1990 British Grand Prix

The 1990 British Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Silverstone on 15 July 1990. It was the eighth race of the 1990 Formula One World Championship. It was the 45th British Grand Prix and the 26th to be held at Silverstone, which was the fastest circuit on the F1 calendar at the time. The race was held over 64 laps of the 4.78-kilometre (2.97 mi) circuit for a race distance of 305.9 kilometres (190.1 mi).

1990 British Grand Prix
Race 8 of 16 in the 1990 Formula One World Championship
Race details
Date 15 July 1990
Official name XLIII Foster's British Grand Prix
Location Silverstone Circuit
Silverstone, Northamptonshire, England
Course Permanent racing facility
Course length 4.778 km (2.969 miles)
Distance 64 laps, 305.904 km (190.080 miles)
Weather Hot, dry, sunny
Pole position
Driver Ferrari
Time 1:07.428
Fastest lap
Driver United Kingdom Nigel Mansell Ferrari
Time 1:11.291 on lap 51
Podium
First Ferrari
Second Williams-Renault
Third McLaren-Honda
Lap leaders

The race was won by Frenchman Alain Prost, driving a Ferrari. Prost's teammate, local hero Nigel Mansell, took pole position and led before retiring with a gearbox failure nine laps from the end. Belgian Thierry Boutsen finished second in a Williams-Renault, with Brazilian Ayrton Senna third in a McLaren-Honda.

The win, Prost's third in succession and fourth of the season, gave him the lead of the Drivers' Championship, two points ahead of Senna.

At this event Ricardo Patrese made history by becoming the first ever F1 driver to compete in 200 F1 GP's.

Qualifying

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Pre-qualifying report

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In Friday morning pre-qualifying, the Larrousse-Lolas were again first and second, their fifth 1–2 of the season, with Éric Bernard nearly a second faster than team-mate Aguri Suzuki. As at the previous Grand Prix in France, third fastest was Gabriele Tarquini in the AGS. This time, the fourth pre-qualifying spot went to Olivier Grouillard in the sole Osella.

These four were comfortably faster than the other runners, the fastest of which was Roberto Moreno in a revised EuroBrun in fifth place. Sixth was Yannick Dalmas in the other AGS, his sixth failure to pre-qualify so far this season. Claudio Langes was seventh in the other, unrevised EuroBrun, with Bertrand Gachot a distant eighth in the Coloni after its engine destroyed itself yet again.[1] Subaru ended their involvement with the Coloni team after this Grand Prix, with eight consecutive failures to pre-qualify, and the team were to source new engines for the next race in Germany.[2] The Life team had no pit garage in which to prepare their car, and worked on the grass near the pits.[1] Their car, still driven by Bruno Giacomelli, suffered an electrical failure after five laps, and was bottom of the time sheets again. Team manager Sergio Barbasio announced that they would stick with the hopeless in-house W12 engine, citing a lack of time to prepare the chassis for the Judd CV engines purchased from Lotus. However, Italian sources claimed that Life had simply been unable to complete the purchase due to lack of funds.[1]

Pre-qualifying classification

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Pos No Driver Constructor Time Gap
1 29   Éric Bernard Lola-Lamborghini 1:10.254
2 30   Aguri Suzuki Lola-Lamborghini 1:11.128 +0.874
3 17   Gabriele Tarquini AGS-Ford 1:11.516 +1.262
4 14   Olivier Grouillard Osella-Ford 1:11.953 +1.699
5 33   Roberto Moreno EuroBrun-Judd 1:12.554 +2.300
6 18   Yannick Dalmas AGS-Ford 1:12.653 +2.399
7 34   Claudio Langes EuroBrun-Judd 1:15.059 +4.805
8 31   Bertrand Gachot Coloni-Subaru 1:19.230 +8.976
9 39   Bruno Giacomelli Life 1:25.947 +15.693

Qualifying report

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Mansell qualified on pole more than half a second in front of Senna, at an average speed of 158 mph (252 km/h).

