You could almost feel the annoyance radiating off of Ayrton Senna as his Lotus-Renault cruised slowly to a stop. Senna had been running a stout race, had taken the pole in qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix, and it all had come undone before his very eyes. He hadn’t been crashed out and he didn’t grenade an engine, like Eddie Cheever had done in his Alfa Romeo. Instead, Senna’s day was done due to the most basic fault of all: the damn thing was out of gas. And he was in good company: by the time the checkered flag waived on the 1985 San Marino Grand Prix, five of the top ten racers had run out of fuel, with Thierry Boutsen caught pushing his Arrows-BMW across the finish line to ensure his place in the lineup. Nelson Piquet, Martin Brundle and Derek Warwick had also gone to vapors as well, while Alain Prost, Patrick Tambay, Niki Lauda and Nigel Mansell had managed to cross the line under their own power.
Then, even more great news: Prost’s McLaren-TAG was underweight and subsequently disqualified from the rankings. That mean that Elio de Angelis had taken first place, and that Boutsen’s car-pushing antics were rewarded with a second place finish. And that meant that the fans on hand to witness the race had one hell of a rollercoaster of emotion to ride for the last few laps of the race. Take a trip back in time and check it out for yourself!
