1987 Japanese Grand Prix

F1 Japanese Japan 1947 Suzuka circuit map (1987-2002).svg XIII Fuji Television Japanese Grand Prix 1 November 1987 15 16 Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka, Japan Permanent racing facility 3.641https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/database/races/1987-japanese-grand-prix/ 1987 Japanese Grand Prix | Motorsport Database 5.860 51 185.703 298.860 Dry 247,000https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/2022_japanesegp_mediakit_english.pdf Formula 1 Honda Japanese Grand Prix 2022 – Media Kit Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile 5 October 2022 5 October 2022 Gerhard Berger Ferrari 1:40.042 Austria Alain Prost McLaren-TAG 1:43.844 35 France Gerhard Berger Ferrari Austria Ayrton Senna Lotus-Honda Brazil 1968 Stefan Johansson McLaren-TAG Sweden JPN The 1987 Japanese Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Suzuka on 1 November 1987. It was the fifteenth and penultimate race of the 1987 Formula One World Championship. The race was won by Austrian driver Gerhard Berger driving a Ferrari F1/87. It was the end of a 38-race losing streak for Formula One's most famous team and Berger's second Grand Prix victory having won the Mexican Grand Prix the previous year driving for Benetton. Berger won by 17 seconds over Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna driving a Lotus 99T. Third was the McLaren MP4/3 of Swedish driver Stefan Johansson. This would turn out to be Team Lotus's last second place finish. Following Nigel Mansell's withdrawal from the Grand Prix after his accident during qualifying, his teammate Nelson Piquet was prematurely crowned World Champion for the third and final time in his career before the race had even started. Background The 1987 Japanese Grand Prix was the first race to be held in Japan since James Hunt won in his McLaren at Fuji, in 1977. This time, the Grand Prix circus utilised the Honda-owned Suzuka Circuit, which originated as a test track for Honda motorcycles and automobiles. Soichiro Honda was extremely enthusiastic about this race, and told his racing engineers "We have to win. And we have to keep winning..."Sato Masaaki https://archive.org/details/hondamythgeniush0000satm/page/349 The Honda Myth: The Genius and his Wake Vertical 2006 1932234268 349 aiming for a hometown victory at Honda's home track in its native Japan. Soichiro Honda had reason for optimism as four of the entrants were powered by Honda-made engines. The Lotus 99Ts of Ayrton Senna, who had won races earlier in the season and was joined on Team Lotus with national favourite Satoru Nakajima, along with the dominating Williams FW11Bs driven by Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet, who were both vying for the overall championship. Motor Sport stated that the new circuit "attracted almost unanimous praise from the drivers".Henry Alan 2015-02-24 Some You Win, Some You Lose https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/december-1987/10/some-you-win-some-you-lose/ 2026-08-28 Motor Sport Magazine en-GB Qualifying The scene was set for a tense championship-deciding race between the Williams-Honda teammates, bitter rivals Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell. However, Mansell suffered a huge crash during Friday qualifying while trying to better Piquet's time, which put him out of action for both the Japanese race and the subsequent Australian Grand Prix. As a consequence, Piquet won his third World Championship before the race even began. Qualifying once again demonstrated the return to form of Ferrari, as Gerhard Berger obtained his second pole position of the season, with the F1/87 being perfectly suited to the Suzuka circuit. Alain Prost qualified 2nd in his McLaren-TAG with Thierry Boutsen 3rd in his Benetton-Ford. Following Mansell's Friday crash, the three remaining Honda-powered cars of Piquet, Senna, and local