Zandvoort

30th August 1980

The eighth race for the Procar series in Holland in 1980 was staged over 20 laps at 4.252 km each. The winner mastered the race distance of 84.520 km at an average speed of 155.870 km/h.

After this, the final Procar race in Imola in two weeks will be a big hit: In Zandvoort, Hans-Joachim Stuck already broke down at the first turn. Nevertheless, he was in the lead at the Procar series, if only just ahead of the winner Piquet and Lammers.

Mario Andretti was a new name in the Procar circus. He had qualified for one of the 5 semi-works M1s for the first time. Only 15 cars competed at the dune circuit. Danner, Queser, Brun and Schurti, as well as the BMW Italy team were notably absent. Stuck and Piquet dominated the qualifying. Only a 6/100 apart, they both began in the first row of the starting grid.

90 Marc Surer wins 2nd place

The Brazilian clearly had the better race start and took over the lead. Starting from 3rd place, Hans Heyer was able to drive up to the left side of Stuck. Jan Lammers had a lightning start. He almost left Surer standing but saw a gap where there wasn’t one.  With excessive speed he shot towards the Tarzan turn and with blocked tyres he hit Stuck at the front, right. Stuck spun into Heyers Denim M1 and landed in one of the safety fences – inculpable. Heyer also spun into the dune sand, managed to continue the race, but eventually had to give up. 2 more cars were out of the race right after the start: Jo Gartner and Mario Andretti clashed with each other. The Marlboro racing car spun through the field, fortunately not hitting any other cars and eventually parked at side of the track. The American limped with a destroyed front suspension to the pit where the burning tyre had to be extinguished. Lap 3: Surer was able to outmanoeuvre Piquet in the Tarzan turn and took the lead. But the Swissman was only able to keep the Brazilian  behind him until lap 8. A flat spot (resulting from the incident in lap 1)  and the hard-pushing Piquet were the reasons. Lord Nelson took the lead again and crossed the finish line with the green and white M1 with a lead of nearly 6 seconds. Marc Surer was able to defend 2nd place ahead of F1 drivers Laffite, Jones and Reutemann. Local hero Jan Lammers, who had to deal with engine problems during the race, finished in 6th place. The Dutchman plainly admitted his guilt after the race: “I feel sorry for what happened with Stuck, but such things can sometimes happen“. Thus, the following situation resulted regarding the overall ranking before the final race at Imola: Despite dropping out, Stuck was in the lead with 71 points, followed by Piquet with 70 points and Lammers with 69 points. Thus, suspense was ensured for the final race.

The Procar overall victor would be decided at the final race at Imola, a promising fact.

The race result

Zandvoort – Eighth race in the Procar series of 1980

BMW Works cars in green design // Green Text = F1-Driver

The races of the 1980 season