After breaking his leg at the Monaco Grand Prix three weeks before, and subsequently withdrawing from the next race in Canada, Patrick Tambay was back driving for the works Renault team.

Elsewhere, a lack of Hart turbo engines meant that the Spirit team were forced to modify their car to accommodate a naturally-aspirated Ford Cosworth DFV for this race.

Warm and sunny weather returned on Sunday after an overnight storm had washed the track clean, but at the green light, there was immediate chaos.

He struck the back of Prost and bounced into the side of Piquet, sending the Brabham sliding to the outside wall of the track and into Michele Alboreto's Ferrari.

At the same time, Marc Surer suddenly found his charge from the back of the grid blocked by Piquet's stricken car, and drove his Arrows into the Brabham's left front wheel.

Piquet, Alboreto and Senna took to their spare cars, but the Arrows team had none to offer Surer, so the Swiss driver was absent when the field reassembled on the grid.

At the end of the first lap, these three were followed by Alboreto, Eddie Cheever who had already gained three places, Derek Warwick, Elio de Angelis, Niki Lauda, Patrick Tambay and Ayrton Senna.

Within moments of each other on lap 22, Senna's right rear wheel came off in 5th gear on the main straight and he spun into the tire barrier in Turn one while under pressure from Keke Rosberg, and Cheever retired from third place with a cracked inter-cooler.

Elio de Angelis was a close third in the second Lotus, then a long gap back to Rosberg and the stunning Tyrrell rookies, Martin Brundle and Stefan Bellof.

Samples of the water were shipped to France and Texas for analysis and were found to contain significant levels of hydrocarbons, though this finding was later overturned on retesting.

Ken Tyrrell was called to a meeting of the FISA Executive Committee on July 18 and, based on the impurities in the water, which had been topped up during a pit stop, was accused of refueling the car during the race.