favourite Satoru Nakajima, could only qualify in 5th, 7th and 11th places respectively. All drivers from 8th position and below moved up one position on the grid due to Mansell being unable to start. This also meant Roberto Moreno was permitted to race the AGS despite having the 27th fastest qualifying time. Out of the 26 drivers who qualified for the race, only Riccardo Patrese had ever driven in a Japanese Grand Prix prior to 1987, having taken part of the 1977 race at Fuji. Qualifying classification Pos No Driver Constructor Q1 Q2 Gap Grid 1 28 AUT Gerhard Berger Ferrari 1:42.160 1:40.042 1 2 1 FRA Alain Prost McLaren-TAG 1:42.496 1:40.652 +0.610 2 3 20 BEL Thierry Boutsen Benetton-Ford 1:43.130 1:40.850 +0.808 3 4 27 ITA Michele Alboreto Ferrari 1:42.416 1:40.984 +0.942 4 5 6 BRA 1968 Nelson Piquet Williams-Honda 1:41.423 1:41.144 +1.099 5 6 19 ITA Teo Fabi Benetton-Ford 1:43.351 1:41.679 +1.673 6 7 5 GBR Nigel Mansell Williams-Honda 1:42.616 no time +2.573 DNS Did not start 8 12 BRA 1968 Ayrton Senna Lotus-Honda 1:44.026 1:42.723 +2.681 7 9 7 ITA Riccardo Patrese Brabham-BMW 1:44.767 1:43.304 +3.262 8 10 2 SWE Stefan Johansson McLaren-TAG 1:43.612 1:43.371 +3.329 9 11 8 ITA Andrea de Cesaris Brabham-BMW 1:46.399 1:43.618 +3.576 10 12 11 JPN 1947 Satoru Nakajima Lotus-Honda 1:45.898 1:43.685 +3.643 11 13 18 USA Eddie Cheever Arrows-Megatron 1:45.427 1:44.277 +4.385 12 14 17 GBR Derek Warwick Arrows-Megatron 1:44.768 1:44.626 +4.584 13 15 24 ITA Alessandro Nannini Minardi-Motori Moderni 1:48.948 1:45.612 +5.570 14 16 9 GBR Martin Brundle Zakspeed 1:46.715 1:46.023 +5.981 15 17 10 FRG Christian Danner Zakspeed 1:49.337 1:46.116 +6.074 16 18 25 France René Arnoux Ligier-Megatron 1:50.542 1:46.200 +6.158 17 19 30 France Philippe Alliot Lola-Ford 1:49.470 1:47.395 +7.353 18 20 3 GBR Jonathan Palmer Tyrrell-Ford 1:48.902 1:47.775 +7.733 19 21 16 ITA Ivan Capelli March-Ford 1:49.814 1:48.212 +8.170 20 22 23 ESP Adrián Campos Minardi-Motori Moderni 1:53.455 1:48.337 +8.295 21 23 29 France Yannick Dalmas Lola-Ford 1:51.230 1:48.887 +8.845 22 24 21 ITA Alex Caffi Osella-Alfa Romeo 1:49.017 1:50.902 +8.975 23 25 26 Italy Piercarlo Ghinzani Ligier-Megatron 1:51.554 1:49.641 +9.599 24 26 4 France Philippe Streiff Tyrrell-Ford 1:50.896 1:49.741 +9.699 25 27 14 Brazil 1968 Roberto Moreno AGS-Ford 1:51.835 1:50.212 +10.170 26Source:1987 Japanese Grand Prix – QUALIFYING 1 https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/1987/races/525/japan/qualifying-1.html formula1.com 2 May 20181987 Japanese Grand Prix – QUALIFYING 2 https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/1987/races/525/japan/qualifying-2.html formula1.com 2 May 20181987 Japanese Grand Prix – OVERALL QUALIFYING https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/1987/races/525/japan/qualifying-0.html formula1.com 2 May 20181987 Japanese Grand Prix – STARTING GRID https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/1987/races/525/japan/starting-grid.html formula1.com 4 May 2018 Race At the start Berger immediately imposed his authority by building a cushion. Prost, in his McLaren, perhaps the only driver capable of challenging Berger for the victory, suffered a puncture on the first lap and, therefore, was out of contention. Prost, however, drove a superb race to climb up through the field finishing just outside the points with the consolation of having the fastest lap. Boutsen's Benetton ran second early on but could not live with the pace set by Berger, ultimately fading to fifth. Piquet spent much of the race behind Senna's Lotus but was unable to find a way past his countryman. The new world champion eventually retired in the pits with oil pouring from the rear of his Williams. At one stage Stefan Johansson in the McLaren closed on Berger, but the Austrian driver responded and eventually romped to a seemingly effortless victory, the first Ferrari's victory since the 1985 German