1988 San Marino Grand Prix

F1 Italy San Marino VIII Gran Premio di San Marino Imola Circuit 1980-1995 Layout.png 1 May 1988 2 16 Autodromo Dino Ferrari, Imola, Emilia-Romagna, Italy Permanent racing facility 3.131 5.040 60 187.986 302.4 Sunny, warm Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda Brazil 1968 1:27.148 Alain Prost McLaren-Honda France 1:29.685 53 Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda Brazil 168 Alain Prost McLaren-Honda France Nelson Piquet Lotus-Honda Brazil 1968 SMR The 1988 San Marino Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Imola on 1 May 1988. The 60-lap race was the second round of the 1988 Formula One season. Ayrton Senna scored his first victory for the McLaren team, with turbocharged Honda-powered cars sweeping 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 and he was as fast as them through the speed trap on the run to Tosa, yet he was over 3 seconds slower than Senna. The difference was that the lowline McLaren MP4/4's were untouchable under acceleration and they had superior grip to any other car on the grid. Amazingly, considering the team's success in its Formula One history dating back to 1966, this was only the third time that there was an all-McLaren front row for a Grand Prix. The other two times had been at the 1972 Canadian Grand Prix (Peter Revson and Denny Hulme) and the 1986 German Grand Prix (Keke Rosberg and Alain Prost). Not including the last two races of 1987 that he missed through injury, 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 teammate 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 teammate Michele Alboreto (who qualified 10th, almost 4.5 seconds slower than Senna), 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 car on the long run to Tosa was the Lotus-Honda of Piquet timed at just over 302 km/h mph 0 on (1.5 km/h faster than the McLarens). The Ferraris were much slower at 293 km/h mph 0 on, and were some 16 km/h mph 0 on slower than the McLarens over the start-finish line (McLaren were fastest there at almost 250 km/h mph 0 on. In fact, both Ferraris were almost 5 km/h mph 0 on slower over the start line than the atmospheric Benettons (who were also the fastest of the atmos at Tosa with 292 km/h mph 0 on) and were also slower at the start/finish line than the Zakspeeds, showing just how much trouble they were in. One of the surprises of qualifying was American veteran Eddie Cheever. Not noted as the best qualifier, Cheever qualified 8th in his Arrows-Megatron, though he was still 4.1 seconds behind Senna. Cheever and Arrows had tested at Imola a week before the race and came up with a set-up they liked. The same settings were put on Derek Warwick's Arrows but the Briton admitted he found the settings lazy and could only qualify 14th, 1.2 seconds slower than his teammate. The turbocharged Arrows', with Cheever and Warwick still hampered by the pop-off valve cutting in early, were touching just under 295 km/h mph 0 on on the run to Tosa to make them the fastest behind the Honda powered cars. The EuroBrun-Ford Cosworth of Oscar Larrauri, the Ligier-Judds of Stefan Johansson and former Imola pole winner René Arnoux, and the Zakspeed turbo of Bernd Schneider all failed to qualify, while the Osella of Italian Nicola Larini was excluded after scrutineering when it was discovered that the car's engine mounting points had been illegally changed. The scrutineers ruled that this constituted an entirely new chassis for the Osella FA1L and as the new chassis had not yet been crash approved by FISA, the team was excluded from the meeting. For Ligier it was the first time since the team's début in Formula One in 1976 that neither car had qualified for a race. For Arnoux it was a bitter pill to swallow as he had sat on the pole at the circuit three times previously when he had driven for both Renault (1980 and 1982) and Ferrari (1983). Johansson, driving for Ferrari (1985 and 1986) and McLaren the previous year, had finished each race in the points. After qualifying, Lotus team boss Peter Warr and lead driver Nelson Piquet made the claim that despite the three second gap between the McLarens and the rest of the field, they believed the Lotus and even the Ferraris were better aerodynamically than the McLarens and that would hurt their fuel consumption on what was one of the most fuel thirsty circuits on the calendar. Warr predicted the McLarens would not be able to maintain their advantage and still finish the race on their 150-litre fuel limit. Not for the first time, or the last, his public predictions would prove to be wrong. 