The nadir of BMW's Formula One involvement thus far came at the Detroit Grand Prix, where engine reliability problems prevented Piquet from qualifying.

After the two cars came to a stop, an irate Piquet quickly climbed out of his Brabham, approached Salazar, and then punched and kicked Salazar in a rage, which continued for some time after the collision.

Following the tyre failures of Rosberg and Mansell, the Williams team called Piquet in for a pre-cautionary stop and he came out of the pits 15 seconds behind Prost.

Both Mansell and Prost came in for new tyres on lap 36, handing the lead to Piquet.

Piquet, the reigning World Champion, came home third in his first drive for Lotus-Honda ahead of Derek Warwick in the Arrows-Megatron.

Nigel Mansell went out on lap 20 with more gearbox issues for Ferrari and one of the talking points of the race came on lap 33 when De Cesaris attempted to pass Nelson Piquet at Loews Hairpin.

Probably his most famous career moment in Formula One came when he collided with the overtaking race leader Nelson Piquet in the 1982 German Grand Prix.

The second start came off without a hitch, as Piquet led from Prost and Mansell.

Piquet would finish 10th in his inaugural NASCAR season, but came runner up to Joey Coulter for rookie of the year honors.

Scheduled for 18 laps or 30 minutes ( whichever came first ), the first ever A1GP sprint race began with a rolling start, with A1 Team Brazil driver Nelson Piquet Jr. on pole position, followed by A1 Team New Zealand's Matt Halliday.

Mansell defeated Piquet in a straight fight, leading the Brazilian home by 5. 574 seconds, much to the delight of the 110, 000 + crowd in attendance.

He led home team mate Brazilian driver Nelson Piquet by 56 seconds.

He was joined on the 2nd row by the sensational Ivan Capelli in the naturally aspirated March-Judd who was in front of the two Lotus-Hondas of outgoing World Champion Nelson Piquet who was suffering from a virus and home town favourite Satoru Nakajima.

Prost led home Senna in yet another McLaren 1 – 2, Piquet claimed third and Patrese fourth.

Boutsen finished a creditable 5th and Piquet claimed the final point in front of his home crowd after passing Jean Alesi – who was suffering severe tyre wear after attempting to run non-stop – on the last lap.

Patrese duly won his first race in seven years, leading home Berger, Nannini, Prost, Piquet, and Alesi.

Months later Piquet apologised to Salazar over the phone, after being told by a BMW mechanic that the engine in his car was about to expire anyway, and that Salazar avoided BMW the embarrassment of an engine failure at their home race.

Brazilian Piquet officially won his first home Grand Prix in 1983 driving a Brabham-BMW turbo.

He also crashed out late in the race while leading at San Marino, but in a season which saw his team-mate Nelson Piquet claim his second Drivers ' Championship title, Patrese finished a distant ninth.

Brabham began the 1982 season with two BMW-powered BT50 chassis at the South African Grand Prix, where Piquet and Patrese qualified second and fourth respectively, but retired early in the race.

Piquet finished fourth ahead of Carlos Reutemann in the second Williams.

Despite finishing second to Piquet, Jones lost the world championship points lead.

Australian driver Alan Jones, driving a Williams FW07B, won his second consecutive Canadian Grand Prix, and coupled with the retirement of the Brabham BT49 of Brazilian driver Nelson Piquet due to the failure of its Cosworth DFV engine, this allowed Jones to secure the 1980 World Drivers ' Championship.

Piquet qualified second, behind Patrick Tambay ( Ferrari ) in pole position and ahead of Riccardo Patrese ( Brabham ), Arnoux and Prost in third, fourth and fifth.

At the start Piquet passed Tambay to take the lead, with Patrese moving into second place.

The race finished with Patrese in first place, de Cesaris in second and Piquet in third, and Piquet won the championship by two points.

After intentionally dropping to 6th in order to save fuel, Alain Prost stormed through the field, passed 5 leading cars ( Nelson Piquet, Nigel Mansell, Andrea De Cesaris, Keke Rosberg and Ayrton Senna ) and battled with Senna ( who made an excellent start from fourth on the grid, had been leading almost every lap since lap 1, but eventually retired with fuel problems ) for much of the second half of the race.

Both Brazilian drivers in the race finished 1-2 in this race, with Nelson Piquet winning and Ayrton Senna finishing second.

However, the Finn retired with a tyre puncture on lap 63, handing the lead back to Piquet and elevating Mansell into second place, which would have been sufficient for the Englishman to secure the championship.

Piquet made a late charge to close the gap to 4. 2 seconds but Prost took victory to win his second of four titles.

The leader of the championship prior to the race was British driver Nigel Mansell ; six points behind him in second was Alain Prost, who was looking to defend his title and one point behind Prost was Mansell's teammate at Williams, Nelson Piquet.

To win the championship Mansell needed either third position or higher, or for both Prost and Piquet to finish in second place or lower.

His teammate, Nelson Piquet, and Lotus ' Ayrton Senna were the only drivers within a second of Mansell's time.

Mansell started from pole position but yielded the lead to Ayrton Senna's Lotus at the second corner on lap 1 and fell behind both Piquet and Keke Rosberg on the same lap.

Piquet charged back through the field, passing Mansell for second place on lap 44 but Prost closed on the two Williams cars and, with 25 laps to go, all three championship contenders were running together in positions 2, 3 and 4.

Mansell was elevated to second behind new leader Piquet, but Prost passed him almost immediately.

Fearing the same happening to the second car, Williams called Piquet to the pits and Prost took the lead.

When Prost stopped for fresh tyres the lead was briefly passed to Thierry Boutsen, who was performing admirably with his Benetton B187, before Piquet went back to first before his second stop, on lap 21.

Berger retired on lap three with a broken piston whilst on lap 10 second place Michele Alboreto's wheel bearing broke and Nelson Piquet retired with a broken turbo pipe, handing the lead to Alain Prost from Teo Fabi and Stefan Johansson.

Senna won by 33 second over fellow Brazilian Nelson Piquet driving a Williams FW11B with Italian Michele Alboreto scoring the first podium of the year for Ferrari in his Ferrari F1 / 87 in third place.

The pole position was claimed by Nigel Mansell in the Williams FW11B, second was Ayrton Senna in his Lotus 99T, and third was the other Williams of Nelson Piquet.