spun out at Stag Turn and then there was a major collision involving Piquet and Ghinzani. Piquet, who could see nothing but a grey wall of spray and as a consequence missed his braking markers, ran into the back of the braking Osella at speed at the hairpin at the end of the Brabham Straight and one of Ghinzani's rear tyres hit Piquet's helmet, though the triple World Champion was not injured. Ghinzani, who was lucky not to hit Martini, limped away from his broken Osella and Grand Prix racing having banged his ankle on the car's monocoque. The last retirement of the race was Eddie Cheever (who as it turned out was driving in his 143rd and last Grand Prix) when he spun his Arrows down the East Terrace escape road and stalled his engine on lap 42. Cheever, who earlier in his career had gained a reputation for being a good wet weather driver, had driven much of his race with a piece of another car's front wing lodged in one of the Arrows' sidepods. Satoru Nakajima, in one of the best drives of his career which drew praise even from those who had regularly been critical of him such as World Champion James Hunt, set the fastest lap of the race, making his way through the field and almost catching Patrese for third, but finally settling for fourth. Nakajima had spun at the chicane on the first lap of the restart and was last by a long way at the end of the first lap. His drive surprised many as he had always been known to dislike street circuits and also had no like for racing in the rain. Third placed qualifier Martini went steadily backwards to finally finish in sixth place, three laps down on Boutsen. Martini's race generally confirmed the view that while Pirelli's qualifying tyres were superior to the Goodyears, it was the opposite for both dry and wet weather race tyres with Goodyear holding a distinct advantage. During the middle stages of the race, Nannini, who had earlier passed a spinning Patrese for second place, was able to make significant inroads into Boutsen's lead and got to within a second of the leading Williams. However, as seen by the television cameras, this was mainly due to his Benetton teammate Emanuele Pirro who ignored flags telling him he was about to be lapped. Pirro