DIJON, France -- Alain Prost of France won the French Formula 1 Grand Prix Sunday with the help of a massive cloudburst which interrupted the race just when his turbocharged Renault had problems.
The 26-year-old Frenchman scored his first victory in 19 Grand Prix outings, 2.29 seconds ahead of Briton John Watson in a McLaren and 24.22 seconds ahead of the Brabham of Nelson Piquet of Brazil.
Prost's Renault teammate and compatriot Rene Arnoux, who had the pole position at the start, placed fourth, 42.3 seconds behind.
Also in the world championship points were Frenchman Didier Pironi in a Ferrari, who was fifth, and sixth-placed Elio de Angelis of Italy in a Lotus, both men one lap behind.
Drizzle, which began on the 53rd of the scheduled 80 laps and which turned into a huge downpour on the 59th lap when the danger flag stopped the race, helped both Renault drivers.
When the skies opened, both Prost and Arnoux had problems with their transmissions and front stabilizers. At that point, Prost was lying second behind Piquet, almost seven seconds back, while Arnoux was 39.1 seconds behind the Brazilian in fifth place.
The one-hour interruption gave the Renault mechanics plenty of time to fix the two cars and both were very much faster than Piquet during the second heat of 22 laps.
There was a lot of controversy over the decision by race officials to interrupt the race just two laps before the three-quarter distance mark of 60 laps. 'This makes a lottery out of the whole thing,' snapped Watson, who was in third place before the break and cllsing fast on Prost.
Under Formula 1 regulations, a race stopped before the three-quarter mark is restarted, weather permitting, in the same order as at the interruption. If only two more laps had been raced before the rain, therefore, Piquet would have been the winner.
The Brazilian all the same picked up four points for his third place and moved into second position in the world drivers championship standings with 26 points.
Argentina's Carlos Reutemann, who finished out of the points in 10th spot,remained at the top of the standings with 37 points while his Williams teammate, Australian world champion Alan Jones, only 17th at Dijon because of engine problems, dropped from second to third place in the standings.
Prost agreed that nature gave him a big assist in winning his first Grand Prix. 'The interruption gave my mechanics time to change a damaged fourth gear,' he conceded. 'But it is still a big day for me and I do believe I had the fastest car.'
It was the first time in the history of the Formula 1 world championship that a race was restarted after such a long distance had been covered--58 out of 80 laps--and the two heats added together to give an aggregate time.
Watson said he was happy enough with his second place. 'I got by Prost in the second heat but then went wide and fell back behind him,' the Ulsterman said. 'After that I was able to hang on but never challenged Prost again. After third place in Spain and second here, let's hope I can win the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in another two weeks.'
Piquet said he thought when the race was interrupted that he was the winner. 'The rules used to say a race was over if two-thirds of the distance had been covered and I was totally confused,' the Brazilian said.
Jones said his trouble was caused in a collision with the Alfa-Romeo of American Mario Andretti early in the race. 'It bent a steering arm but I also had tire trouble,' he said.
Prost's total time for the 80 laps was 1 hour 35 minutes 48 seconds, giving him an average speed of 118.2 mph. The total distance was 188.8 miles.
Prost also set a new official lap record for the 2.361-mile Dijon-Prenois cirucuit with a time of 1 minute 09.14 seconsds, an average of 123 mph. That was just 2-100ths of a second better than the previous record set by Arnoux two years ago.
At the start of race, Arnoux seemed to stand still in his pole position and was overtaken by eight cars. 'The starters switched to green and then back to red and green again and Rene didn't know what they were doing,' a Renault spokeswlman said.
'He waited until the light went back to green again while the others went off at the first green. We certainly are protesting.'
