1988 San Marino Grand Prix

  1988 San Marino Grand Prix

Race details
Race 2 of 16 in the 1988 Formula One season
Date	May 1, 1988
Location	Autodromo Dino Ferrari, Imola, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Course	Permanent racing facility 5.040 km (3.131 mi)
Distance	60 laps, 302.4 km (187.986 mi)
Weather	Sunny, warm
Pole position
Driver	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda
Time	1:27.148
Fastest lap
Driver	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda
Time	1:29.685 on lap 53
Podium
First	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda
Second	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda
Third	Nelson Piquet	Lotus-Honda

The 1988 San Marino Grand Prix was a Formula One race held at Imola on May 1, 1988. It was the second round of the 1988 Formula One season. Ayrton Senna scored his first victory since joining McLaren at the start of the season. Turbocharged Honda powered cars swept the top three positions.

Qualifying

The McLaren-Hondas totally dominated qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix. Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost occupied the front row of the grid with times of 1:27.148 and 1:27.919 respectively. Their nearest challenger was the Lotus of reigning World Champion Nelson Piquet with a time of 1:30.500. All the more interesting was that Piquet's Lotus was powered by the same specification turbocharged Honda engine that powered the McLarens, yet he was over 3 seconds slower than Senna.

Nigel Mansell missed qualifying on the front row of the grid for the first time since the 1986 Mexican Grand Prix. He qualified his Williams-Judd in 11th place, five places behind team mate Riccardo Patrese in 6th. The fastest atmo car in qualifying was the Benetton-Ford of Alessandro Nannini who ended up 4th on the grid in front of the disappointing Ferrari of Gerhard Berger who, along with team mate Michele Alboreto, found the turbocharged Italian V6 engines down on power throughout. The claims of Berger and Alboreto were backed up by the speed trap figures. The fastest cars were the Arrows-Megatrons at 310 km/h (193 mph), with the Honda powered McLarens less than 1 km/h slower. The Ferraris were much slower at 295 km/h (183 mph), and were some 20 km/h (12 mph) slower than the McLarens over the start-finish line.

The EuroBrun of Oscar Larrauri, the Ligiers of Stefan Johansson and René Arnoux and the Zakspeed turbo of Bernd Schneider all failed to qualify while the Osella of Italian Nicola Larini was excluded after scrutineering after the cars engine mounting points were illegally changed.

Race summary

The McLaren of Ayrton Senna led from the start, whilst his teammate Alain Prost had his engine stall coming to take his place on the grid (Prost later reported that the engine had also stalled earlier on the parade lap). The car was still rolling so he bump started it but it almost stalled again as the race started and he dropped to 7th place behind the Arrows of Eddie Cheever. Whilst he was able to recover these places and get back to second place by lap 8, he could not catch Senna who controlled the gap according to the traffic. Maintaining a lead of 6–10 seconds, Senna slowed on the last lap to make sure he finished without running out of fuel which reduced the gap to the pursuing Prost to just 2.3 seconds at the line.

Nelson Piquet battled with an ill-handling Lotus but used superior Honda power to maintain 3rd place ahead of a train of cars including both Benettons, both Williams and Berger's Ferrari. He was lucky to make it to the finish line as the extra boost needed to keep his position cut severely into his fuel. Had he not been lapped only four laps from the finish (meaning he only had to complete three of the remaining laps), he might not have had enough fuel to complete his last lap.

Nigel Mansell made a superb drive from a poor 11th place on the grid to be briefly up to 3rd place after taking Piquet under braking for the Rivazza on lap 40 (less than a lap later Piquet used his Honda's superior power to slipstream Mansell through the Tamburello and re-take 3rd through Villeneuve). However fleeting the move was, Mansell would retire just a lap after dropping to 4th with a faulty voltage regulator.

Thierry Boutsen's Benetton came home in 4th ahead of Gerhard Berger in the Ferrari (Boutsen's late race was hampered by a down on power engine thanks to a cracked exhaust on his car), and rounding out the points was Alessandro Nannini. Nannini had been fighting for 3rd place with Piquet, but despite being consistently closer in the corners, he had to yield to the Lotus' superior Honda power on the straights. Piquet and Nannini tangled at the Tosa hairpin, with the more experienced World Champion continuing on with a wider gap to the now 3rd Boutsen who slowed to avoid his spinning team mate, while Nannini dropped to 7th. A fired up Nannini then put in the fastest atmospheric lap in a climb back into the points and 5th place. Nannini had to settle for 6th though after being passed on the last lap at the Acqua Minerale chicane by a grass-cutting Gerhard Berger, now charging thanks to being lapped and having to drive one less lap on fuel.

Both Senna and Prost recorded a fastest race lap faster than Nelson Piquet's qualifying time and both McLaren drivers had lapped the entire field up to and including Piquet in 3rd place by lap 56 of the 60 lap race. That was actually good news for Piquet and Berger in their turbo powered cars against the atmosphetic Benettons as it meant they had to do one less race lap on their allowed fuel and could push harder for the final three laps of the race. Prost's second place earned him 6 points which saw him surpass his 1984 and 1985 McLaren team mate Niki Lauda as the all time career points leader, with 421.5 to Lauda's 420.5 points.

