He qualified 5th and won his only Grand Prix of 1985. The team's second driver Marc Surer recorded the season's fastest speed trap time during qualifying at Paul Ricard when the turbocharged BMW engine pushed the BT54 to on the 1.8 km long Mistral Straight. The car's aerodynamics, paired with its potent BMW engine, saw that the BT54 did well on high-speed circuits and was often the fastest car down the straights, and Piquet often qualified higher up the grid at circuits like Paul Ricard, Silverstone, the Österreichring, Zandvoort, Spa-Francorchamps and Kyalami. The car wasn't that competitive on slow circuits, however. Other than the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, where Piquet got his only pole position for the season (compared to his 9 poles in ), the BT54 was generally off the pace of the front runners leaving Piquet little chance of regaining the World Drivers' Championship. Piquet's pole in the Netherlands came to nothing when he stalled at the start and by the time he was push started, he was already two-thirds of a lap behind. At the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch, Piquet qualified a strong 2nd, but on lap 7 drove into Keke Rosberg who had spun his Williams while challenging Ayrton Senna's Lotus for the lead at Surtees (with nowhere to go and no time to react, Piquet hit the Williams, taking off the BT54's nose cone and badly damaging the front left wheel and suspension). Marc Surer managed to get his BT54 up to 2nd before retiring with a fiery engine failure 13 laps from home. Piquet, François Hesnault and Marc Surer, who replaced Hesnault from the Canadian Grand Prix for the rest of the season, could only score 26 points to finish 5th in the Constructors' Championship. The BT54 was replaced for the season by the Brabham BT55, although the team did use the BT54 for the 1986 British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch after the lack of results from the radical lowline BT55. After seven seasons, 2 World Drivers' Championships and 12 wins, the BT54 was the last car Nelson Piquet drove for the Brabham team. With Brabham's declining competitiveness becoming apparent (giving Piquet just three wins in the two years since his championship, during which time McLaren drivers Niki Lauda and Alain Prost had won 18 races between them and each respective World Championship), the Brazilian signed to drive for Williams-Honda in 1986.