By the numbers
A crash means a race retirement from an accident, collision or spin. Starts exclude non-qualifications, non-starts and exclusions.History
The Autódromo Internacional Nelson Piquet stood in the Jacarepaguá district of Rio de Janeiro and was also known as Jacarepaguá, after that neighbourhood. It was also called the Autódromo Riocentro. The circuit was built between 1971 and 1977 on the site of the Barra da Tijuca road course, which had run from 1964 to 1970 on reclaimed marshland. It opened in January 1978, a few weeks before the Brazilian Grand Prix.
The 5.031 km layout, with 11 corners, ran anti-clockwise. It was fairly flat, with a long pit straight and an even longer back straight, where the turbocharged cars of the mid-1980s reached around 300 km/h. There were also plenty of medium and slow corners that left room for overtaking. Large grandstands along the back straight held most of the crowd of up to 90,000 and gave a view of the whole track.
The first world championship race at Jacarepaguá was won in 1978 by Carlos Reutemann for Ferrari. In 1979 and 1980 the Brazilian Grand Prix was held at Interlagos. Because of safety concerns about that circuit, it was staged in Rio from 1981 for the rest of the decade. Nine more races took place here from 1981 to 1989, and from 1983 to 1989 it opened the season each year. Alain Prost won five times, with Reutemann and Nelson Piquet taking two wins each. The circuit was named after Piquet in 1988, a year after his third world title. After the 1989 race the Grand Prix moved to Interlagos in 1990.
The site also staged CART races on an additional oval (1996 to 2000), motorcycle Grands Prix (1995 to 2004) and stock car racing. It was demolished in November 2012 to make way for facilities for the 2016 Olympic Games.
Moments
- 1978Carlos Reutemann won the first Formula One race at Jacarepaguá for Ferrari, a few weeks after the circuit opened.
- 1981Carlos Reutemann won for Williams in very wet conditions, despite team orders to let his team-mate Alan Jones through.
- 1982Alain Prost won for Renault after Nelson Piquet and Keke Rosberg, who had crossed the line first and second, were disqualified for being underweight.
- 1983Nelson Piquet won in a turbocharged BMW-powered Brabham and went on to take his second world title that year, the first champion with a turbo engine.
- 1986Nelson Piquet won for Williams ahead of Ayrton Senna in a Lotus, giving Brazil a one-two.
- 1989Nigel Mansell won for Ferrari in the first race after the turbo ban, which was also the last Formula One race at Jacarepaguá.
Most wins
Click a bar to see every win here with year, team and analysis.
Data: F1DB by Marcel Overdijk, CC BY 4.0 licence.