaren. The biggest surprise, however, was seeing defending World Champion Nelson Piquet at the bottom of the time sheets. Problems with the BMW engines in both his race car and spare during the morning session and rain in the afternoon combined to keep him off the grid for Sunday's race.
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