Bellof’s rain dance

So people started pointing the finger at said Clerk, one Jacques Bernard Ickx, better known as Jacky and winner of eight Grands Prix and five Le Mans. Some asked why he had taken the decision alone rather than in consultation with the stewards, others pondered whether the fact the McLaren had a Porsche engine may have weighed on the long time and still Porsche-contracted Ickx. Or could it be that back in 1972 it was Ickx, acknowledged to be the finest wet weather driver of his era, who emerged on the wrong side of the decision to keep the race going, his Ferrari finishing second to the BRM of Jean-Pierre Beltoise…

The truth is known only to Ickx and it scarcely matters because the race was duly stopped; and while Senna was leading at the time, the results were determined on the basis of who’d been leading on the last fully completed lap, and that was Alain Prost. So it was Prost who took the points, or half of them anyway as mandated by the rules for any race stopped before three quarter distance.

But it wasn’t the whole truth.

Like that other superb Senna wet weather drive at Donington Park nine years later, the brilliance of his performance unfairly outshone that of another who you could credibly argue did at least as well, if not better, in the same race. In the 1993 European Grand Prix we all remember Ayrton’s first lap: fourth on the grid, fifth into the first corner, leading as he crossed the line a lap later. Few were looking at the mid-field where another Brazilian called Rubens Barrichello started 12th but in the same time had gained not three or four places, but eight to be running fourth overall. It should be mentioned too that while Ayrton was by then in his tenth season of Formula 1, Rubens was only in his third race.

Likewise at Monaco, there was another, even more extraordinary performance than Senna’s, though you could look at all the numbers from qualifying and the official results and never spot what went on. But it was incredible, it’s the reason Ken Tyrrell got so exercised after the race and it’s a story that bears repeating. It concerns Stefan Bellof.

By the time the Tyrrell trucks rolled into the Principality and at least compared to Barrichello, Bellof was a veteran, with six whole Grands Prix under his belt. Clearly he wasn’t going to come anywhere, not because he was a rookie, but because his was literally the only naturally aspirated car on the grid, his 3-litre Cosworth DFY based on a 17-year-old design and easily 150bhp shy of the turbocharged monsters against which he would compete.

Or not. In fact he only just got the car into the race, for these were the days where there was more demand for race cars than there were grid slots to fit them. Team-mate Martin Brundle, fresh from his season-long battle with Senna for the British F3 championship, was unable to get through pre-qualifying while Bellof by going a scant 0.2sec faster, just managed to throw himself onto the very last place on the grid with a lap of 1min 26.1sec, fully 3.5sec slower than that of Prost, taking pole for the first time in a McLaren. On a circuit more famous than any other for its lack of overtaking opportunities, it was going to be a very long afternoon.

Until, that is, it rained. Power is nothing without control and while those F1 turbo cars already had pots of power by 1984, keeping hold of it on the slippery streets of Monaco was another matter. If you drove a DFY today you’d probably think it hideously peaky, but compared to what he was up against, Bellof’s engine could have come out of a Bentley.

To say he had a good start is putting it mildly. From 20th and last on the grid by the end of the first lap he was 12th. By lap nine he was eighth, having already gained as many places as Senna would in the entire race.

Three laps later and a little further on up the road one Nigel Mansell slipped his Lotus past Prost’s McLaren and found himself leading a Grand Prix for the very first time. Somewhat buoyed by this turn of events – and who wouldn’t be – he started dropping Prost by about two seconds a lap, which was as impressive as it was dangerous. Four laps later he binned it going up the hill to Casino Square, his plan to become a Grand Prix winner back on hold until the end of the following year.

Meanwhile Manfred Winkelhock saw Bellof closing at speed and rather than risk all only to succumb to the inevitable, rather sensibly waved him through. Which put him sixth. Rosberg came next, dispatched on lap 21, then Niki Lauda uncharacteristically spun his McLaren whose brakes were failing. From the back of the grid and with two thirds of the race to go, Bellof lay fourth.

It took until lap 27 to turn that fourth into a podium position, when he squeezed past René Arnoux’s Ferrari at Mirabeau. He was closing on the Senna/Prost battle fast when Ickx threw that fateful flag.

So now begin the what ifs. No one can tell what never happened, but the most likely scenario had the race continued is that Senna would have streaked off into the distance and Bellof would have caught and passed Prost. Would Stefan have caught Ayrton? I’d say almost certainly not, but there are those who point out that the Toleman already had damaged suspension having been launched too forcefully over a kerb, so maybe he would, or maybe Senna wouldn’t have made it to the finish. Certainly compared to what he had already achieved that day, a Bellof victory would have been amazing, but in all the circumstances perhaps not that surprising.

Of course all that counts is that the record books state that Alain Prost won the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix with Ayrton Senna second and René Arnoux third. Yes you read that right. Arnoux. Not Bellof.

It is a complete red herring to offer as proof that Bellof knew he was driving a bent car the fact that, unlike Prost and Senna, he did not attend the podium celebrations. It is true that he wasn’t there, but what is actually more notable is that Senna was. Back then and because in Monaco the rules were what the royal family wanted them to be, it was traditional only for the winner to collect the trophy from Prince Rainier. Senna presumably bowled up because he considered himself the winner in all but name, which he absolutely was.

In fact it was months later that Bellof was excluded from the results, as were all Tyrrell finishers in the 1984 season. I won’t bore you with the details but certain irregularities were found with the fuel and water injection system the car carried, suggesting the team had sailed a bit too close to the regulatory wind.

And that was that. The following year Stefan Bellof died trying to overtake a Porsche 956 around the outside of Eau Rouge in the Spa 1000kms, a Porsche driven by none other than Jacky Ickx, though the Belgian ace is widely – if not quite exclusively – regarded to have been blameless in the incident.

As for Prost, there are those fond of pointing out that in the end Ickx’s decision to end the race did him no favours either because he scored only 4.5 points for a curtailed victory, as opposed to the six points he’d have taken for coming second in a race that went the distance. At the season’s end he lost the title to team-mate Lauda by, wait for it, half a point. But, like Prost, they miss the point. In all likelihood Prost would not have come second, but third at best, behind Senna and Bellof, the two most precocious talents of their era and the real joint heroes of Monaco ’84.