Auto Racing Roundup : Brazil’s Piquet Wins Hungary’s Grand Prix When Mansell Falters

Brazil’s Nelson Piquet benefitted from teammate and main rival Nigel Mansell’s late misfortune Sunday to win the Hungarian Formula One Grand Prix at Budapest, Hungary, and solidify his lead in the world championship standings.

Britain’s Mansell, starting from the pole position, led for 70 of the 76 laps in his Williams, but was forced to withdraw with a lost rear-wheel nut while holding a 13-second lead.

Piquet moved to the front to score his second consecutive Grand Prix victory. He won the West German Grand Prix two weeks ago. It also was Piquet’s second straight victory at the Hungaroring, where he won the inaugural Hungarian Grand Prix last year.

Piquet completed the 189 1/2-mile race in 1 hour, 59 minutes, 26.793 seconds--an average of 95.314 m.p.h.

Brazil’s Ayrton Senna, driving a Lotus, finished second, nearly 40 seconds behind, and defending world champion Alain Prost of France was third in a McLaren.

Piquet, seeking his third world championship, has 48 points after nine of the season’s 16 races. Senna is second with 41. Mansell and Prost are tied for third at 30.

Belgian Georges Jobe won the 500cc motocross world championship Sunday while Dutchman Kees Van Der Ven won the Luxembourg Grand Prix at Ettelbruck, Luxembourg.

Jobe, riding a Honda, finished fifth in the first heat, but had room to spare to take the title as Kurt Nicholl of Britain, who needed a strong showing to maintain his world title challenge, crashed.

Jobe finished fourth in the second heat, which Nicholl won. Van Der Ven, on a KTM, won the first heat and finished second in the final heat to win Sunday’s Grand Prix.

With only the Swiss Grand Prix to go, Jobe has a total of 304 points, 60 ahead of Nicholl. The most points Nicholl could win in the Swiss Grand Prix is 40.

Kurt Ljunqvist of Sweden, on a Yamaha, is third in the standings with 208 points.

Three-time world champion Freddie Spencer of the United States completed the first step toward his comeback to the World Grand Prix Motorcycle Championships by finishing in the points at the Swedish Grand Prix in Anderstorp, Sweden.

Spencer placed seventh, scoring points for the first time since the 1985 Swedish Grand Prix, in which he placed first and clinched the 1985 World Championship.

Australian Wayne Gardner finished in the lead at the Scandinavian Raceway circuit with an average speed of 92.5 m.p.h. Californian Eddie Lawson, riding for Agostini Yamaha, finished second, with Randy Mamola, also from California, finishing third on his Lucky Strike Yamaha.

A steady, wind-swept rain soaked the Watkins Glen International track Sunday and forced the postponement of the second Winston Cup Budweiser at Watkins Glen, N.Y.

The $447,070 NASCAR road course event was was rescheduled for today. The last NASCAR race to be postponed was the 1986 Richmond 400 in Richmond, Va., when a snowstorm buried the track under a foot of snow.