Riccardo Patrese won the 1982 Monaco Grand Prix on 23 May 1982 after a final three laps that turned a 76-lap race into a scramble for survival. Alain Prost had led in his Renault, Keke Rosberg had already crashed out on lap 65, and then the rain arrived with three laps left and changed everything.

Prost lost control exiting the harbour chicane on lap 74 and slammed into the Armco barriers, handing the lead to Patrese in the Brabham-Ford. The Italian then spun at the Loews hairpin and stalled, before marshals pushed his car clear and he bump-started the engine back to life. That put Didier Pironi’s Ferrari in front, with Andrea de Cesaris moving into second in the Alfa Romeo.

What followed was the kind of finish Monaco rarely produces and no driver could trust. Pironi’s Ferrari ran out of fuel in the tunnel on the final lap. De Cesaris’s Alfa Romeo stopped at Casino Square. Derek Daly’s Williams later suffered gearbox failure a few hundred metres from the finish line. Patrese, who had not been able to stay out of trouble himself, kept going long enough to take the chequered flag and claim his first Formula 1 victory.

The race had already been shaped by the wet conditions late on, with rain mixing with oil on the track and making every mistake more costly. There were four lead changes in all, and neither Pironi nor de Cesaris actually saw the chequered flag, even though they were classified second and third. The absurdity was captured by James Hunt, who said: “Well, we’ve got this ridiculous situation; we’re all sitting by the start/finish line waiting for a winner to come past, and we don’t seem to be getting one.”

More than 44 years later, the 1982 Monaco Grand Prix is still remembered as “the race nobody wanted to win.” Patrese got the result, but the day belonged to the chaos that delivered it.