In what had become standard practice at McLaren since Prost's disqualification for being underweight at the 1985 race, both McLarens stopped within metres of taking the chequered flag. Prost had started the last lap some 7 seconds behind his team mate but was only 2.434 behind at the flag as Senna had driven only as fast as he needed to both win and conserve fuel at what was traditionally one of the most fuel thirsty circuits on the Formula One calender.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Q1	Q2	Gap
1	12	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda	1:41.278	1:27.148	—
2	11	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda	1:41.597	1:27.919	+0.771
3	1	Nelson Piquet	Lotus-Honda	1:44.806	1:30.500	+3.352
4	19	Alessandro Nannini	Benetton-Ford	1:45.090	1:30.590	+3.442
5	28	Gerhard Berger	Ferrari	1:43.394	1:30.683	+3.535
6	6	Riccardo Patrese	Williams-Judd	1:45.673	1:30.952	+3.804
7	18	Eddie Cheever	Arrows-Megatron	1:48.399	1:31.300	+4.152
8	20	Thierry Boutsen	Benetton-Ford	no time	1:31.414	+3.993
9	16	Ivan Capelli	March-Judd	1:47.518	1:31.519	+4.371
10	27	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari	1:45.982	1:31.520	+4.372
11	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Judd	1:45.616	1:31.635	+4.487
12	2	Satoru Nakajima	Lotus-Honda	1:47.399	1:31.647	+4.499
13	14	Philippe Streiff	AGS-Ford	1:47.465	1:32.013	+4.865
14	17	Derek Warwick	Arrows-Megatron	1:49.081	1:32.483	+5.335
15	30	Philippe Alliot	Lola-Ford	1:47.215	1:32.712	+5.564
16	22	Andrea de Cesaris	Rial-Ford	no time	1:33.037	+5.889
17	31	Gabriele Tarquini	Coloni-Ford	1:48.146	1:33.236	+6.088
18	24	Luis Pérez-Sala	Minardi-Ford	1:49.211	1:33.239	+6.091
19	29	Yannick Dalmas	Lola-Ford	1:46.062	1:33.374	+6.226
20	15	Mauricio Gugelmin	March-Judd	1:49.306	1:33.448	+6.300
21	4	Julian Bailey	Tyrrell-Ford	no time	1:33.874	+6.726
22	23	Adrian Campos	Minardi-Ford	1:49.012	1:33.903	+6.755
23	3	Jonathan Palmer	Tyrrell-Ford	1:47.265	1:33.972	+6.824
24	36	Alex Caffi	Dallara-Ford	1:48.156	1:34.204	+7.056
25	9	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Zakspeed	1:48.463	1:34.567	+7.419
26	32	Stefano Modena	EuroBrun-Ford	1:48.466	1:34.782	+7.634
DNQ	4	Oscar Larrauri	EuroBrun-Ford	1:54.566	1:35.077	+7.929
DNQ	26	Stefan Johansson	Ligier-Judd	1:43.633	1:35.654	+8.506
DNQ	25	René Arnoux	Ligier-Judd	1:49.054	1:36.123	+8.975
DNQ	10	Bernd Schneider	Zakspeed	1:51.498	1:36.218	+9.070
EX	21	Nicola Larini	Osella

Race

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	12	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda	60	1:32:41.264	1	9
2	11	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda	60	+ 2.334	2	6
3	1	Nelson Piquet	Lotus-Honda	59	+ 1 Lap	3	4
4	20	Thierry Boutsen	Benetton-Ford	59	+ 1 Lap	8	3
5	28	Gerhard Berger	Ferrari	59	+ 1 Lap	5	2
6	19	Alessandro Nannini	Benetton-Ford	59	+ 1 Lap	4	1
7	18	Eddie Cheever	Arrows-Megatron	59	+ 1 Lap	7
8	2	Satoru Nakajima	Lotus-Honda	59	+ 1 Lap	12
9	17	Derek Warwick	Arrows-Megatron	58	+ 2 Laps	14
10	14	Philippe Streiff	AGS-Ford	58	+ 2 Laps	13
11	24	Luis Pérez-Sala	Minardi-Ford	58	+ 2 Laps	18
12	29	Yannick Dalmas	Lola-Ford	58	+ 2 Laps	19
13	6	Riccardo Patrese	Williams-Judd	58	+ 2 Laps	6
14	3	Jonathan Palmer	Tyrrell-Ford	58	+ 2 Laps	23
15	15	Maurício Gugelmin	March-Judd	58	+ 2 Laps	20
16	23	Adrián Campos	Minardi-Ford	57	+ 3 Laps	22
17	30	Philippe Alliot	Lola-Ford	57	+ 3 Laps	15
18	27	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari	54	Engine	10
NC	33	Stefano Modena	EuroBrun-Ford	52	Not Classified	26
Ret	4	Julian Bailey	Tyrrell-Ford	48	Gearbox	21
Ret	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Judd	42	Engine	11
Ret	31	Gabriele Tarquini	Coloni-Ford	40	Fuel System	17
Ret	36	Alex Caffi	Dallara-Ford	18	Gearbox	24
Ret	9	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Zakspeed	16	Gearbox	25
Ret	16	Ivan Capelli	March-Judd	2	Gearbox	9
Ret	22	Andrea de Cesaris	Rial-Ford	1	Suspension	16
DSQ	21	Nicola Larini	Osella		Excluded
DNQ	32	Oscar Larrauri	EuroBrun-Ford
DNQ	26	Stefan Johansson	Ligier-Judd
DNQ	25	René Arnoux	Ligier-Judd
DNQ	10	Bernd Schneider	Zakspeed

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings

Pos	Driver	Points
1	Alain Prost	15
2	Ayrton Senna	9
3	Gerhard Berger	8
4	Nelson Piquet	8
5	Derek Warwick	3

Constructors' Championship standings

Pos	Constructor	Points
1	McLaren-Honda	24
2	Ferrari	10
3	Lotus-Honda	9
4	Benetton-Ford	4
5	Arrows-Megatron	3

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

References

• Unless otherwise indicated, all race results are taken from "The Official Formula 1 website". Archived from the original on 7 July 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-12. 

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