The 1978 Austrian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 13 August 1978 at Österreichring. This was Ronnie Peterson's last win before his death at the 1978 Italian Grand Prix. Qualifying Qualifying classification *Positions in red indicate entries that failed to qualify or pre-qualify. Race Race start and rain The crowds for the Austrian GP were full of Niki Lauda fans; but however for them Lauda qualified only 12th as the Lotus cars again took the front row, with Ronnie Peterson on pole. The surprise in qualifying was Jean-Pierre Jabouille who qualified his turbocharged Renault third. The race started at 2:00 pm local, the start saw Peterson lead into the first corner, with Carlos Reutemann snatching second from Mario Andretti. Andretti tried to get the place back later in the lap, but the two collided and Andretti retired after his car spun into the barriers while Reutemann lost a couple of places to Patrick Depailler and Jody Scheckter. On the third lap, Scheckter slid off and crashed into Andretti's abandoned Lotus, damaging both cars. On the fourth lap, a heavy rainshower hit the track and Reutemann spun off and was beached but the marshals push-started his car as it was in a dangerous position, while Nelson Piquet and Héctor Rebaque crashed out. At the end of lap six, Gilles Villeneuve headed for the pits for rain tyres having executed a monumental spin, and next lap Jabouille lost control of the Renault, managed to gather it all up and also stopped for rain tyres, while Emerson Fittipaldi was into the pits and Pironi spun off and knocked the nose cone off his Tyrrell but rejoined. Peterson finished lap seven in full control of the situation and when the last car had gone through the officials decided to stop the race and the red and black flags were held out, meaning "Race to stop and restart at a later time." After the decision had been made Peterson spun off onto the grass and got stuck, so it was Depailler who arrived first at the red and black flags. As the rain poured down, the race was stopped. It was clearly stated that the Grand Prix would now be considered a two-part race, the first part having run for seven laps and the starting grid for the 47-lap second part would be in the order in which the competitors completed