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. Prost later admitted he had turned up his turbo boost in his fight up to second and although still lapping quicker than most of the field, he was then forced to conserve for the rest of the race for fear of running dry before the end. 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. However, as soon as Mansell got past the Lotus, blue oil smoke started to appear from the back of his Williams and less than a lap later Piquet again 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, though late in the race he was hampered by a down on power engine thanks to a cracked exhaust on his car, and rounding out the points was his teammate Alessandro Nannini. Nannini had been fighting for 3rd place with Piquet, but despite being consistently quicker in the corners, he had to yield to superior Honda power on the straights. Piquet and Nannini banged wheels at the Tosa hairpin, and a couple of laps later the Italian lost 4th place to his teammate after another wheel banging dual with the reigning World Champion caused him to spin at Tosa. Nannini dropped to 7th with Boutsen, delayed 2 seconds by Nannini's spin, now charging after Piquet. 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. Some were surprised that Berger wasn't penalised for the move and while Ferrari team boss Marco Piccinini claimed it was necessary for Berger to avoid a crash with Nannini, television replays suggested otherwise. 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 atmospheric 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 teammate 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 2 kg underweight at the 1985 San Marino Grand Prix, both McLarens stopped within metres of taking the chequered flag. Prost had started the last lap some 7 seconds behind his teammate but was only 2.334 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 calendar. Surprisingly given that in previous years numerous drivers of turbo powered cars had failed to finish a race at San Marino due to running out of fuel and that the 1988 fuel limit of 150 litres was 45 less than in 1986-1987, and 70 less than the 1984-1985 limit, no turbo runner ran out of fuel at Imola in 1988. The only turbo starter to not finish was the Ferrari of local hero Michele Alboreto, who was classified as 18th and last despite suffering engine failure on lap 54. This was his second engine failure of the day after his Ferrari also blew up in the morning warm-up session forcing him into the spare car for the race. He was also forced to start from the rear of the field after stalling his engine as the field went away on the warm-up lap. Classification Qualifying Pos No Driver Constructor Q1 Q2 Gap 1 12 BRA 1968 Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda 1:41.278 1:27.148 — 2 11 FRA Alain Prost McLaren-Honda 1:41.597 1:27.919 +0.771 3 1 BRA 1968 Nelson Piquet Lotus-Honda 1:44.806 1:30.500 +3.352 4 19 ITA Alessandro Nannini Benetton-Ford 1:45.090 1:30.590 +3.442 5 28 AUT Gerhard Berger Ferrari 1:43.394 1:30.683 +3.535 6 6 ITA Riccardo Patrese Williams-Judd 1:45.673 1:30.952 +3.804 7 18 USA Eddie Cheever Arrows-Megatron 1:48.399 1:31.300 +4.152 8 20 BEL Thierry Boutsen Benetton-Ford no time 1:31.414 +3.993 9 16 ITA Ivan Capelli March-Judd 1:47.518 1:31.519 +4.371 10 27 ITA Michele Alboreto Ferrari 1:45.982 1:31.520 +4.372 11 5 GBR Nigel Mansell Williams-Judd 1:45.616 1:31.635 +4.487 12 2 JPN 1947 Satoru Nakajima Lotus-Honda 1:47.399 1:31.647 +4.499 13 14 FRA Philippe Streiff AGS-Ford 1:47.465 1:32.013 +4.865 14 17 GBR Derek Warwick Arrows-Megatron 1:49.081 1:32.483 +5.335 15 30 FRA Philippe Alliot Lola-Ford 1:47.215 1:32.712 +5.564 16 22 ITA Andrea