On this day in 1987, the last race on the old Osttereichring was held, which was marked by two massive start collisions and Johansson’s collision with a deer in Rindt corner.
The Osttereichring has become too dangerous for faster and faster F1 cars, especially due to the number of fast corners, lack of safety and the narrow main straight.
Nelson Piquet in Williams Honda with more than 1100 hp won a pole position with an average speed of 255.756 km/h while Stefan Johansson in McLaren hit the deer that was at the apex of Jochen Rindt corner, killed him and seriously damaged his McLaren.
Piquet took pole position with 0.102 seconds ahead of team mate Mansell and Berger in Ferrari was third with 0.856 seconds behind the pole.
The start of the Austrian GP has always been a problem, so the race in 1987 was no exception – the first start was interrupted after Teo Fabi attacked Berger from the inside and caused a massive crash, and at the second start Mansell moved slowly from second place on the grid.
Andrea de Cesaris (Brabham BMW) and Stefan Johansson (McLaren TAG)Drivers near the pole position managed to avoid slow Mansell, but drivers from behind arrived very quickly which caused a massive crash involving around 12 cars.
At the third start, the race finally started and Mansell quickly overtook Berger and came to third place behind Piquet and Boutsen who fought for the lead. In the 13th round Boutsen damaged his car in the fight with Piquet, and Mansell later overtook Piquet after pushing him into a mistake and took over the lead.
Mansell won with 55 seconds of advantage ahead of Piqué while third Fabi was already more than one lap behind while Senna in fifth was two laps behind.
Piquet had 54 points after Austria, Senna was second with 43 while Mansell was third with 39.
Williams (93 points) convincingly led the constructors in front of McLaren (50).
