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| 1989 Belgian Grand Prix | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 11 of 16 in the1989 Formula One World Championship | |||
 | |||
| Race details | |||
| Date | 27 August 1989 | ||
| Official name | XLVIIGrand Prix de Belgique | ||
| Location | Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps Francorchamps,Wallonia,Belgium[1] | ||
| Course | Permanent racing facility | ||
| Course length | 6.940 km (4.312 miles) | ||
| Distance | 44 laps, 305.360 km (189.741 miles) | ||
| Weather | Wet, cloudy, cool | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | McLaren-Honda | ||
| Time | 1:50.867 | ||
| Fastest lap | |||
| Driver |  Alain Prost | McLaren-Honda | |
| Time | 2:11.571 on lap 44 | ||
| Podium | |||
| First | McLaren-Honda | ||
| Second | McLaren-Honda | ||
| Third | Ferrari | ||
Lap leaders | |||
The1989 Belgian Grand Prix was aFormula One motor race held atSpa-Francorchamps on 27 August 1989. It was the eleventh race of the1989 Formula One World Championship.
The 44-lap race was won frompole position by Brazilian driverAyrton Senna, driving aMcLaren-Honda. Senna finished just ahead of French teammateAlain Prost, with BritonNigel Mansell third in aFerrari. The win, Senna's fifth of the season, moved him to within 11 points of Prost in the Drivers' Championship. James Hunt was absent from BBC commentary for this race due to illness, leaving Murray Walker to commentate the majority of the race alone with cameo appearances from Johnny Herbert and Martin Brundle.
In the Friday morning pre-qualifying session, anOnyx topped the time sheets for the fifth Grand Prix in succession.Stefan Johansson was again comfortably fastest by over a second, and his team-mateBertrand Gachot also pre-qualified in third. The other two pre-qualifiers were theLarrousse-Lola cars ofMichele Alboreto in second, andPhilippe Alliot in fourth.
Those failing to proceed to the main qualifying sessions included bothOsellas;Nicola Larini andPiercarlo Ghinzani close together in fifth and sixth.Roberto Moreno was seventh in hisColoni, with theAGS ofGabriele Tarquini eighth. The strugglingZakspeed drivers were ninth and tenth,Bernd Schneider marginally faster thanAguri Suzuki. The other AGS ofYannick Dalmas was next, ahead ofGregor Foitek, driving the olderEuroBrun ER188B after the new car had not been successful. Foitek quit the team after this Grand Prix, to be replaced by their 1988 driverOscar Larrauri. Bottom of the time sheets was the second Coloni of debutantEnrico Bertaggia, who was unable to put a proper timed lap together. He was replacingPierre-Henri Raphanel, who had left Coloni to joinRial afterVolker Weidler had quit the team.[2]
| Pos | No | Driver | Constructor | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 36 |  Stefan Johansson | Onyx-Ford | 1:56.279 | — |
| 2 | 29 |  Michele Alboreto | Lola-Lamborghini | 1:57.509 | +1.230 |
| 3 | 37 |  Bertrand Gachot | Onyx-Ford | 1:57.720 | +1.441 |
| 4 | 30 | Philippe Alliot | Lola-Lamborghini | 1:57.748 | +1.469 |
| 5 | 17 | Nicola Larini | Osella-Ford | 1:58.065 | +1.786 |
| 6 | 18 | Piercarlo Ghinzani | Osella-Ford | 1:58.209 | +1.930 |
| 7 | 31 |  Roberto Moreno | Coloni-Ford | 1:58.650 | +2.371 |
| 8 | 40 | Gabriele Tarquini | AGS-Ford | 1:59.432 | +3.153 |
| 9 | 34 |  Bernd Schneider | Zakspeed-Yamaha | 2:00.713 | +4.434 |
| 10 | 35 |  Aguri Suzuki | Zakspeed-Yamaha | 2:00.757 | +4.478 |
| 11 | 41 | Yannick Dalmas | AGS-Ford | 2:02.205 | +5.926 |
| 12 | 33 |  Gregor Foitek | EuroBrun-Judd | 2:02.767 | +6.488 |
| 13 | 32 | Enrico Bertaggia | Coloni-Ford | 2:21.709 | +25.430 |
Ayrton Senna took his eighth pole position of the season by nearly six-tenths of a second fromMcLaren teammateAlain Prost, with almost a further second back toGerhard Berger in theFerrari in third. The twoWilliams were fourth and fifth withThierry Boutsen, in his home race, ahead ofRiccardo Patrese, followed byNigel Mansell in the second Ferrari.Alessandro Nannini was seventh in theBenetton, over two seconds behind Mansell, and the top ten was completed byStefano Modena in theBrabham,Maurício Gugelmin in theMarch andDerek Warwick in theArrows.
The major talking point, however, was the failure of bothNelson Piquet andSatoru Nakajima to qualify, the first time in theLotus team's history that neither of its cars had qualified.
