Auto Racing Roundup : British Grand Prix Title Moves Prost Up in Points

Alain Prost of France won his third race of the Formula One season at the British Grand Prix Sunday and moved into second place in the world championship driving standings.

Prost, who finished a lap ahead of the field at Silverstone, England, now has 35 points in the driving standings. Italy’s Michele Alboreto, the leading driver with 37 points, finished second in his Ferrari.

“The title . . . will be a battle between Michele and me. That will be nice,” Prost, the runner-up in last year’s standings, said. “The next two or three races will be decisive.”

Prost, driving a MacLaren-TAG-Porsche, covered the 65 laps at an average speed of 146.274 m.p.h. He won the British Grand Prix when it was last held at Silverstone in 1983.

Ayrton Senna of Brazil led for 58 laps, but Prost took the lead momentarily. After Senna surged back into the lead on the next turn, his engine died and he was out of the race.

Prost said: “I always knew I could beat Senna by turning up the boost on my turbocharger, but that would have cost me too much fuel. I don’t know what would have happened if his engine hadn’t gone.”

The race was stopped one lap short of the scheduled 66 laps because of what officials said was human error. The checkered flag was brought out a lap too early.

Winston Cup point leader Bill Elliott roared past Geoff Bodine with 10 laps to go and went on to win the NASCAR 500 at Pocono International Raceway, averaging 134.008 m.p.h., in front of a crowd of 40,000 at Long Pond, Pa. The victory was Elliott’s eighth this season and his second at Pocono, where he also won the June 9 Van Scoy Diamond Mine 500.

Despite handling problems coming off Pocono’s three corners, Elliott was seldom out of the top five during the race. He passed eventual runner-up, Neil Bonnett, for his first lead shortly after the race’s halfway point.

Darrell Waltrip, who started from pole position, scraped fenders with Bodine over the last half-mile, but managed to grab third place by inches at the finish.