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| 1988 Australian Grand Prix | |||||
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Race 16 of 16 in the1988 Formula One World Championship
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| Race details | |||||
| Date | 13 November 1988 | ||||
| Official name | LIII Foster's Australian Grand Prix | ||||
| Location | Adelaide Street Circuit Adelaide,South Australia | ||||
| Course | Temporary street circuit | ||||
| Course length | 3.780 km (2.362 miles) | ||||
| Distance | 82 laps, 309.960 km (193.684 miles) | ||||
| Weather | Cloudy and hot | ||||
| Pole position | |||||
| Driver | McLaren-Honda | ||||
| Time | 1:17.748 | ||||
| Fastest lap | |||||
| Driver |  Alain Prost | McLaren-Honda | |||
| Time | 1:21.216 on lap 59 | ||||
| Podium | |||||
| First | McLaren-Honda | ||||
| Second | McLaren-Honda | ||||
| Third | Lotus-Honda | ||||
Lap leaders | |||||
The1988 Australian Grand Prix was aFormula One motor race held at theAdelaide Street Circuit on 13 November 1988. It was the sixteenth and final race of the1988 Formula One World Championship, and the last race for whichturbocharged engines would be eligible until the2014 Australian Grand Prix.
The 82-lap race was won by FrenchmanAlain Prost, driving aMcLaren-Honda. It was Prost's seventh victory of the season, and the McLaren team's fifteenth, a record for a constructor in a single season that would stand until 2014. Prost's Brazilian teammate and new World ChampionAyrton Senna finished second, having started frompole position, while Senna's compatriot and outgoing championNelson Piquet came third in aLotus-Honda, achieving what would turn out to be the final podium finish for the original Team Lotus.
As had become normal in 1988, qualifying was the domain of the McLaren-Hondas. Senna and Prost easily led the time sheets on both Friday and Saturday, with Prost initially fastest on Friday with a 1:18.179 lap, 0.153 ahead of his teammate. The pair traded pole laps in the second qualifying session, with Senna doing his usual act of snatching pole on the last lap of qualifying with a 1:17.748 lap, only 0.132 in front of his teammate, but 1.7 seconds faster than the next fastest car, Nigel Mansell in the Williams-Judd. During qualifying Senna was hampered by a sprained left wrist having injured it during a game of beach soccer inBali where he had taken a small holiday after winning the championship inJapan. His injury was such that there was speculation the teams test driverEmanuele Pirro would drive in his place, but the new World Champion refused to be sidelined and took his place in Adelaide, though he admitted that driving theMP4/4 on a tight, bumpy street circuit while nursing a sprained wrist was hard. Prost on the other hand had spent his time betweenSuzuka and Adelaide playing golf at a resort in the Australian state ofQueensland. There was also speculation that Honda would run theirV10 engines (intended for1989) in Adelaide instead of theV6 turbo. However, team bossRon Dennis explained that racing the V10 was never part of the 1988 plan, and that with the RA168-E proving so dominant, Honda wanted to finish the turbo era on the highest possible note.
Third on the grid on both days wasNigel Mansell in his atmosphericWilliams-Judd, though he was 1.7 seconds slower than Senna. Mansell was ahead of1987 pole winnerGerhard Berger in his turbochargedFerrari. Fifth was Nelson Piquet, finally finding some balance in his Lotus on the only street circuit he liked, despite a couple of spins in qualifying. Mansell's teammateRiccardo Patrese lined up sixth.
Gabriele Tarquini (Coloni),Julian Bailey (Tyrrell),Pierre-Henri Raphanel (Larrousse-Lola making his first appearance in F1 in place ofYannick Dalmas who had contractedLegionaire's Disease) andBernd Schneider (Zakspeed) all failed to qualify. TheOsella ofNicola Larini with its ancient "Osella V8" turbocharged engine (which started life as the Alfa Romeo 890T in1983 and was actually the most powerful car in the 1988 field with approximately 700 bhp (522 kW; 710 PS)) failed to pre-qualify.
