GRAND PRIX RACING : San Marino Event Goes to Patrese

There was a little more emotion than usual in the voice of Italy’s Riccardo Patrese.

“It’s a great day, one of the happiest in my life,” Patrese said after winning the San Marino Grand Prix on Sunday. “I won on the right track. I’m overjoyed and I can hardly express what I feel inside me.”

It was the third Grand Prix victory in Patrese’s 14-year Formula One career and his most gratifying. It came eight years after his last victory, in South Africa, and rewarded him for several disappointing seasons.

Patrese, 36, who drove a Williams-Renault, broke into tears as he walked to the awards ceremony to the cheers of the crowd of about 150,000.

He completed the 191.03-mile race in 1 hour 30 minutes 55.478 seconds at an average speed of 125.783 m.p.h.

Patrese, one of the oldest Formula One active drivers along with Brazilian Nelson Piquet and Japanese Satoru Nakajima, beat Austria’s Gerhard Berger and Italy’s Alessandro Nannini at the finish, with four drivers alternating in the lead during the 61 laps.

Patrese began in fourth place, fought back to second by the 39th lap and overtook Berger for the lead in the 51st lap.

“It happened before the Mineral Waters bend, where I spun off in 1983, missing a sure victory,” Patrese recalled. “I was afraid that history would repeat itself. I was afraid through the very last bend.”

Reigning world champion Alain Prost of France was fourth in a Ferrari. The other Ferrari driver, Britain’s Nigel Mansell, was stopped by car problems shortly after an aborted challenge to Berger.

Berger, who trailed Patrese by 5.11 seconds at the finish line in a McLaren-Honda, said: “He was quicker in the final laps. I did not make any mistake.”