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.