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.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
Nigel Mansell Williams-Honda  80 1h37m03.839s  
Nelson Piquet Williams-Honda  80 1h37m11.500s  
Alain Prost McLaren-TAG Porsche  80 1h37m59.094  
12 Ayrton Senna Lotus-Honda  79  
5r 19 Teo Fabi Benetton-Cosworth  77 Drive Shaft 
Philippe Streiff Tyrrell-Cosworth  76  25 
Jonathan Palmer Tyrrell-Cosworth  76  24 
8r Stefan Johansson McLaren-TAG Porsche  74 Alternator Belt 
14 Pascal Fabre AGS-Cosworth  74  26 
28 Gerhard Berger Ferrari  71 Suspension/spin 
nc 11 Satoru Nakajima Lotus-Honda  71  16 
27 Michele Alboreto Ferrari  64 Engine 
17 Derek Warwick Arrows-Megatron  62 Turbo 10 
30 Philippe Alliot Lola-Cosworth  57 Transmission 23 
16 Ivan Capelli March-Cosworth  52 Engine 22 
23 Adrian Campos Minardi-Motori Moderni  52 Turbo 21 
25 Rene Arnoux Ligier-Megatron  33 Exhaust 13 
20 Thierry Boutsen Benetton-Cosworth  31 Distributor 
10 Christian Danner Zakspeed  26 Engine Overheating 19 
26 Piercarlo Ghinzani Ligier-Megatron  24 Engine 17 
24 Alessandro Nannini Minardi-Motori Moderni  23 Turbo 15 
Riccardo Patrese Brabham-BMW  19 Crown Wheel & Pinion 12 
Martin Brundle Zakspeed  18 Rear Wheel Lost 18 
21 Alex Caffi Osella-Alfa Romeo  11 Gearbox 20 
Andrea de Cesaris Brabham-BMW  Turbo/fire 11 
18 Eddie Cheever Arrows-Megatron  Driver Turned Off Ignition 14