1984 Dallas Grand Prix

The 1984 Dallas Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on July 8, 1984 at Fair Park in Dallas, Texas. It was the only running of the Dallas Grand Prix as a Formula One race, and the ninth race of the 1984 Formula One World Championship.

The 67-lap race was held in very hot weather on a disintegrating track, and was won by Finnish driver Keke Rosberg, driving a Williams-Honda, with Frenchman René Arnoux second in a Ferrari and Italian Elio de Angelis third in a Lotus-Renault. Englishman Nigel Mansell took pole position in the other Lotus-Renault and led the first half of the race, before suffering a gearbox failure at the very end and collapsing from exhaustion while trying to push his car over the finish line.

Summary

thumb|left|[[Keke Rosberg won the race for Williams-Honda.]]

thumb|left|[[René Arnoux finished second for Ferrari.]]

thumb|left|[[Nelson Piquet (Brabham-BMW) leads fellow Brazilian Ayrton Senna (Toleman-Hart).]]

Keke Rosberg of Finland won his only race of the season at the Dallas Grand Prix. The race was one of only two races in 1984 where both of the year's dominant McLarens driven by Niki Lauda and Alain Prost did not score (Belgium being the other), and gave Honda their first turbocharged Grand Prix win and also their first Grand Prix win since the 1967 Italian Grand Prix. René Arnoux's Ferrari was the only other car on the lead lap at the end after starting from the pit lane due to an electrical fault on the warm up lap, while Elio de Angelis came home third for Lotus. It was the only race of the season that cars using Goodyear tyres filled all three podium positions. Only 8 cars finished the race, due to crashes or engine failures in up to heat, and also the track was breaking up very badly, as in the 1980 Argentine Grand Prix.

The event was conceived as a way to demonstrate Dallas's status as a "world-class city"

Dallas was the first time since the 1978 Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort that both Lotus drivers qualified on the front row of the grid. Back then, it was World Champion Mario Andretti and his teammate Ronnie Peterson who qualified 1–2 in the revolutionary Lotus 79.

After the Renault celebrity race on Saturday, Stirling Moss introduced himself to former US President Jimmy Carter in the VIP suite, saying, "I have never shaken hands with a president." Carter, to the surprise of many (due to the general belief that Formula One drivers weren't as well known in America as the Indy 500 and NASCAR drivers), recognized Moss immediately.

The race was scheduled to start at 11 am on Sunday, three hours earlier than usual, because of the heat, with the 30-minute warm-up planned for 7:45 am. This was apparently too early for French Williams driver Jacques Laffite, who arrived at the circuit in his pajamas.

Ecclestone did not want to have 90,000 disappointed fans at the circuit, and viewers around the world, so the race went off with Larry Hagman (J. R. Ewing from the television series Dallas) waving the green flag to start the parade lap. and began the race from the back of the pack. By the end of the first lap, he had already passed seven cars and now he and Piquet were closing on the group of leaders.

Rosberg, after briefly trading places with Prost, who had gotten by Lauda and de Angelis, started battling Mansell for position. On one occasion, Mansell cut Rosberg off, much to Rosberg's ire, who complained that “we don’t drive like that in Formula 1” post race. Rosberg inherited a lead of 10 seconds over Arnoux, and, thanks in part to a special skull cap driver cooling system, held on to score his only victory of the year for Williams, as the two-hour limit was reached one lap short of the scheduled 68.

Ayrton Senna had retired from the race on lap 47 while running fourth after hitting the wall. On coming back to the pits, he was furious, telling his race engineer Pat Symonds: "I just cannot understand how I did that. I was taking it no differently than I had been before. The wall must have moved." His team did not believe him and Senna persuaded them to inspect the wall after the race, only for them to find that the barrier had indeed been moved by an earlier crash, moving only a mere into the track. Symonds recalled his amazement in 2004, saying: "That was when the precision to which he was driving really hit home for me. Don't forget, this was a guy in his first season of F1, straight out of F3...".

Championship standings after the race

;Drivers' Championship standings

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 95%;"

! Pos

! Driver

! Points

| 1

| Alain Prost

| align="right"| 35.5

| 2

| Niki Lauda

| align="right"| 24

| 3

| Elio de Angelis

| align="right"| 23.5

| 4

| René Arnoux

| align="right"| 23

| 5

| Keke Rosberg

| align="right"| 20

!colspan=4|Source:

;Constructors' Championship standings

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 95%;"

! Pos

! Constructor

! Points

| 1

| McLaren-TAG

| align="right"| 58.5

| 2

| Ferrari

| align="right"| 31.5

| 3

| Lotus-Renault

| align="right"| 29.5

| 4

| Williams-Honda

| align="right"| 24

| 5

| Brabham-BMW

| align="right"| 21

!colspan=4|Source: Race organizer Dallas Grand Prix of Texas Inc., founded by Waldrop, Don Walker, and Buddy Boren, had executed a contract with the Formula One Constructors' Association (FOCA) to hold five races in Dallas. Walker, a local real estate investor, bought out Boren's share in late 1983 and sidelined Waldrop. Walker clashed with co-organizers and officials and spent money prodigiously. He could not agree with FOCA or Dallas officials on a 1985 race date, and the company did not pay the front money for the second race. Both Walker and Dallas Grand Prix of Texas Inc. ended up in financial distress and were soon under investigation by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations that Walker had illegally siphoned money from the company to fund his extravagant lifestyle. Waldrop negotiated with Ecclestone in late 1984 in an attempt to bypass Walker and revive the event, but the effort came to naught. Ragsdale and the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit against Walker and Dallas Grand Prix of Texas Inc.; in 2022, Waldrop said that it was the main hurdle in his late 1984 FOCA negotiations, because he could not guarantee that authorities would allow the 1985 race to take place. however, continued noise complaints prompted relocation of the 1989 event to Addison Airport.

References