1985 Australian Grand Prix
| Race details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 16 of 16 in the 1985 Formula One season | |||
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|||
| Date | 3 November 1985 | ||
| Official name | L Mitsubishi Australian Grand Prix | ||
| Location |
Adelaide Street Circuit Adelaide, South Australia |
||
| Course | Temporary street circuit | ||
| Course length | 3.780 km (2.362 mi) | ||
| Distance | 82 laps, 309.960 km (193.684 mi) | ||
| Weather | Sunny | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | Lotus-Renault | ||
| Time | 1:19.843 | ||
| Fastest lap | |||
| Driver |
 Keke Rosberg
|
Williams-Honda | |
| Time | 1:23.758 | ||
| Podium | |||
| First | Williams-Honda | ||
| Second | Ligier-Renault | ||
| Third | Ligier-Renault | ||
The 1985 Australian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on a street circuit in the city of Adelaide on 3 November 1985. The Australian Grand Prix was the sixteenth and final race of the 1985 FIA Formula One World Championship. It was the 50th running of the AGP and the first to be held on the streets of Adelaide on a layout specifically designed for the debut of the World Championship in Australia. The race was held over 82 laps of the 3.780 km (2.362 mi) circuit for a total race distance of 310 kilometres.
The new circuit was received extremely positively with glowing reviews from those within the paddock despite the circuit's temporary nature as it wound through streets, parkland and across horse racing venue Victoria Park Racecourse immediately adjacent to the Adelaide central business district, with the drivers enjoying a street circuit that was unlike Monaco and Detroit with their endless short straights, narrow roads and hairpin or right angle corners. The Adelaide circuit was wide and fast in places, and included a 900 metre long straight (named the "Brabham Straight" for Australia's three-time World Champion Sir Jack Brabham) where the faster cars reached over 200 mph (322 km/h). The reception for the track, and the professional way in which the event was organised and executed was sufficiently positive to see the promoters awarded the Formula One Promotional Trophy for 1985.
Dual World Champion Nelson Piquet confirmed the drivers' positive view on the circuit when he said early in race week "After Dallas and Las Vegas, we all expected another bad street circuit", while his Brabham team boss and head of the Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA) Bernie Ecclestone told the assembled media that he believed that the standard of the organisation and the circuit itself was bad news for Formula One, explaining that Adelaide had raised the standards of what would be expected in the future and that several tracks in Europe already on the calendar, or hoping to be, would have to lift their own games in order to match it. Over the course of the weekend, the only complaint from the drivers was of a lack of grip on the newly laid surface (along with the new road built inside the Victoria Park Racecourse which is where the pits were located, the entire circuit other than the Brabham Straight had been re-laid a few months prior to the race to prevent the problems often faced on American street circuits where the road surface broke up badly under the strain of the high powered cars). The new surface was causing graining in both qualifying and race tyres. Other than a bump in the road at the end of the Brabham Straight, the circuit itself was generally given the thumbs up by those that really mattered, the teams and their often highly paid drivers.
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