Mexican GP 1988

Mexican GP, 1988

The Mexican Grand Prix had been moved to the midseason so that it could be linked up with the other North American races. The field was as it had been in Monaco and the story was the same with the two McLaren-Hondas far ahead of the opposition, Ayrton Senna taking pole position by six-tenths from Alain Prost. Gerhard Berger was third fastest in his Ferrari ahead of Nelson Piquet's Lotus, Michele Alboreto's Ferrari, Satoru Nakajima's Lotus and Eddie Cheever's Arrows-Megatron. The top 10 was completed by Sandro Nannini's Benetton-Ford, Derek Warwick's Arrows and Ivan Capelli's Leyton House March.

Qualifying was marked by a huge accident for Philippe Alliot, the Larrousse Lola driver going end over end out of the final corner. Alliot crawled unhurt from the wreckage.

Prost made a better start than Senna and took the lead with Piquet briefly ahead of Senna but by the end of the first laps Senna was ahead of Piquet again. On the ninth lap Berger overtook Piquet for third and the order then remained unchanged all the way to the finish. Piquet ran fourth until the closing laps when his engine failed and so the place went to Alboreto while fifth and sixth belonged to Warwick and Cheever.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
1 11 Alain Prost McLaren-Honda  67 1h30m15.737s  2 
2 12 Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda  67 1h30m22.841s  1 
3 28 Gerhard Berger Ferrari  67 1h31m13.051s  3 
4 27 Michele Alboreto Ferrari  66  5 
5 17 Derek Warwick Arrows-Megatron  66  9 
6 18 Eddie Cheever Arrows-Megatron  66  7 
7 19 Alessandro Nannini Benetton-Cosworth  65  8 
8 20 Thierry Boutsen Benetton-Cosworth  64  11 
9 29 Yannick Dalmas Lola-Cosworth  64  22 
10 26 Stefan Johansson Ligier-Judd  63  24 
11 24 Luis Sala Minardi-Cosworth  63  25 
12 14 Philippe Streiff AGS-Cosworth  63  19 
13 32 Oscar Larrauri EuroBrun-Cosworth  63  26 
14 31 Gabriele Tarquini Coloni-Cosworth  62  21 
15 9 Piercarlo Ghinzani Zakspeed  61  18 
16 16 Ivan Capelli March-Judd  61  10 
r 1 Nelson Piquet Lotus-Honda  58 Engine 4 
r 22 Andrea de Cesaris Rial-Cosworth  52 Clutch 12 
r 2 Satoru Nakajimi Lotus-Honda  27 Turbo 6 
r 5 Nigel Mansell Williams-Judd  20 Engine 14 
r 10 Bernd Schneider Zakspeed  16 Engine Overheating 15 
r 6 Riccardo Patrese Williams-Judd  16 Engine 17 
r 25 Rene Arnoux Ligier-Judd  13 Accident/rear Wing 20 
r 36 Alex Caffi Dallara-Cosworth  13 Brakes/accident 23 
r 15 Mauricio Gugelmin March-Judd  10 Electrics 16 
r 30 Philippe Alliot Lola-Cosworth  0 Rear Suspension/handling 13 
nq 3 Jonathan Palmer Tyrrell-Cosworth    27 
nq 21 Nicola Larini Osella-Alfa Romeo    28 
nq 4 Julian Bailey Tyrrell-Cosworth    29 
nq 23 Adrian Campos Minardi-Cosworth    30 
exc 33 Stefano Modena EuroBrun-Cosworth   Rear Wing Infringement 31