Leading the race, he was knocked off by a backmarker and climbed out of the car to settle it.
The collision brings everything to a halt. Two cars sit stranded on the track. Nelson Piquet climbs out of his Brabham, furious, and goes after Eliseo Salazar. Both races are over. But before the impact, Piquet was leading at Hockenheim, preparing a pit stop that could still keep him in contention for the win.
Brabham’s gamble
The German Grand Prix took place at Hockenheim on August 8, 1982. Piquet started third in the Brabham BT50. On lap two, he passed Renault’s René Arnoux and took the lead.
The team was relying on an aggressive strategy: a light fuel load and soft tyres at the start. Faster and lighter, they helped Piquet build a gap. In return, he would need to stop for fuel and fresh tyres. The pit stop was part of the plan from the outset.
His lead grew to around sixteen seconds. Piquet kept pushing, without easing off. About half the race remained, and the lead was no guarantee of victory. But the gap could give Brabham enough time to stop and rejoin the race still in the fight.
The encounter at Ostkurve
Piquet began catching slower cars to lap them. Through the Ostkurve sequence, he came upon Salazar’s ATS. His scheduled stop was two laps away when he tried to pass the Chilean.
Before the braking zone, Piquet dived down the inside of the right-hand turn, taking the grippier side of the track. Salazar stayed left, on a less favorable strip of asphalt. They reached the braking point side by side, heading into the chicane.
The ATS could not slow at the same rate as the Brabham. Salazar slid on the dirty part of the track and hit Piquet’s car. Both retired before the Brazilian could make his stop. Patrick Tambay took the lead, ahead of Arnoux, and the race continued without Brabham.
The problem that surfaced later
The collision seemed to explain why Piquet’s race had ended. But the BMW engine had already been showing signs of trouble. It had been popping and banging since lap ten. Reliability was a concern for the team: during a single test session at Paul Ricard in France, Brabham suffered nine engine failures.
The explanation for that engine came years later. In 1993, at BMW’s annual party, Piquet spoke with Paul Rosche. According to the Brazilian, Rosche said they had found a piston skirt beginning to break up in Munich. Piquet concluded that the engine would have failed even without the crash.
Several BMW executives were at Hockenheim. The collision spared them from watching the manufacturer’s engine fail at its home Grand Prix. When Piquet learned this, he phoned Salazar. He apologized for the attack and passed along BMW’s thanks.
The scene began as an outburst of anger, but gained a different meaning over time. The collision eliminated both drivers and ended Piquet’s chance of winning that day. It also revealed that Brabham might have suffered a breakdown regardless. Piquet contacted the rival he had attacked and closed the episode with an apology—and an unexpected account of what might have happened next.