Grand Prix. Ayrton Senna dramatically passed Johansson on the last lap to take second place. Michele Alboreto, in the second Ferrari, got away very slowly at the green lights leaving him towards the rear of the field. However, the Italian drove an aggressive race to climb his way back up the order to finish an excellent fourth despite suffering from a dragging undertray causing a huge amount of sparks. Boutsen and Nakajima rounded out the points. Johansson's third place was the 54th and last podium finish for the Porsche-designed TAG turbo V6 engine which had been first used in Formula One by McLaren at the 1983 Dutch Grand Prix. Race classification Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 28 Austria Gerhard Berger Ferrari 51 1:32:58.072 1 9 2 12 Brazil 1968 Ayrton Senna Lotus-Honda 51 + 17.384 7 6 3 2 Sweden Stefan Johansson McLaren-TAG 51 + 17.694 9 4 4 27 Italy Michele Alboreto Ferrari 51 + 1:20.441 4 3 5 20 Belgium Thierry Boutsen Benetton-Ford 51 + 1:25.576 3 2 6 11 Japan 1947 Satoru Nakajima Lotus-Honda 51 + 1:36.479 11 1 7 1 France Alain Prost McLaren-TAG 50 + 1 lap 2   8 (1) 3 UK Jonathan Palmer Tyrrell-Ford 50 + 1 lap 19   9 18 USA Eddie Cheever Arrows-Megatron 50 Out of fuel 12   10 17 UK Derek Warwick Arrows-Megatron 50 + 1 lap 13   11 7 Italy Riccardo Patrese Brabham-BMW 49 + 2 laps 8   12 (2) 4 France Philippe Streiff Tyrrell-Ford 49 + 2 laps 25   13 26 Italy Piercarlo Ghinzani Ligier-Megatron 48 + 3 laps 24   14 (3) 29 France Yannick Dalmas Lola-Ford 47 + 4 laps 22   15 6 Brazil 1968 Nelson Piquet Williams-Honda 46 Engine 5   Ret Retired 25 France René Arnoux Ligier-Megatron 44 Out of fuel 17   Ret Retired 21 Italy Alex Caffi Osella-Alfa Romeo 43 Out of fuel 23   Ret Retired 14 Brazil 1968 Roberto Moreno AGS-Ford 38 Electrical 26   Ret Retired 24 Italy Alessandro Nannini Minardi-Motori Moderni 35 Engine 14   Ret Retired 9 UK Martin Brundle Zakspeed 32 Engine 15   Ret Retired 8 Italy Andrea de Cesaris Brabham-BMW 26 Engine 10   Ret Retired 19 Italy Teo Fabi Benetton-Ford 16 Engine 6   Ret Retired 10 West Germany Christian Danner Zakspeed 13 Engine 16   Ret Retired 16 Italy Ivan Capelli March-Ford 13 Accident 20   Ret Retired 23 Spain Adrián Campos Minardi-Motori Moderni 2 Engine 21   Ret Retired 30 France Philippe Alliot Lola-Ford 0 Accident 18   DNS Did not start 5 UK Nigel Mansell Williams-Honda Qualifying practice accident    Source:1987 Japanese Grand Prix http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1987/293/ formula1.com https://web.archive.org/web/20141103143604/http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1987/293/ 3 November 2014 23 December 2015 * Numbers in brackets refer to positions of normally aspirated entrants competing for the Jim Clark Trophy. Championship standings after the race Bold text indicates the World Champions. Drivers' Championship standings PosDriverPoints 1 BRA 1968 Nelson Piquet 73 (76) 2 GBR Nigel Mansell 61 3 BRA 1968 Ayrton Senna 57 4 FRA Alain Prost 46 5 SWE Stefan Johansson 30Source:https://www.statsf1.com/en/1987/japon/championnat.aspx Japan 1987 – Championship • STATS F1 www.statsf1.com 18 March 2019 Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 GBR Williams-Honda137 2 GBR McLaren-TAG76 3 GBR Lotus-Honda64 4 ITA Ferrari38 5 GBR Benetton-Ford24Source: Jim Clark Trophy standings PosDriverPoints 1 GBR Jonathan Palmer 86 2 FRA Philippe Streiff 74 3 FRA Philippe Alliot 43 4 ITA Ivan Capelli 38 5 FRA Pascal Fabre 35 Colin Chapman Trophy standings Pos Constructor Points 1 GBR Tyrrell-Ford160 2 FRA Lola-Ford43 3 GBR March-Ford38 4 FRA AGS-Ford35 Note: Only the top five positions are included for all four sets of standings. References Japanese Grand Prix 1987 1987 Mexican Grand Prix 1987 Australian Grand Prix 1977 Japanese Grand Prix 1988 Japanese Grand Prix 1986 Mexican Grand Prix 1988 British Grand Prix Japanese Grand Prix Category:Japanese Grand Prix Grand Prix Japanese Grand Prix