Qualifying classification

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Pos No Driver Constructor Q1 Q2 Gap
1 2   Nigel Mansell Ferrari 1:08.336 1:07.428
2 27   Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda 1:08.071 1:09.055 +0.643
3 28   Gerhard Berger McLaren-Honda 1:08.246 1:08.674 +0.818
4 5   Thierry Boutsen Williams-Renault 1:09.102 1:08.291 +0.863
5 1   Alain Prost Ferrari 1:09.110 1:08.336 +0.908
6 4   Jean Alesi Tyrrell-Ford 1:09.147 1:08.370 +0.942
7 6   Riccardo Patrese Williams-Renault 1:08.677 1:08.864 +1.249
8 29   Éric Bernard Lola-Lamborghini 1:09.560 1:09.003 +1.575
9 30   Aguri Suzuki Lola-Lamborghini 1:09.243 1:09.865 +1.815
10 16   Ivan Capelli Leyton House-Judd 1:10.691 1:09.308 +1.880
11 20   Nelson Piquet Benetton-Ford 1:09.684 1:09.407 +1.979
12 3   Satoru Nakajima Tyrrell-Ford 1:09.937 1:09.608 +2.180
13 19   Alessandro Nannini Benetton-Ford 1:09.782 1:09.641 +2.213
14 12   Martin Donnelly Lotus-Lamborghini 1:10.786 1:09.741 +2.313
15 15   Maurício Gugelmin Leyton House-Judd 1:11.167 1:10.044 +2.616
16 11   Derek Warwick Lotus-Lamborghini 1:10.552 1:10.092 +2.664
17 10   Alex Caffi Arrows-Ford 1:10.480 1:10.110 +2.682
18 23   Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Ford 1:10.568 1:10.303 +2.875
19 21   Emanuele Pirro Dallara-Ford 1:11.413 1:10.847 +3.419
20 8   Stefano Modena Brabham-Judd 1:11.070 1:11.600 +3.642
21 25   Nicola Larini Ligier-Ford 1:11.942 1:11.180 +3.752
22 26   Philippe Alliot Ligier-Ford 1:12.483 1:11.215 +3.787
23 22   Andrea de Cesaris Dallara-Ford 1:11.705 1:11.234 +3.806
24 24   Paolo Barilla Minardi-Ford 1:11.498 1:11.387 +3.959
25 9   Michele Alboreto Arrows-Ford 1:11.562 1:12.644 +4.134
26 17   Gabriele Tarquini AGS-Ford 1:12.506 1:11.681 +4.253
DNQ 14   Olivier Grouillard Osella-Ford 1:12.179 1:11.710 +4.282
DNQ 7   David Brabham Brabham-Judd 1:11.741 1:13.016 +4.313
DNQ 36   JJ Lehto Onyx-Ford 1:12.712 1:12.631 +5.203
DNQ 35   Gregor Foitek Onyx-Ford 1:13.413 1:13.271 +5.843

Race

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Race report

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Local hero Nigel Mansell led until his gearbox began to malfunction. He was overtaken (against team orders, and to Mansell's chagrin) by Alain Prost and remained in second until his gearbox failed completely on lap 57. After retiring from the race Mansell famously threw his gloves into the crowd and announced he would retire from Formula One at the end of the season, a decision he later reversed.

Riccardo Patrese became the first driver ever to start 200 Grands Prix. On race day, he retired after damage was sustained in a collision with the Benetton of Alessandro Nannini on lap 27, whilst his team-mate Thierry Boutsen reached the podium and finished second.

Éric Bernard and Aguri Suzuki both scored the best results of their career up to this point. For Suzuki, it was the first points scoring finish of his career.

