1986 Formula One World Championship
Manufacturers mentioned numbers above 1,400 bhp (1,000 kW), powering cars that weighed just 540 kg (1,190 lb) giving a staggering power-to-weight ratio of 2,500 hp/ton.
Qualifying resulted in pole position for Senna, followed by the two Williams-Hondas of Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell, and by Rene Arnoux and Jacques Laffite in the two Ligier-Renaults.
The start was incident free and the top 10 then remained unchanged for the first few laps with Prost leading Senna, Mansell, Alboreto, a fast-starting Rosberg and Berger.
The order at the front did not change, however, and so Prost won from Rosberg with Senna third, Mansell fourth and the Ligiers of Arnoux and Laffite fifth and sixth.
In the fortnight between Monaco and Belgium, there was a test at Paul Ricard and a rear wing failure on his Brabham caused Elio de Angelis to crash.
Nigel Mansell was fifth in his Williams-Honda with Teo Fabi (Benetton), Rene Arnoux (Ligier-Renault), Keke Rosberg (McLaren), Michele Alboreto (Ferrari) and Patrick Tambay (Lola-Ford) completing the top 10.
This meant that Piquet was clear of Senna with Mansell third, Stefan Johansson (Ferrari) fourth, Johnny Dumfries (Lotus) fifth and Jacques Laffite (Ligier) sixth.
Laffite was fifth with Prost salvaging one point for sixth place, driving a chassis that according to McLaren technical director John Barnard was badly bent from the accident at La Source and had to be written off after the race.
Before the Canadian Grand Prix at the public road Gilles Villeneuve circuit in Montreal, the death of Elio de Angelis a month earlier had created an opening at Brabham and the team hired Derek Warwick who had been left out of work after Ayrton Senna refused to have him as his Lotus teammate.
Mansell pulled away to win the race, and Prost retook Rosberg for second place but he then had a slow pit stop caused by a sticking wheelnut and dropped back to fifth.
With Patrick Tambay recovering from his leg injuries from Canada, the Beatrice Lola team hired Eddie Cheever for the weekend, while Christian Danner transferred from Osella to Arrows to replace the injured Marc Surer and so Canadian Allen Berg took over the second of the Italian cars.
Patrick Tambay was back in action with the Haas Lola team after missing the Detroit GP because of leg injuries from an accident in Canada.
At the start Alboreto stalled and was left behind while Mansell took the lead from Senna, Arnoux, Berger, Prost, a fast-starting Johnny Dumfries in the second Lotus, Piquet and Rosberg.
Piquet was struggling with electrical trouble all afternoon but managed to overtake Rosberg to finish third while the top six was completed by the two Ligiers of Arnoux and Laffite.
There was a massive crowd at the British Grand Prix at the challenging Brands Hatch circuit just outside London, with many locals turning out hoping to see home favorite Mansell win.
Jacques Laffite was due to equal Graham Hill's record of 176 Grand Prix starts and the popular Frenchman was hoping for a good performance at Brands Hatch as the Ligier-Renault had been very competitive.
Ayrton Senna was third in his Lotus-Renault ahead of Gerhard Berger (Benetton-BMW), the McLaren-TAGs of Keke Rosberg and Alain Prost, Teo Fabi's Benetton, Rene Arnoux's Ligier, Derek Warwick's Brabham and Johnny Dumfries in the second Lotus.
[22] It took nearly an hour and a half before the race was restarted and Mansell (in the spare car) followed Piquet into the first corner with Berger getting ahead of the second Williams in the course of the first lap.
Jacques Laffite's accident at Brands Hatch meant that Ligier needed a new driver and Philippe Alliot was hired to replace him for the German Grand Prix at the very fast and forested Hockenheim circuit.
Arrows had the new A9 chassis for the first time while Keke Rosberg announced that he would be retiring from Formula One at the end of the season and then took pole position for McLaren, ahead of his teammate Alain Prost, the team having benefited from the arrival of new turbochargers.
The top 10 was completed by Riccardo Patrese (Brabham-BMW), Rene Arnoux (Ligier-Renault), Teo Fabi (Benetton) and Michele Alboreto's Ferrari.
On the penultimate lap both McLarens ran out of fuel and so Senna took second place with Mansell third, Arnoux fourth and Rosberg and Prost being classified fifth and sixth.
The top 10 was completed by Patrick Tambay in the Lola-Ford, Stefan Johansson's Ferrari, Johnny Dumfries in the second Lotus, Rene Arnoux's Ligier and Alan Jones's Lola.
There was a vast crowd, estimated to be more than 200,000 on race day and at the start Senna went into the lead while Mansell blasted ahead of Prost and Piquet to grab second place.
Pirelli announced that it was withdrawing from Grand Prix racing at the end of the year and Renault said that it too had decided not to continue supplying F1 engines for the 1987 season.
Qualifying resulted in another pole position for Ayrton Senna's Lotus-Renault while Nigel Mansell was second fastest in his Williams-Honda with Alain Prost third for McLaren and Berger fourth in his Benetton.
It had been 16 years since the last Mexican GP (the country that hosted the football World Cup earlier that year) and the same circuit, now called the Rodriguez Brothers Autodrome in the heart of Mexico City had been completely rebuilt was a shorter circuit than the original but despite resurfacing work it was very bumpy, thanks to Mexico City's geologically active surface.
Next up was Riccardo Patrese (Brabham-BMW) ahead of Alain Prost (McLaren-TAG/Porsche), Derek Warwick in the second Brabham, Patrick Tambay in the Haas Lola, Teo Fabi's Benetton and Philippe Alliot in the Ligier-Renault.
Mansell was in the position to win the World Championship if he could score a good result but at the start he made a mess of it and was left at the back of the field.
Prost's McLaren-TAG was no match for the Williams-Hondas – which had lapped the Frenchman at several races – although Alain had collected points all year while the Williams pair fought one another.