de Cesaris Rial-Ford no time 1:33.037 +5.889 17 31 ITA Gabriele Tarquini Coloni-Ford 1:48.146 1:33.236 +6.088 18 24 ESP Luis Pérez-Sala Minardi-Ford 1:49.211 1:33.239 +6.091 19 29 FRA Yannick Dalmas Lola-Ford 1:46.062 1:33.374 +6.226 20 15 BRA 1968 Maurício Gugelmin March-Judd 1:49.306 1:33.448 +6.300 21 4 GBR Julian Bailey Tyrrell-Ford no time 1:33.874 +6.726 22 23 ESP Adrian Campos Minardi-Ford 1:49.012 1:33.903 +6.755 23 3 GBR Jonathan Palmer Tyrrell-Ford 1:47.265 1:33.972 +6.824 24 36 ITA Alex Caffi Dallara-Ford 1:48.156 1:34.204 +7.056 25 9 ITA Piercarlo Ghinzani Zakspeed 1:48.463 1:34.567 +7.419 26 33 ITA Stefano Modena EuroBrun-Ford 1:48.466 1:34.782 +7.634 DNQ Did not qualify 32 ARG Oscar Larrauri EuroBrun-Ford 1:54.566 1:35.077 +7.929 DNQ Did not qualify 26 SWE Stefan Johansson Ligier-Judd 1:43.633 1:35.654 +8.506 DNQ Did not qualify 25 FRA René Arnoux Ligier-Judd 1:49.054 1:36.123 +8.975 DNQ Did not qualify 10 FRG Bernd Schneider Zakspeed 1:51.498 1:36.218 +9.070 EX Excluded 21 ITA Nicola Larini Osella Race Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 12 BRA 1968 Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda 60 1:32:41.264 1 9 2 11 FRA Alain Prost McLaren-Honda 60 + 2.334 2 6 3 1 BRA 1968 Nelson Piquet Lotus-Honda 59 + 1 lap 3 4 4 20 BEL Thierry Boutsen Benetton-Ford 59 + 1 lap 8 3 5 28 AUT Gerhard Berger Ferrari 59 + 1 lap 5 2 6 19 ITA Alessandro Nannini Benetton-Ford 59 + 1 lap 4 1 7 18 USA Eddie Cheever Arrows-Megatron 59 + 1 lap 7   8 2 JPN 1947 Satoru Nakajima Lotus-Honda 59 + 1 lap 12   9 17 GBR Derek Warwick Arrows-Megatron 58 + 2 laps 14   10 14 FRA Philippe Streiff AGS-Ford 58 + 2 laps 13   11 24 ESP Luis Pérez-Sala Minardi-Ford 58 + 2 laps 18   12 29 FRA Yannick Dalmas Lola-Ford 58 + 2 laps 19   13 6 ITA Riccardo Patrese Williams-Judd 58 + 2 laps 6   14 3 GBR Jonathan Palmer Tyrrell-Ford 58 + 2 laps 23   15 15 BRA 1968 Maurício Gugelmin March-Judd 58 + 2 laps 20   16 23 ESP Adrián Campos Minardi-Ford 57 + 3 laps 22   17 30 FRA Philippe Alliot Lola-Ford 57 + 3 laps 15   18 27 ITA Michele Alboreto Ferrari 54 Engine 10   NC Not classified 33 ITA Stefano Modena EuroBrun-Ford 52 + 8 laps 26   Ret Retired 4 GBR Julian Bailey Tyrrell-Ford 48 Gearbox 21   Ret Retired 5 GBR Nigel Mansell Williams-Judd 42 Engine 11   Ret Retired 31 ITA Gabriele Tarquini Coloni-Ford 40 Fuel system 17   Ret Retired 36 ITA Alex Caffi Dallara-Ford 18 Gearbox 24   Ret Retired 9 ITA Piercarlo Ghinzani Zakspeed 16 Gearbox 25   Ret Retired 16 ITA Ivan Capelli March-Judd 2 Gearbox 9   Ret Retired 22 ITA Andrea de Cesaris Rial-Ford 1 Suspension 16   DNQ Did not qualify 32 ARG Oscar Larrauri EuroBrun-Ford     DNQ Did not qualify 26 SWE Stefan Johansson Ligier-Judd     DNQ Did not qualify 25 FRA René Arnoux Ligier-Judd     DNQ Did not qualify 10 FRG Bernd Schneider Zakspeed     EX Excluded 21 ITA Nicola Larini Osella   Failed scrutineeringJenkinson Denis June 1988 Formula One: San Marino Grand Prix: Simplicity Itself https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/june-1988/10/simplicity-itself-2/ Motor Sport LXIV 6 528–533 23 July 2025  Source:http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1988/264/ 1988 San Marino Grand Prix formula1.com 23 December 2015 https://web.archive.org/web/20150118201322/http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1988/264/ 18 January 2015 Championship standings after the race Drivers' Championship standings PosDriverPoints 1 FRA Alain Prost 15 2 BRA 1968 Ayrton Senna 9 3 AUT Gerhard Berger 8 4 BRA 1968 Nelson Piquet 8 5 GBR Derek Warwick 3Source:https://www.statsf1.com/en/1988/saint-marin/championnat.aspx San Marino 1988 - Championship • STATS F1 www.statsf1.com 20 March 2019 Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 GBR McLaren-Honda24 2 ITA Ferrari10 3 GBR Lotus-Honda9 4 GBR Benetton-Ford4 5 GBR Arrows-Megatron3Source: Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. References San Marino Grand Prix 1988 1988 Brazilian Grand Prix 1988 Monaco Grand Prix 1987 San Marino Grand Prix 1989 San Marino Grand Prix San Marino Grand Prix Category:San Marino Grand Prix San Marino Category:May 1988 sports events in Europe