For the most part in 1988, qualifying and race times had generally been faster than those set in1987, showing the advances in development despite the leading turbo powered cars having approximately 300 bhp (224 kW; 304 PS) less than they had the previous year. In Adelaide the drop in power meant a big difference to the top speeds on the 900-metre-longBrabham Straight and times were slower as a result. In 1987 the faster cars were topping 320 km/h (199 mph) on the straight, while in 1988 those speeds were down to 300 km/h (186 mph) or less. Senna's 1988 pole time was 0.481 slower than Berger's time in 1987 while Berger himself, driving an updated version of his 1987 Ferrari, was 2.25 seconds slower than his 1987 pole time of 1:17.267.
Prost led off the start from Senna, Berger, Piquet, and Mansell in his last race forWilliams before joining Ferrari in 1989. By lap 4, Prost's lead over Senna was 5.5 seconds, with Berger close behind the Brazilian.Michele Alboreto's last race for Ferrari ended in retirement shortly after the start, when he collided withAlex Caffi'sDallara.
Berger passed Senna on lap 5 at the Racetrack Hairpin, a tight second-gear right hander at the end of the Brabham Straight, and began a determined drive, catching and passing Prost at the same place on lap 14. He had a three-second lead when he came up to lapStefano Modena in theEuroBrun andRené Arnoux in theLigier on lap 23. Arnoux appeared to ignore his mirrors and the blue flags instructing him to let Berger past, causing the Ferrari's left front wheel to ride the Ligier's rear right wheel and send both cars into a spin. Berger retired immediately with suspension damage, putting Prost back into the lead with Senna second.
Behind the McLarens, Piquet was maintaining third ahead of the Williams pair of Patrese and Mansell. The Italian opened a small gap on his teammate and closed on Piquet, making several attempts to pass the Brazilian. However, he spun on lap 53, letting Mansell past. The Englishman was no more successful in trying to pass Piquet, and he retired on lap 66 when his brakes failed and he spun into the wall. By lap 59 Prost was putting in a succession of fast laps, extending his lead to over 30 seconds and lapping the whole field up to the fifth-placedRial ofAndrea de Cesaris.
On lap 46,Pierluigi Martini spun hisMinardi at the chicane and was almost collected byStefan Johansson's Ligier.Maurício Gugelmin slowed hisMarch to avoid the pair, only to be hit from behind bySatoru Nakajima's Lotus, putting both cars out. This crash also had an effect on Prost who was the first car upon the scene. The McLaren ran over some debris which broke off part of the front wing end plate, causing the car to understeer for the rest of the race, though Prost was able to play with his car's onboard settings to compensate and would set the fastest race lap later in the race.
Alessandro Nannini spun hisBenetton;Jonathan Palmer'sTyrrell suffered transmission problems; andArrows driversDerek Warwick andEddie Cheever both suffered engine failures. Driveshaft trouble accounted for the EuroBruns of Modena andOscar Larrauri, while Caffi succumbed to clutch failure in his Dallara.
At the finish, only eleven cars were classified, of which just seven saw the chequered flag: de Cesaris, Johansson andPhilippe Alliot'sLarrousse-Lola all ran out of fuel in the closing laps, whilePhilippe Streiff'sAGS suffered an electrical failure. Prost led home Senna in yet another McLaren 1–2, with Piquet third and Patrese fourth. De Cesaris' misfortune handed fifth place toThierry Boutsen in the Benetton despite a spin and a stuttering engine, withIvan Capelli taking the final point for sixth in his March despite a puncture.
In the last race in which cars withturbocharged engines were allowed to compete until2014, all three podium positions were taken by cars powered by Honda turbos.
