| 1988 Brazilian Grand Prix | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 1 of 16 in the1988 Formula One World Championship | |||
 | |||
| Race details | |||
| Date | 3 April 1988 | ||
| Official name | 17ºGrande Premio do Brasil | ||
| Location | Autódromo Internacional Nelson Piquet,Rio de Janeiro,Brazil | ||
| Course | Permanent racing facility | ||
| Course length | 5.031 km (3.126 miles) | ||
| Distance | 60 laps, 301.860 km (187.567 miles) | ||
| Scheduled distance | 61 laps, 306.891 km (190.693 miles) | ||
| Weather | Cloudy and hot | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | McLaren-Honda | ||
| Time | 1:28.096 | ||
| Fastest lap | |||
| Driver |  Gerhard Berger | Ferrari | |
| Time | 1:32.943 on lap 45 | ||
| Podium | |||
| First | McLaren-Honda | ||
| Second | Ferrari | ||
| Third | Lotus-Honda | ||
Lap leaders | |||
The1988 Brazilian Grand Prix was aFormula One motor race held on 3 April 1988, at the renamedAutódromo Internacional Nelson Piquet inRio de Janeiro. Following his 3rd World Drivers' Championship in1987 the Jacarepaguá Circuit was named after local heroNelson Piquet. It was the first race of the1988 Formula One season.
Winter testing had indicatedFerrari would be maintaining the edge that they had gained by winning the final two races of the1987 season despite only having an updated version of their 1987 car, withMcLaren-Honda andWilliams, now with naturally aspiratedJuddV8 engines, also producing cars that looked like potential race winners.
Ferrari had dominated the pre-season tests in Rio with times that were not only faster than everyone else, but faster than had been recorded at the1987 Brazilian Grand Prix, prompting rumors that the team had either shut off the FIA's mandatory pop-off valve which in 1988 limited turbo boost pressure to just 2.5 Bar, or more likely were running the 1987 valve which had a 4.0 Bar limit (although neither Ferrari or Honda gave out official power figures for their engines, most of the team engineers agreed that in 1988 the turbo engines had lost approximately 300 bhp (224 kW; 304 PS) due to the reduction in boost). The rumors were renewed during qualifying in Brazil when neitherMichele Alboreto norGerhard Berger could get near their test times from a month earlier and both drivers complained of engines that were down on power, too thirsty and had poor throttle response out of the slower corners. With the 1988 pop-off valve connected, bothFerraris were also significantly slower on the circuits long back straight than either the McLaren or Lotus Hondas which were all timed at over 290 km/h (180 mph).
During the qualifying session, there was controversy whenNelson Piquet made comments in the local media publicly insultingAyrton Senna, though he later claimed he did not know he was talking to a journalist and was forced to withdraw his allegation under threat of a lawsuit (over time, these insults by Piquet – with the aid ofProst – also extended to claims that Senna was homosexual, particularly given his failed marriage in 1982; as it transpired in a 1990 interview of Senna byBrazilian edition ofPlayboy the gay claim may have been motivated by the fact that Senna had apparently had a relationship with Piquet's wife when she was single[1]). The World Champion had also been insulting aboutNigel Mansell's wife Roseanne (calling her an "unattractive boxhead"), and both drivers' families.
BMS Dallara'sAlex Caffi had to use a modifiedFormula 3000 chassis because the Formula One chassis was not ready. As the F3000 chassis could not fit the newer 3.5LCosworth DFZ engine, the car was forced to use an oldCosworth DFY making it the last time an engine derived from the 3.0L Cosworth DFV engine that had debuted in Formula One in1967, was used in a Formula One Grand Prix.
Drivers making their debut in Rio were: BrazilianMaurício Gugelmin (March-Judd), Spanish driverLuis Pérez-Sala (Minardi-Ford), Argentine Sportscar driverOscar Larrauri (EuroBrun-Ford) making his F1 debut at the age of 33, BritonJulian Bailey (Tyrrell-Ford) who had sold just about everything he owned in order to pay for his drive withKen Tyrrell's team, and youngGerman Formula 3 ChampionBernd Schneider signed withZakspeed. Of the new drivers, only Bailey and Schneider failed to qualify.
BMS Dallara,EuroBrun (with Larrauri and1987 International Formula 3000 championStefano Modena) andRial Racing, with veteranAndrea de Cesaris as its sole driver, were making their F1 debuts as constructors. The EuroRacing side of the EuroBrun team had formerly run the factory backedAlfa Romeo team from 1982–85, whileBrun Motorsport, run bySwissslot machine magnate and race driverWalter Brun, were long time competitors in theWorld Sportscar Championship. Rial, run by GermanGünter Schmid, was basically a rebirth of his oldATS Team which had previously competed in Formula One from 1977–84. All three teams would use the ubiquitous 3.5L Ford DFZV8 engine.
