San Marino GP 1988

San Marino GP, 1988

Qualifying for the San Marino GP was a straight fight between McLaren team mates Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost with Senna winning this fight with a time which was 3.3 seconds faster than the third placed Nelson Piquet in his Lotus-Honda. It was a massacre. Sandro Nannini was fourth fastest in his Benetton-Ford ahead of Gerhard Berger's Ferrari, Riccardo Patrese's Williams-Judd, Eddie Cheever's Arrows-Megatron, Thierry Boutsen in the second Benetton, Ivan Capelli's promising March and Michele Alboreto's Ferrari. Nigel Mansell was 11th in his Williams ahead of Satoru Nakajima's Lotus and the impressively-fast AGS of Philippe Streiff.

At the start Senna went into the lead while Prost's engine almost died and he was very slow away. Alboreto was also in trouble, his car failing to fire up for the final parade lap and having to start from the back of the grid. Senna led from flag to flag while Prost took eight laps to get rid of those ahead of him (four cars) to move to second place. Piquet was second early on but then fell behind Prost and stayed third all the way to the flag, while fourth place provided some interest as it changed hands between Nannini, Patrese, Mansell and Boutsen. It was the Belgian who took the place ahead of Berger and Nannini.

POSNODRIVERENTRANTLAPSTIME/RETIREMENTQUAL POS
12 Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda  60 1h32m41.264s  
11 Alain Prost McLaren-Honda  60 1h32m43.598s  
Nelson Piquet Lotus-Honda  59  
20 Thierry Boutsen Benetton-Cosworth  59  
28 Gerhard Berger Ferrari  59  
19 Alessandro Nannini Benetton-Cosworth  59  
18 Eddie Cheever Arrows-Megatron  59  
Satoru Nakajimi Lotus-Honda  59  12 
17 Derek Warwick Arrows-Megatron  58  14 
10 14 Philippe Streiff AGS-Cosworth  58  13 
11 24 Luis Sala Minardi-Cosworth  58  18 
12 29 Yannick Dalmas Lola-Cosworth  58  19 
13 Riccardo Patrese Williams-Judd  58  
14 Jonathan Palmer Tyrrell-Cosworth  58  23 
15 15 Mauricio Gugelmin March-Judd  58  20 
16 23 Adrian Campos Minardi-Cosworth  57  22 
17 30 Philippe Alliot Lola-Cosworth  57  15 
18r 27 Michele Alboreto Ferrari  54 Engine 10 
nc 33 Stefano Modena EuroBrun-Cosworth  52  26 
Julian Bailey Tyrrell-Cosworth  48 Gearbox 21 
Nigel Mansell Williams-Judd  42 Electrics 11 
31 Gabriele Tarquini Coloni-Cosworth  40 Throttle Linkage 17 
36 Alex Caffi Dallara-Cosworth  18 Gearbox 24 
Piercarlo Ghinzani Zakspeed  16 Electrics 25 
16 Ivan Capelli March-Judd  Gearbox 
22 Andrea de Cesaris Rial-Cosworth  Front Suspension 16 
nq 32 Oscar Larrauri EuroBrun-Cosworth    27 
nq 26 Stefan Johansson Ligier-Judd    28 
nq 25 Rene Arnoux Ligier-Judd    29 
nq 10 10 Bernd Schneider Zakspeed    30 
exc 21 Nicola Larini Osella-Alfa Romeo   Failed Scrutineering 31