All the times were determined in the second qualifying session, after the first had taken place in wet conditions.
| Pos | No | Driver | Constructor | Q1 | Q2 | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Ayrton Senna | McLaren-Honda | 2:11.171 | 1:50.867 | — |
| 2 | 2 | Alain Prost | McLaren-Honda | 2:12.721 | 1:51.463 | +0.596 |
| 3 | 28 |  Gerhard Berger | Ferrari | 2:11.102 | 1:52.391 | +1.524 |
| 4 | 5 | Thierry Boutsen | Williams-Renault | 2:13.030 | 1:52.786 | +1.919 |
| 5 | 6 | Riccardo Patrese | Williams-Renault | 2:12.581 | 1:52.875 | +2.008 |
| 6 | 27 |  Nigel Mansell | Ferrari | 2:12.042 | 1:52.898 | +2.031 |
| 7 | 19 | Alessandro Nannini | Benetton-Ford | 2:14.117 | 1:55.075 | +4.208 |
| 8 | 8 | Stefano Modena | Brabham-Judd | 2:19.161 | 1:55.642 | +4.775 |
| 9 | 15 | Maurício Gugelmin | March-Judd | 2:16.401 | 1:55.729 | +4.862 |
| 10 | 9 | Derek Warwick | Arrows-Ford | 2:13.005 | 1:55.864 | +4.997 |
| 11 | 30 | Philippe Alliot | Lola-Lamborghini | 2:14.357 | 1:55.890 | +5.023 |
| 12 | 21 | Alex Caffi | Dallara-Ford | 2:17.604 | 1:55.892 | +5.025 |
| 13 | 20 | Emanuele Pirro | Benetton-Ford | 2:15.068 | 1:55.902 | +5.035 |
| 14 | 23 | Pierluigi Martini | Minardi-Ford | 2:15.515 | 1:56.115 | +5.248 |
| 15 | 36 | Stefan Johansson | Onyx-Ford | 2:17.329 | 1:56.129 | +5.262 |
| 16 | 4 | Johnny Herbert | Tyrrell-Ford | 2:17.714 | 1:56.248 | +5.381 |
| 17 | 25 | René Arnoux | Ligier-Ford | 2:14.344 | 1:56.251 | +5.384 |
| 18 | 22 | Andrea de Cesaris | Dallara-Ford | 2:17.512 | 1:56.257 | +5.390 |
| 19 | 16 | Ivan Capelli | March-Judd | 2:15.863 | 1:56.291 | +5.424 |
| 20 | 7 | Martin Brundle | Brabham-Judd | 2:18.663 | 1:56.327 | +5.460 |
| 21 | 3 | Jonathan Palmer | Tyrrell-Ford | 2:18.405 | 1:56.600 | +5.733 |
| 22 | 29 | Michele Alboreto | Lola-Lamborghini | 2:17.240 | 1:56.616 | +5.749 |
| 23 | 37 | Bertrand Gachot | Onyx-Ford | 2:18.151 | 1:56.716 | +5.849 |
| 24 | 10 |  Eddie Cheever | Arrows-Ford | 2:14.641 | 1:56.748 | +5.881 |
| 25 | 24 |  Luis Pérez-Sala | Minardi-Ford | 2:18.907 | 1:56.957 | +6.090 |
| 26 | 26 | Olivier Grouillard | Ligier-Ford | 2:18.175 | 1:57.027 | +6.160 |
| 27 | 12 | Satoru Nakajima | Lotus-Judd | 2:13.677 | 1:57.251 | +6.384 |
| 28 | 11 | Nelson Piquet | Lotus-Judd | 2:14.358 | 1:57.771 | +6.904 |
| 29 | 38 | Christian Danner | Rial-Ford | 2:20.503 | 2:00.247 | +9.380 |
| 30 | 39 | Pierre-Henri Raphanel | Rial-Ford | 2:21.180 | 2:02.937 | +12.070 |
The race was delayed for some time due to the wet conditions. At the start, Senna led the way from Prost and Berger. Mansell managed to pass both Williams on the grass on the run to La Source hairpin to claim fourth position by the first corner.Johnny Herbert retired when he spun off on lap 4 in his first race forTyrrell.René Arnoux then retired in the pit lane on lap 5 after a collision with the Lola ofPhilippe Alliot at La Source. Early on, Berger pressured Prost but was unable to find a way through. Senna comfortably led from start to finish in conditions similar to those in which he won his first Belgian Grand Prix in 1985. Behind him, Berger suffered his tenth consecutive retirement of the season when he spun out on lap 10, leaving Prost to fend off a charging Mansell who, in his efforts to pass the McLaren, made a number of unorthodox moves at the exit of La Source in an attempt to gain a better run at the McLaren through Eau Rouge and on to the long uphill straight. Senna eased up in the last few laps, allowing Prost and Mansell to finish within two seconds of him. Boutsen finished fourth in his 100th race.Johnny Herbert, in his first race forTyrrell (replacingJean Alesi who was busy competing in the F3000 championship), said during the BBC commentary that in order to see the car in front it was necessary to press the helmet visor against the lens of the rear-facing visibility light from the car in front. Unusually,Eddie Cheever received the black and white warning flag for 'unsportsmanlike behaviour' for his alleged baulking of Mansell.[3]
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| Previous race: 1989 Hungarian Grand Prix | FIA Formula One World Championship 1989 season | Next race: 1989 Italian Grand Prix |
| Previous race: 1988 Belgian Grand Prix | Belgian Grand Prix | Next race: 1990 Belgian Grand Prix |