Just five months after his crash during qualifying for the1987 Japanese Grand Prix, Mansell produced a sensational performance to qualify hisnaturally aspirated Williams second, 1.5 seconds faster than the next 'atmo' car, theBenetton-Ford ofThierry Boutsen in 7th. On the pole was Senna in his first drive for McLaren with a time almost two seconds slower than Mansell's1987 pole time. The second row was occupied byGerhard Berger'sFerrari andAlain Prost's McLaren. After only a small amount of testing atImola before joining in the Rio tests due to the late finish of the car, neither Senna or Prost were happy with the balance of theirMcLaren MP4/4s in qualifying.
Making Mansell's lap even more impressive was that while the McLaren-Hondas either side of him were hitting over 290 km/h (180 mph) on the 900 metre long back straight, hisWilliams-Judd was only recorded at 265 km/h (165 mph), slower even than the turbos were recording on the shorter pit straight. It showed just how much wing he was forced to run on his car despite the team continuing to use its computer runReactive suspension system, though Mansell himself put it down to an underpowered Judd V8 on its race debut.[2]
By qualifying on the front row, Mansell became the first driver of a naturally aspirated (atmo) car to start on the front row of a Grand Prix since his former Williams teammateKeke Rosberg had put hisWilliams-Ford on pole position for the1983 Brazilian Grand Prix at the same circuit.
The four non-qualifiers were theTyrrell-Ford of Julian Bailey, the turbo Zakspeeds ofPiercarlo Ghinzani and Schneider, and the turboOsella ofNicola Larini. Alex Caffi failed to pre-qualify his converted F3000 Dallara.
On the parade lap, Senna's gear selector mechanism broke and he had to complete the lap jammed in first gear. The first start was aborted and Senna started in the spare car from the pits. At the second start, Alain Prost with no one in front of him due to Senna's absence, won the start and put in one of his famous first laps that saw him lead by almost 2 seconds, with Mansell in 2nd place, though he was soon passed by Berger'sFerrari. After running in the hot air behind the turbocharged Ferrari, on lap 19 Mansell's temperature gauge showed that theWilliams was overheating (at the first aborted start Mansell had been forced to drive off around the track, thankfully without penalty, due to his Judd V8 already overheating on the grid). He entered the pits to investigate, handing third to Nelson Piquet in hisLotus; during the process, Mansell stalled his engine.
Senna was making a remarkable drive from the rear of the grid, climbing to 21st on lap 1 (after almost colliding with theMarch of his former flatmateMaurício Gugelmin who suffered gearbox failure less than 50 metres after the start of his debut race and pulled to the inside of the track as Senna was leaving the pits), 15th on lap 4, 8th on lap 10, into the points on lap 13 and by lap 20 was in second place after passing Piquet on the back straight following a pit stop to Berger.
In previous years with high horsepower, the Rio circuit had proved savage on tyres and drivers were forced to stop two or three times a race for new rubber. With the reduction of turbo boost in 1988, tyre wear was reduced and McLaren figured on only one stop for their drivers. Prost pitted on lap 26 without losing the lead, and Senna pitted a lap later. During his stop Senna stalled his Honda engine and dropped to sixth place. Shortly afterwards he was shown theblack flag and disqualified for changing cars after thegreen flag had been shown following the parade lap, a move that was not allowed. Over the last 10 laps of the race Berger closed to within 10 seconds of leader Prost, but the Frenchman was merely pacing himself to make sure he finished on the now lower fuel limit and Berger was unable to catch him.
Piquet, the reigningWorld Champion, came home third in his first drive forLotus ahead ofDerek Warwick in theArrows-Megatron.Michele Alboreto in the second Ferrari andSatoru Nakajima in the second Lotus rounded out the points with 5th and 6th places. The firstatmospheric car to finish was theBenetton-Ford ofThierry Boutsen. Nakajima and Boutsen both finished a lap down on Prost in 7th place. The first race of FISA's new equivalency formula in a bid to make the 'atmos' competitive had seen turbos still take all the points on offer.
