French GP 1987
French GP, 1987
The battle of the Honda powered cars was interrupted in France by a good performance from Alain Prost's McLaren-TAG which qualified second to Nigel Mansell's Williams. The second row featured Ayrton Senna's Lotus-Honda and Nelson Piquet in the second Williams while fifth place went to Thierry Boutsen (Benetton) with Gerhard Berger (Ferrari), Teo Fabi (Benetton) and Michele Alboreto (Ferrari) following the first four rows. The top 10 was completed by Stefan Johansson's McLaren and Derek Warwick in the Arrows-Megatron. Mansell made a good start to lead Prost into the first corner but on the back straight Piquet blasted ahead of the McLaren to make it a Williams 1-2 with Prost third and Senna fourth ahead of the two Benettons, Boutsen ahead of Fabi. This order did not change although Mansell ran into trouble when he ran over debris from Johansson who had had an accident with Andrea de Cesaris (Brabham) at the first corner. On lap 19 Piquet had a moment and lost second place to Prost but during the pits stops the Brazilian managed to get ahead of both Prost and Mansell. Nigel quickly retook second from Prost and closed up on Piquet but overtaking was another issue until Piquet made a mistake and ran wide on lap 46 and Mansell went ahead. At the second round of stops Piquet stalled in the pitlane and lost just under 10 secs and so Mansell was able to win. Nelson finished second while Prost and Senna were third and fourth ahead of Fabi with the final point going to Philippe Streiff in the Tyrrell-Cosworth.
POS | NO | DRIVER | ENTRANT | LAPS | TIME/RETIREMENT | QUAL POS |
1 | 5 | Nigel Mansell | Williams-Honda | 80 | 1h37m03.839s | 1 |
2 | 6 | Nelson Piquet | Williams-Honda | 80 | 1h37m11.500s | 4 |
3 | 1 | Alain Prost | McLaren-TAG Porsche | 80 | 1h37m59.094 | 2 |
4 | 12 | Ayrton Senna | Lotus-Honda | 79 | 3 | |
5r | 19 | Teo Fabi | Benetton-Cosworth | 77 | Drive Shaft | 7 |
6 | 4 | Philippe Streiff | Tyrrell-Cosworth | 76 | 25 | |
7 | 3 | Jonathan Palmer | Tyrrell-Cosworth | 76 | 24 | |
8r | 2 | Stefan Johansson | McLaren-TAG Porsche | 74 | Alternator Belt | 9 |
9 | 14 | Pascal Fabre | AGS-Cosworth | 74 | 26 | |
r | 28 | Gerhard Berger | Ferrari | 71 | Suspension/spin | 6 |
nc | 11 | Satoru Nakajima | Lotus-Honda | 71 | 16 | |
r | 27 | Michele Alboreto | Ferrari | 64 | Engine | 8 |
r | 17 | Derek Warwick | Arrows-Megatron | 62 | Turbo | 10 |
r | 30 | Philippe Alliot | Lola-Cosworth | 57 | Transmission | 23 |
r | 16 | Ivan Capelli | March-Cosworth | 52 | Engine | 22 |
r | 23 | Adrian Campos | Minardi-Motori Moderni | 52 | Turbo | 21 |
r | 25 | Rene Arnoux | Ligier-Megatron | 33 | Exhaust | 13 |
r | 20 | Thierry Boutsen | Benetton-Cosworth | 31 | Distributor | 5 |
r | 10 | Christian Danner | Zakspeed | 26 | Engine Overheating | 19 |
r | 26 | Piercarlo Ghinzani | Ligier-Megatron | 24 | Engine | 17 |
r | 24 | Alessandro Nannini | Minardi-Motori Moderni | 23 | Turbo | 15 |
r | 7 | Riccardo Patrese | Brabham-BMW | 19 | Crown Wheel & Pinion | 12 |
r | 9 | Martin Brundle | Zakspeed | 18 | Rear Wheel Lost | 18 |
r | 21 | Alex Caffi | Osella-Alfa Romeo | 11 | Gearbox | 20 |
r | 8 | Andrea de Cesaris | Brabham-BMW | 2 | Turbo/fire | 11 |
r | 18 | Eddie Cheever | Arrows-Megatron | 0 | Driver Turned Off Ignition | 14 |