Formula One Drivers Decide Title in Australia

Britain’s Nigel Mansell, Frenchman Alain Prost and Nelson Piquet of Brazil will battle for the world championship in Sunday’s finale of the Formula One grand prix season.

Mansell, seeking to become the first Briton to win the driver’s title since James Hunt in 1976, leads with 70 points and needs only a third place finish in the Australian Grand Prix to earn the championship.

Prost, the defending champion, has 64 points and needs an outright victory combined with a low Mansell finish to win the championship. Piquet, the 1981 and 1983 world champion, is in a similar situation with 63 points. Nine points are awarded to the race winner, with six points for second place and four for third.

Unlike last year’s inaugural Australian race in which the drivers and their sleek multimillion-dollar turbocharged racers battled searing heat, the prelude to Sunday’s race has seen rain, chilly winds and even hail.

A sellout crowd of 120,000 is expected to line the 2.3-mile course through the streets of the capital of South Australia.

Another 800 million fans in 41 countries will watch the 82-lap, 192.45-mile grand prix finale--the last of a 16-round series that began in Brazil in March--on television.

Last year’s race was won by 1982 champion Keke Rosberg of Finland, who has announced he will retire from racing and the Marlboro McLaren team after Sunday’s race.

Coincidentally, the man he replaced on the McLaren team this year, Austria’s Niki Lauda, made the Adelaide Grand Prix the last of his career before retirement.

At a news conference in Adelaide this week, Prost sized up his chances of claiming his second straight driving championship.

“I would say, honestly, that the best position, especially about the points, is Nigel Mansell’s position because he has six points more than me and seven more than Nelson Piquet,” said the 31-year-old Frenchman, who won this season at San Marino, Monaco and Austria.

“But psychologically, my position is a little bit easier because I have nothing to lose,” he said.

Prost noted Mansell will be racing against Piquet, his Honda-Williams teammate who has won four grand prix races in 1986 against Mansell’s five.

“In Formula One, your biggest competitor is your teammate because he’s the only guy who has the same car as you. It’s an extra pressure and he must be careful about that,” Prost said.