| Pos | No | Driver | Constructor | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 22 |  Andrea de Cesaris | Rial-Ford | 1:37.033 | — |
| 2 | 33 | Stefano Modena | EuroBrun-Ford | 1:37.886 | +0.853 |
| 3 | 32 |  Oscar Larrauri | EuroBrun-Ford | 1:38.276 | +1.243 |
| 4 | 31 | Gabriele Tarquini | Coloni-Ford | 1:43.869 | +6.836 |
| DNPQ | 36 | Alex Caffi | Dallara-Ford | 1:46.442 | +9.409 |
| Pos | No | Driver | Constructor | Q1 | Q2 | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 12 |  Ayrton Senna | McLaren-Honda | 1:30.218 | 1:28.096 | — |
| 2 | 5 |  Nigel Mansell | Williams-Judd | 1:30.928 | 1:28.632 | +0.536 |
| 3 | 11 |  Alain Prost | McLaren-Honda | 1:31.975 | 1:28.782 | +0.686 |
| 4 | 28 | Gerhard Berger | Ferrari | 1:32.123 | 1:29.026 | +0.930 |
| 5 | 1 | Nelson Piquet | Lotus-Honda | 1:32.888 | 1:30.087 | +1.991 |
| 6 | 27 | Michele Alboreto | Ferrari | 1:32.523 | 1:30.114 | +2.018 |
| 7 | 20 |  Thierry Boutsen | Benetton-Ford | 1:32.060 | 1:30.140 | +2.044 |
| 8 | 6 | Riccardo Patrese | Williams-Judd | 1:34.070 | 1:30.439 | +2.343 |
| 9 | 16 | Ivan Capelli | March-Judd | 1:33.546 | 1:30.929 | +2.833 |
| 10 | 2 |  Satoru Nakajima | Lotus-Honda | 1:33.293 | 1:31.280 | +3.184 |
| 11 | 17 | Derek Warwick | Arrows-Megatron | 1:34.323 | 1:31.713 | +3.617 |
| 12 | 19 | Alessandro Nannini | Benetton-Ford | 1:31.722 | 1:32.748 | +3.626 |
| 13 | 15 | Maurício Gugelmin | March-Judd | 1:34.037 | 1:31.833 | +3.737 |
| 14 | 22 | Andrea de Cesaris | Rial-Ford | 1:34.988 | 1:32.275 | +4.179 |
| 15 | 18 |  Eddie Cheever | Arrows-Megatron | 1:33.787 | 1:32.843 | +4.747 |
| 16 | 30 | Philippe Alliot | Lola-Ford | 1:35.930 | 1:32.933 | +4.837 |
| 17 | 29 | Yannick Dalmas | Lola-Ford | 1:36.832 | 1:33.408 | +5.312 |
| 18 | 25 | René Arnoux | Ligier-Judd | 1:37.214 | 1:34.474 | +6.378 |
| 19 | 14 | Philippe Streiff | AGS-Ford | 1:37.601 | 1:34.481 | +6.385 |
| 20 | 24 |  Luis Pérez-Sala | Minardi-Ford | 1:36.593 | 1:34.532 | +6.436 |
| 21 | 26 |  Stefan Johansson | Ligier-Judd | 1:37.454 | 1:34.579 | +6.483 |
| 22 | 3 | Jonathan Palmer | Tyrrell-Ford | 1:38.628 | 1:34.686 | +6.590 |
| 23 | 23 | Adrian Campos | Minardi-Ford | 1:36.593 | 1:34.886 | +6.790 |
| 24 | 33 | Stefano Modena | EuroBrun-Ford | 1:37.506 | 1:34.910 | +6.814 |
| 25 | 31 | Gabriele Tarquini | Coloni-Ford | 1:41.149 | 1:35.407 | +7.311 |
| 26 | 32 | Oscar Larrauri | EuroBrun-Ford | 1:38.927 | 1:35.711 | +7.615 |
| DNQ | 4 | Julian Bailey | Tyrrell-Ford | 1:39.711 | 1:36.137 | +8.041 |
| DNQ | 9 | Piercarlo Ghinzani | Zakspeed | 1:40.431 | 1:37.621 | +9.525 |
| DNQ | 21 | Nicola Larini | Osella | 1:38.927 | 1:38.371 | +10.275 |
| DNQ | 10 |  Bernd Schneider | Zakspeed | 1:45.540 | 1:38.614 | +10.518 |
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Previous race: 1987 Australian Grand Prix | FIA Formula One World Championship 1988 season | Next race: 1988 San Marino Grand Prix |
| Previous race: 1987 Brazilian Grand Prix | Brazilian Grand Prix | Next race: 1989 Brazilian Grand Prix |
