1989 German Grand Prix

The 1989 German Grand Prix was a Formula One race held at Hockenheimring on July 30, 1989.

Pre-qualifying
Pre-qualifying had been reorganised going into the second half of the season; no points in the first half of the season meant that the Larrousse team with their Lamborghini V12 engines joined the session, where Philippe Alliot was now partnered by Michele Alboreto who had left Tyrrell over a rumored sponsorship dispute before the French Grand Prix (Alboreto was personally sponsored by Marlboro and Ken Tyrrell had signed the rival Camel brand as the team's major sponsor). Roberto Moreno was also forced to pre-qualify in the second half of the season, thus joining his Coloni team mate Pierre-Henri Raphanel. Despite his sixth place finish at the Mexican Grand Prix, this was not enough to prevent Gabriele Tarquini from having to pre-qualify his AGS, so the Italian now joined his new team mate Yannick Dalmas in the session. Stefano Modena's third place and team mate Martin Brundle's sixth place finish at the Monaco Grand Prix resulted in the Brabham team no longer having to pre-qualify for the remainder of the season, while Alex Caffi's fourth place in the same race, as well as a sixth in Canada, meant the Italian would not have to pre-qualify his Dallara either. Volker Weidler also found himself free of pre-qualifying thanks to his Rial team mate Christian Danner's fourth place finish at the United States Grand Prix, despite the fact he had never finished any of the pre-qualifying sessions beforehand in a position higher than seventh. In the pre-qualifying session itself, Alboreto beat Dalmas by mere 0.001 second for the last berth in the qualifying sessions.

Race
The race started with Ayrton Senna on pole position with Alain Prost alongside him, and at the start, Gerhard Berger had a tremendous start from fourth, passing both Senna, Prost and his teammate Nigel Mansell leading the entire field into the first corner with Senna, Prost and Mansell following in succession. Philippe Alliot went off the track at the start in spectacular fashion as he lost control of his Lola and spun off into the grass.

Berger's lead was to last about a quarter of a lap, as the power of both McLaren's Honda engines showed as Senna passed Berger into the first chicane, and Prost did the same to him at Ostkurve. At the start of the second lap, it was Senna leading from Prost, Berger, Mansell, Thierry Boutsen, Alessandro Nannini, Emanuele Pirro, Riccardo Patrese, and Nelson Piquet.

The McLaren MP4/5s of Senna and Prost and the Ferrari 640s of Mansell and Berger started to pull away from the field, with the Benetton B189s of Pirro and Nannini and the Williams FW12C of Patrese just barely clinging on (Boutsen retired on lap 5). On lap 14, Mansell had been hounding Berger for 2 laps, but Berger had a puncture right when approaching the first chicane, and he went up on the marker, launching his Ferrari in midair, landing on a grassy patch and went across the track, just barely avoiding Mansell and came to rest on the trackside grass.

Prost and Senna were on the limit the entire race and Prost hounded Senna for 16 laps, until he went in for his pit stop for tyres, which was a terribly slow one of 18 seconds, which put Mansell in second place and Senna even further away. The next lap, Mansell came into the pits for his tyre change and his pit stop was faster than Prost's but still a poor stop of 11 seconds, which dropped him down back to fourth behind, Senna, Pirro and Prost. Then Senna decided to take advantage of his huge lead and came into the pits for his tyre change, and his stop was even worse than Prost's, lasting 23 seconds. This dropped him down to second behind Prost and Pirro had come into the pits for a tyre change and dropped to fourth.

Pirro crashed into the styrofoam barriers at the stadium entrance and had to be taken to the hospital. With Mansell having problems with his Ferrari, Senna and Prost battled for the entire race, as both drivers were driving on the limit. They started trading off fastest laps and Prost held off Senna for almost the entire race- but on lap 43, Prost's gearbox malfunctioned, lost sixth gear and Senna passed him coming into the stadium. Prost limped around the track for the next 2 laps and Senna cruised around the track to grab his fourth victory of the season, followed by Prost second, Mansell third, Patrese fourth, Piquet fifth and Derek Warwick sixth.

Lap leaders

 * Ayrton Senna 21 (1-19, 44-45), Alain Prost 24 (20-43)

Standings after the race

 * Drivers' Championship standings


 * Constructors' Championship standings


 * Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.