Ivan Capelli was the charger in the race. Starting 10th he spun early to avoid the collision between Patrese and Alessandro Nannini. Then racing with a broken exhaust header he charged hard, eventually passing Gerhard Berger for 3rd and for a time being the fastest driver on the track before retiring on lap 48 with a fuel leak.

Ligier needed at least a top eight finish to avoid pre-qualification, but Nicola Larini could not do better than 10th place, while teammate Philippe Alliot only managed to finish 13th.

This would be the last motor race on the original high-speed Silverstone circuit; the day after the race, a construction crew funded by Tom Walkinshaw immediately began work on reprofiling and incorporating the newly designed corners.

Race classification

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Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points
1 1   Alain Prost Ferrari 64 1:18:30.999 5 9
2 5   Thierry Boutsen Williams-Renault 64 + 39.092 4 6
3 27   Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda 64 + 43.088 2 4
4 29   Éric Bernard Lola-Lamborghini 64 + 1:15.302 8 3
5 20   Nelson Piquet Benetton-Ford 64 + 1:24.003 11 2
6 30   Aguri Suzuki Lola-Lamborghini 63 + 1 lap 9 1
7 10   Alex Caffi Arrows-Ford 63 + 1 lap 17
8 4   Jean Alesi Tyrrell-Ford 63 + 1 lap 6
9 8   Stefano Modena Brabham-Judd 62 + 2 laps 20
10 25   Nicola Larini Ligier-Ford 62 + 2 laps 21
11 21   Emanuele Pirro Dallara-Ford 62 + 2 laps 19
12 24   Paolo Barilla Minardi-Ford 62 + 2 laps 24
13 26   Philippe Alliot Ligier-Ford 61 + 3 laps 22
14 28   Gerhard Berger McLaren-Honda 60 Throttle 3
Ret 2   Nigel Mansell Ferrari 55 Gearbox 1
Ret 16   Ivan Capelli Leyton House-Judd 48 Fuel leak 10
Ret 12   Martin Donnelly Lotus-Lamborghini 48 Engine 14
Ret 11   Derek Warwick Lotus-Lamborghini 46 Engine 16
Ret 17   Gabriele Tarquini AGS-Ford 41 Engine 26
Ret 9   Michele Alboreto Arrows-Ford 37 Engine 25
Ret 6   Riccardo Patrese Williams-Renault 26 Collision damage 7
Ret 3   Satoru Nakajima Tyrrell-Ford 20 Electrical 12
Ret 19   Alessandro Nannini Benetton-Ford 15 Collision 13
Ret 22   Andrea de Cesaris Dallara-Ford 12 Fuel system 23
Ret 23   Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Ford 3 Alternator 18
DNS 15   Maurício Gugelmin Leyton House-Judd 0 Fuel pump 15
DNQ 14   Olivier Grouillard Osella-Ford
DNQ 7   David Brabham Brabham-Judd
DNQ 36   JJ Lehto Onyx-Ford
DNQ 35   Gregor Foitek Onyx-Ford
DNPQ 33   Roberto Moreno EuroBrun-Judd
DNPQ 18   Yannick Dalmas AGS-Ford
DNPQ 34   Claudio Langes EuroBrun-Judd
DNPQ 31   Bertrand Gachot Coloni-Subaru
DNPQ 39   Bruno Giacomelli Life
Source:[3]

Championship standings after the race

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

References

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  1. ^ a b c "Motoring News". 18 July 1990.
  2. ^ Walker, Murray (1990). Murray Walker's Grand Prix Year. Hazleton Publishing. pp. 71–78. ISBN 0-905138-82-1.
  3. ^ "1990 British Grand Prix". formula1.com. Archived from the original on 21 December 2014. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
  4. ^ a b "Britain 1990 - Championship • STATS F1". www.statsf1.com. Retrieved 13 March 2019.


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1990 French Grand Prix
FIA Formula One World Championship
1990 season
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1990 German Grand Prix
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1989 British Grand Prix
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1991 British Grand Prix