The 1985 South African Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 19 October 1985 at the Kyalami Circuit in South Africa. It was the fifteenth and penultimate round of the 1985 FIA Formula One World Championship.

The race was marked with some teams boycotting the event due to apartheid – the segregation of blacks and whites – and was the last South African Formula One race until apartheid ended in 1992. The race was won by Nigel Mansell in a Williams-Honda, who also took pole position.

Report Until the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix, this was the last World Championship Grand Prix to be held on a Saturday; it also was the last World Championship Grand Prix where laurel wreaths were given to the drivers at the podium. The event was boycotted by two teams, Ligier and Renault, owing to mounting international pressures against tolerating the country's system of apartheid. A state of emergency had been declared by the South African government in July due to growing civil unrest nationwide, and French teams Ligier and Renault's boycotts were in lockstep with the French government's boycott and sanctioning of South Africa, apparently doing so under pressure. Most of the Formula One drivers, including Alain Prost, Niki Lauda and Nigel Mansell were personally very much against racing in South Africa, but the drivers held the mentality that because they were contracted to drive at every Grand Prix, they would race at Kyalami.

Some governments tried to keep their drivers from entering the race. Brazil's sanctions on South Africa nearly prevented Nelson Piquet or Ayrton Senna from racing.

Finland and Sweden held similar reservations regarding Finn Keke Rosberg and Swede Stefan Johansson competing. Sweden's National Automobile Federation had announced Johansson could not race in South Africa before the event, but he did race.

Ayrton Senna initially said he would race if Lotus raced. However, he later said he would boycott the race.

Multiple sponsors also ordered teams to remove their branding from cars they backed, most notably Marlboro and Beatrice Foods.

The latter held an equity interest in the single car Haas Lola team. While Alan Jones qualified 18th for that team, his car was not on the starting grid. Officially Jones cited illness as to why he did not race, but it was widely rumored at the time that Beatrice ordered the team to boycott. In 2017, Jones described a meeting with Bernie Ecclestone the night before the race, who suggested that Jones feign illness the next morning and not show up. Ecclestone described how Beatrice were under pressure in the US from activists such as Jesse Jackson not to race, under threats including strike action by African Americans working in their businesses. Only Jones and team management Teddy Mayer and Carl Haas were aware of this plan. Jones said "And so, on the Saturday morning I was gone. I just didn’t turn up. They had the car out ready to go, when they were told, "AJ’s been struck down by a virus and we are not racing"."

It was the final South African Grand Prix until apartheid ended, with FISA president Jean-Marie Balestre announcing days after the race that the Grand Prix would not return to the nation for 1986 because of apartheid. Even without the political pressures, this might well have been the final Formula One race held at Kyalami in its then form: FISA had long since deemed that circuits where lap times were under 60 seconds were considered too small for Grand Prix racing and with car speeds increasing all the time, it was reasonable to conclude that lap times from would be under 60 seconds. Kyalami's pole position time had actually fallen by over 10 seconds since the 1981 race, and Mansell's 1985 pole time of 1:02.366, at an average speed of , was over two and a half seconds faster than Nelson Piquet's 1984 pole time of 1:04.871.

During qualifying, the Brabham BMWs reached on the 1.65 km (1.0 mi) long front straight, just shy of their season's best at Paul Ricard in France some 3 months earlier.

The South African Grand Prix would only return in 1992, after apartheid ended, in a new configuration of the Kyalami circuit. Mansell would also win the 1992 race driving a Williams, albeit with a naturally-aspirated Renault engine.

Classification Qualifying Pole position went to Nigel Mansell, averaging 236.898 km/h (147.201 mph). Pos No Driver Constructor Q1 Q2 Gap 1 5 Nigel Mansell Williams-Honda 1:03.188 1:02.366 — 2 7 Nelson Piquet Brabham-BMW 1:03.844 1:02.490 +0.124 3 6 Keke Rosberg Williams-Honda 1:03.073 1:02.504 +0.138 4 12 Ayrton Senna Lotus-Renault 1:04.517 1:02.825 +0.459 5 8 Marc Surer Brabham-BMW 1:05.411 1:04.088 +1.722 6 11 Elio de Angelis Lotus-Renault 1:04.611 1:04.129 +1.763 7 19 Teo Fabi Toleman-Hart 1:06.083 1:04.215 +1.849 8 1 Niki Lauda McLaren-TAG 1:05.357 1:04.283 +1.917 9 2 Alain Prost McLaren-TAG 1:05.757 1:04.376 +2.010 10 18 Thierry Boutsen Arrows-BMW 1:05.079 1:04.518 +2.152 11 17 Gerhard Berger Arrows-BMW 1:06.546 1:04.780 +2.414 12 22 Riccardo Patrese Alfa Romeo 1:06.386 1:04.948 +2.582 13 20 Piercarlo Ghinzani Toleman-Hart 1:07.800 1:05.114 +2.748 14 23 Eddie Cheever Alfa Romeo 1:07.159 1:05.260 +2.894 15 27 Michele Alboreto Ferrari 1:05.268 1:05.757 +2.902 16 28 Stefan Johansson Ferrari 1:05.406 1:05.388 +3.022 17 3 Martin Brundle Tyrrell-Renault 1:06.709 1:05.649 +3.283 18 33 Alan Jones Lola-Hart 1:07.144 1:05.731 +3.365 19 4 Philippe Streiff Tyrrell-Renault 1:07.935 1:06.205 +3.839 20 29 Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Motori Moderni 1:10.025 1:08.658 +6.292 21 24 Huub Rothengatter Osella-Alfa Romeo 1:09.904 1:09.873 +7.507

Race Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 5 Nigel Mansell Williams-Honda 75 1:28:22.866 1 9 2 6 Keke Rosberg Williams-Honda 75 + 7.572 3 6 3 2 Alain Prost McLaren-TAG 74 + 1 Lap 9 4 4 28 Stefan Johansson Ferrari 74 + 1 Lap 16 3 5 17 Gerhard Berger Arrows-BMW 74 + 1 Lap 11 2 6 18 Thierry Boutsen Arrows-BMW 74 + 1 Lap 10 1 7 3 Martin Brundle Tyrrell-Renault 73 + 2 Laps 17   11 Elio de Angelis Lotus-Renault 52 Engine 6   29 Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Motori Moderni 45 Radiator 20   1 Niki Lauda McLaren-TAG 37 Turbo 8   4 Philippe Streiff Tyrrell-Renault 16 Accident 19   12 Ayrton Senna Lotus-Renault 8 Engine 4   27 Michele Alboreto Ferrari 8 Turbo 15   7 Nelson Piquet Brabham-BMW 6 Engine 2   20 Piercarlo Ghinzani Toleman-Hart 4 Engine 13   19 Teo Fabi Toleman-Hart 3 Engine 7   8 Marc Surer Brabham-BMW 3 Engine 5   24 Huub Rothengatter Osella-Alfa Romeo 1 Electrical 21   22 Riccardo Patrese Alfa Romeo 0 Collision 12   23 Eddie Cheever Alfa Romeo 0 Collision 14   33 Alan Jones Lola-Hart Withdrew 18  

Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Alain Prost 73 (76) 2 Michele Alboreto 53 3 Ayrton Senna 38 4 Elio de Angelis 33 5 Nigel Mansell 31Source:

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 McLaren-TAG 90 2 Ferrari 80 3 Lotus-Renault 71 4 Williams-Honda 62 5 Brabham-BMW 26Source:

Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. Only the best 11 results counted towards the Drivers' Championship. Numbers without parentheses are Championship points; numbers in parentheses are total points scored.

References