British GP 1987

British GP, 1987

The battle of the Honda-powered cars continued at Silverstone with victory in qualifying going to Nelson Piquet who beat his Williams team mate Nigel Mansell to pole by less than a tenth of a second. Third was Ayrton Senna in his Lotus while Alain Prost was fourth fastest in his McLaren-TAG. The third row of the grid was shared by the two Benetton-Fords of Thierry Boutsen and Teo Fabi while row four was an all-Ferrari affair with Michele Alboreto just ahead of Gerhard Berger. The top 10 was completed by Andrea de Cesaris's Brabham-BMW and the second McLaren driven by Stefan Johansson.

There was disappointment for Ligier with Piercarlo Ghinzani being excluded from the meeting after he ran out of fuel on the circuit and was then refueled and push-started by his mechanics. The Italian also did a couple of extra laps at the end of the first qualifying and the catalogue of rule-breaking proved to be too much for the stewards to accept.

In the race Prost made a better start than both Williams drivers and took the lead but at the second corner Piquet blasted ahead of the Frenchman and almost immediately Mansell followed Piquet through. It was going to be a straight fight between the two of them. Piquet led for most of the afternoon but in the closing laps, with the crowd roaring him on, Mansell closed up on Piquet and at Stowe Corner on lap 63 of 65 Mansell went ahead of his rival with a stunning passing maneuver. On the slowing down lap Mansell ran out of fuel.

Third place went to Senna with fourth going to Satoru Nakajima in the second Lotus-Honda and the remaining points going to Derek Warwick (Arrows-Megatron) and Fabi.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
1 5 Nigel Mansell Williams-Honda  65 1h19m11.780s  2 
2 6 Nelson Piquet Williams-Honda  65 1h19m13.698s  1 
3 12 Ayrton Senna Lotus-Honda  64  3 
4 11 Satoru Nakajima Lotus-Honda  63  12 
5 17 Derek Warwick Arrows-Megatron  63  13 
6 19 Teo Fabi Benetton-Cosworth  63  6 
7 20 Thierry Boutsen Benetton-Cosworth  62  5 
8 3 Jonathan Palmer Tyrrell-Cosworth  60  23 
9 14 Pascal Fabre AGS-Cosworth  59  25 
r 4 Philippe Streiff Tyrrell-Cosworth  57 Engine 22 
nc 9 Martin Brundle Zakspeed  54  17 
r 1 Alain Prost McLaren-TAG Porsche  53 Clutch Bearing/engine 4 
r 7 Riccardo Patrese Brabham-BMW  52 Rear Suspension 7 
r 18 Eddie Cheever Arrows-Megatron  45 Engine 14 
r 23 Adrian Campos Minardi-Motori Moderni  34 Fuel Pump 19 
r 21 Alex Caffi Osella-Alfa Romeo  32 Turbo 20 
r 10 Christian Danner Zakspeed  32 Gearbox 18 
r 7 Riccardo Patrese Brabham-BMW  28 Fuel Metering Unit 11 
r 2 Stefan Johansson McLaren-TAG Porsche  18 Engine 10 
r 24 Alessandro Nannini Minardi-Motori Moderni  10 Engine 15 
r 8 Andrea de Cesaris Brabham-BMW  8 Fuel Line/fire 9 
r 28 Gerhard Berger Ferrari  7 Accident 8 
r 30 Philippe Alliot Lola-Cosworth  7 Gearbox 21 
r 25 Rene Arnoux Ligier-Megatron  3 Electrics 16 
r 16 Ivan Capelli March-Cosworth  3 Gearbox 24 
exc 26 Piercarlo Ghinzani Ligier-Megatron   Refuelled On Circuit 26