| Pos | No | Driver | Constructor | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 36 |  Alex Caffi | Dallara-Ford | 1:21.519 | — |
| 2 | 33 | Stefano Modena | EuroBrun-Ford | 1:21.901 | +0.382 |
| 3 | 31 | Gabriele Tarquini | Coloni-Ford | 1:22.022 | +0.503 |
| 4 | 32 |  Oscar Larrauri | EuroBrun-Ford | 1:24.634 | +3.115 |
| DNPQ | 21 | Nicola Larini | Osella | 1:28.440 | +6.921 |
| Pos | No | Driver | Constructor | Q1 | Q2 | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 12 |  Ayrton Senna | McLaren-Honda | 1:18.332 | 1:17.748 | |
| 2 | 11 | Alain Prost | McLaren-Honda | 1:18.179 | 1:17.880 | +0.132 |
| 3 | 5 |  Nigel Mansell | Williams-Judd | 1:19.427 | 1:19.508 | +1.760 |
| 4 | 28 |  Gerhard Berger | Ferrari | 1:20.019 | 1:19.517 | +1.769 |
| 5 | 1 | Nelson Piquet | Lotus-Honda | 1:20.477 | 1:19.535 | +1.787 |
| 6 | 6 | Riccardo Patrese | Williams-Judd | 1:19.925 | 1:19.998 | +2.177 |
| 7 | 17 | Derek Warwick | Arrows-Megatron | 1:20.086 | 1:20.495 | +2.338 |
| 8 | 19 | Alessandro Nannini | Benetton-Ford | 1:20.331 | 1:20.182 | +2.434 |
| 9 | 16 | Ivan Capelli | March-Judd | 1:21.136 | 1:20.459 | +2.711 |
| 10 | 20 |  Thierry Boutsen | Benetton-Ford | 1:21.114 | 1:20.486 | +2.738 |
| 11 | 36 | Alex Caffi | Dallara-Ford | 1:20.781 | 1:20.881 | +3.033 |
| 12 | 27 | Michele Alboreto | Ferrari | 1:20.844 | 1:20.964 | +3.096 |
| 13 | 2 |  Satoru Nakajima | Lotus-Honda | 1:21.542 | 1:20.852 | +3.104 |
| 14 | 23 | Pierluigi Martini | Minardi-Ford | 1:21.905 | 1:21.133 | +3.385 |
| 15 | 22 | Andrea de Cesaris | Rial-Ford | 1:21.944 | 1:21.164 | +3.416 |
| 16 | 14 | Philippe Streiff | AGS-Ford | 1:22.170 | 1:21.262 | +3.514 |
| 17 | 3 | Jonathan Palmer | Tyrrell-Ford | 1:21.959 | 1:21.307 | +3.559 |
| 18 | 18 |  Eddie Cheever | Arrows-Megatron | 1:21.393 | 1:21.514 | +3.645 |
| 19 | 15 | Maurício Gugelmin | March-Judd | 1:21.871 | 1:21.554 | +3.806 |
| 20 | 33 | Stefano Modena | EuroBrun-Ford | 1:21.972 | 1:21.856 | +4.108 |
| 21 | 24 |  Luis Pérez-Sala | Minardi-Ford | 1:23.022 | 1:21.893 | +4.145 |
| 22 | 26 |  Stefan Johansson | Ligier-Judd | 1:23.417 | 1:21.988 | +4.240 |
| 23 | 25 | René Arnoux | Ligier-Judd | 1:23.547 | 1:22.028 | +4.280 |
| 24 | 30 | Philippe Alliot | Lola-Ford | 1:22.420 | 1:22.211 | +4.463 |
| 25 | 32 | Oscar Larrauri | EuroBrun-Ford | 1:23.413 | 1:22.213 | +4.465 |
| 26 | 9 | Piercarlo Ghinzani | Zakspeed | 1:22.348 | 1:22.271 | +4.523 |
| 27 | 31 | Gabriele Tarquini | Coloni-Ford | 1:23.650 | 1:22.393 | +4.645 |
| 28 | 4 | Julian Bailey | Tyrrell-Ford | 1:23.530 | 1:22.529 | +4.781 |
| 29 | 29 | Pierre-Henri Raphanel | Lola-Ford | 1:23.393 | 1:22.733 | +4.985 |
| 30 | 10 |  Bernd Schneider | Zakspeed | 1:24.221 | 1:23.025 | +5.277 |
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| Previous race: 1988 Japanese Grand Prix | FIA Formula One World Championship 1988 season | Next race: 1989 Brazilian Grand Prix |
| Previous race: 1987 Australian Grand Prix | Australian Grand Prix | Next race: 1989 Australian Grand Prix |
