Zolder – The Belgian Grand Prix
Zolder – The Belgian Grand Prix
12th May 1979
The opening race for the Procar series in Belgium was staged over 20 laps at 4.262 km each. The winner mastered the race distance of 85.240 km at an average speed of 151.321 km/h.
The Procar series: A field of madmen?
A successful and exciting opening for the Procar series. A bare-knuckle fight between Grand Prix cars and saloon car stars, that partly ended in scraps was the order of the day. Surprisingly, Elio de Angelis won. Commentary by ex-champion Quester: “In this field, there are many maniacs!”
The spectacle with the 5 fastest F1 drivers from Friday could begin. 1st Laffite – Ligier, 2nd Regazzoni – Williams, 3rd Andretti – Lotus, 4th Lauda – Brabham and 5th Piquet – Brabham. The other fixed participants, in order of the M1 practice in rainy conditions on Friday: 1st Höttinger, 2nd Stuck, 3rd Giacomelli, Hezemans, Quester, Konrad, Kelleners, Schütz, Manhalter, de Angelis, Krebs, Lafosse, Brun and Hotz on behalf of Surer. A total of 19 M1s competed. 4th-place F1 driver, Niki Lauda, chose to drive his own M1 in place of the team car (remained unused). Piquet (loose vibration damper) and Konrad (overstrained engine thermal) already withdrew during the warm-up lap.
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The race result
Zolder – The Belgian Grand Prix
BMW works cars in BMW M design
Blue text = F1 driver – Red time = F1 driver
| Pos. | # | Name | Nat. | Team | Laps | Time | T-Time |
| 1 | 60 | Elio de Angelis | I | BMW Italia | 20 | 33:47,900 | 1:56,010 |
| 2 | 99 | Toine Hezemans | NL | BMW Nederland | 20 | 33:52,160 | 1:52,070 |
| 3 | 28 | Clay Regazzoni | CH | BMW Motorsport | 20 | 33:53,930 | 1:24,570 |
| 4 | 66 | Helmut Kelleners | D | Eggenberger | 20 | 34:30,390 | 1:53,920 |
| 5 | 50 | Dieter Quester | A | Tom Walkinshaw | 20 | 34:42,380 | 1:52,370 |
| 6 | 80 | Jean-Louis Lafosse | F | BMW France | 20 | 35:07,650 | 1:57,170 |
| 7 | 45 | Sepp Manhalter | A | Schnitzer | 19 | 1:55030 | |
| 8 | 41 | Wolfgang Schütz | D | Schütz Racing | 18 | 1:54,620 | |
| 1 | Mario Andretti | USA | BMW Motorsport | 15 | dit not finish | 1:24,600 | |
| 26 | Jacques Laffite | F | BMW Motorsport | 14 | dit not finish | 1:24,520 | |
| 44 | Markus Höttinger | A | Team Austria | 11 | dit not finish | 1:50,330 | |
| 77 | Hans-Joachim Stuck | D | Cassani Racing | 11 | dit not finish | 1:50,340 | |
| 70 | Bruno Giacomelli | I | Osella | 8 | dit not finish | 1:51,220 | |
| 5 | Niki Lauda | A | N. Lauda | 6 | dit not finish | 1:24,650 | |
| 55 | Albrecht Krebs | D | Team Krebs | 2 | dit not finish | 1:56,060 | |
| 71 | Markus Hotz | CH | BMW Schweiz | 1 | dit not finish | 2:08,120 | |
| 61 | Walter Brun | CH | Schnitzer / Brun | dit not finish | 1:59,450 | ||
| 6 | Nelson Piquet | BR | BMW Motorsport | dit not start | 1:24,960 | ||
| 88 | Franz Konrad | A | Konrad Racing | dit not start | 1:52,58 |
