1991 Australian Grand Prix

Ferrari terminated Alain Prost 's contract with the team following his public criticism of them. [ 1 ] His raceseat was taken by Gianni Morbidelli , the Ferrari test driver. After being dropped by the Jordan team two races earlier, Roberto Moreno returned to Formula One to take Morbidelli's place at Minardi. Benetton did not renew Nelson Piquet 's contract with the team, and Australia would be his last Formula One race. Bertrand Gachot returned to Formula One after completing his jail sentence i...

Gabriele Tarquini narrowly failed to pre-qualify for Fondmetal as his track time was limited after a left rear suspension failure on the exit of turn 11, which turned his car into the wall. It was his first failure to pre-qualify for Fondmetal in three attempts. Slowest was Naoki Hattori in the Coloni , over five seconds away from Brundle's pace. Coloni had failed to pre-qualify for every race in 1991, their last season at the highest level. [ 4 ] It also proved to be Hattori's last opportunity ...

In the torrential rain (which had been falling since halfway through the Group A touring car support race earlier in the day), the race started mostly without incident. Riccardo Patrese lost two places at the start and emerged behind Jean Alesi 's Ferrari but there were no accidents in the first few laps. However, as the race continued into lap 3 Gerhard Berger , unseen by the television cameras, ran wide which allowed Nigel Mansell to move up to second position, but rejoining in third. Mansell ...

Pierluigi Martini 's Minardi car aquaplaned on the Brabham Straight on lap 10, which sent his car straight into the right hand wall and rebounded to the other side of the track before eventually stopping out of the drivers' way. This indicated that the rain was beginning to fall even harder, and more torrential than before. On lap 14, Mauricio Gugelmin 's Leyton House was involved in a heavy crash trying to pass the Tyrrell of Stefano Modena going through turn 15. He lost control in the right ha...

Riccardo Patrese was struggling with his car because a front wing, from another car, got stuck towards the front of his undertray. This was spotted by James Hunt in the BBC race commentary, although Murray Walker had suggested earlier that it was the undertray that was loose. [ 6 ] Mansell then, as a result of the increasing downpour, spun off on the start of lap 16 on the Wakefield Road straight, before turn 3, having "instantly gone out of control" according to Mansell himself. [ 7 ] The torre...

Gerhard Berger spun off at the end of lap 16 having just recovered from an earlier spin at the Malthouse Corner moments before. Murray Walker said that the weather was becoming worse and the rain was lashing down on the start/finish line. Just after this happened Senna drove onto the start/finish straight and gestured to the race officials, as he went past, to try to get the race stopped. [ 8 ] Moments later, with Senna on lap 17, the race was finally stopped. By the end of lap 16 the race order...

The podium ceremony only had Ayrton Senna and Gerhard Berger present because Nigel Mansell was sent to hospital after the injuries he sustained in his crash on lap 16. When interviewed by Jackie Stewart in the post-race press conference, Senna stated:

Nigel Mansell, after being helped from his Williams-Renault commented that "everything was ok other than it was a complete joke, I mean there was debris all over the place. I've got a headache like there's no tomorrow, so I've probably had a little bit of a concussion". [ 7 ] He also made reference to the fact that "there was a truck down the straight" as well as four cars and, as a result, the race should have had 10 laps to be stopped. [ 7 ]