1987 Spanish Grand Prix

  1987 Spanish Grand Prix

Race details
Race 13 of 16 in the 1987 Formula One season
Date	September 27, 1987
Location	Circuito Permanente de Jerez, Jerez de la Frontera, Spain
Course	Permanent racing facility 4.218 km (2.620 mi)
Distance	72 laps, 303.696 km (188.708 mi)
Weather	Sunny and hot
Pole position
Driver	Nelson Piquet	Williams-Honda
Time	1:22.461
Fastest lap
Driver	Gerhard Berger	Ferrari
Time	1:26.986 on lap 49
Podium
First	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Honda
Second	Alain Prost	McLaren-TAG
Third	Stefan Johansson	McLaren-TAG

The 1987 Spanish Grand Prix was a Formula One race held at Jerez on September 27, 1987. It was the thirteenth round of the 1987 Formula One season. It was the 29th Spanish Grand Prix and the second to be held at Jerez. The race was held over 72 laps of the four kilometre venue for a race distance of 304 kilometres.

The race was won by British driver Nigel Mansell, driving a Williams FW11B. Mansell took the victory by 22 seconds over Frenchman Alain Prost driving a McLaren MP4/3. Prost's Swedish team mate Stefan Johansson finished third. It was Mansell's fifth victory of the 1987 season. That win, along with Nelson Piquet's fourth place, secured for the Williams team their third constructors' championship with three races still remaining in the season. The gap between Williams and McLaren was fifty points.

Mansell's win, the beginning of a late season charge, dragged him back into championship contention. He trimmed the gap to Piquet back to 18 points, passing Ayrton Senna for second in the standings as he did so.

Summary

The race was won fairly comfortably by Nigel Mansell who passed pole-sitter Nelson Piquet at the end of the first lap and was never headed. The most memorable aspect of the race was the battle for third (then second) which was held for much of the time by Ayrton Senna, who like the previous year tried to complete the race without changing tyres.

Senna had a queue of both Ferraris, Prost's McLaren and Thierry Boutsen's Benetton behind him, which was joined by Piquet after a long pit-stop. For lap after lap, Senna held off all-comers, similar to Gilles Villeneuve's performance at Jarama in 1981. However, Piquet's similarly powered Williams was able to get by (not before having a spin) followed by Boutsen and Prost. Senna faded to finish fifth, but the battle for second continued between Boutsen and Piquet - Boutsen went out avoiding Piquet who was rejoining the track after having gone off - and then between Piquet and Prost, which Prost won. Both Ferraris blew their engines (in Alboreto's case, spectacularly).

Classification

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Honda	72	1:49:12.692	2	9
2	1	Alain Prost	McLaren-TAG	72	+ 22.225	7	6
3	2	Stefan Johansson	McLaren-TAG	72	+ 30.818	11	4
4	6	Nelson Piquet	Williams-Honda	72	+ 31.450	1	3
5	12	Ayrton Senna	Lotus-Honda	72	+ 1:13.507	5	2
6 (1)	30	Philippe Alliot	Lola-Ford	71	+ 1 Lap	17	1
7 (2)	4	Philippe Streiff	Tyrrell-Ford	71	+ 1 Lap	15
8	18	Eddie Cheever	Arrows-Megatron	70	Out of Fuel	13
9	11	Satoru Nakajima	Lotus-Honda	70	+ 2 Laps	18
10	17	Derek Warwick	Arrows-Megatron	70	+ 2 Laps	12
11	9	Martin Brundle	Zakspeed	70	+ 2 Laps	20
12 (3)	16	Ivan Capelli	March-Ford	70	+ 2 Laps	19
13	7	Riccardo Patrese	Brabham-BMW	68	+ 4 Laps	9
14	23	Adrián Campos	Minardi-Motori Moderni	68	+ 4 Laps	24
15	27	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari	67	Engine	4
16	20	Thierry Boutsen	Benetton-Ford	66	Accident	8
Ret	28	Gerhard Berger	Ferrari	62	Engine	3
Ret	3	Jonathan Palmer	Tyrrell-Ford	55	Collision	16
Ret	25	René Arnoux	Ligier-Megatron	55	Collision	14
Ret	10	Christian Danner	Zakspeed	50	Transmission	22
Ret	24	Alessandro Nannini	Minardi-Motori Moderni	45	Turbo	21
Ret	19	Teo Fabi	Benetton-Ford	40	Brakes	6
Ret	8	Andrea de Cesaris	Brabham-BMW	26	Gearbox	10
Ret	26	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Ligier-Megatron	24	Ignition	23
Ret	14	Pascal Fabre	AGS-Ford	10	Clutch	25
Ret	32	Nicola Larini	Coloni-Ford	8	Suspension	26
DNQ	21	Alex Caffi	Osella-Alfa Romeo
DNQ	21	Franco Forini	Osella-Alfa Romeo

Notes

• Numbers in brackets refer to positions of normally aspirated entrants competing for the Jim Clark Trophy.

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Nelson Piquet 70 2 Nigel Mansell 52 3 Ayrton Senna 51 4 Alain Prost 46 5 Stefan Johansson 26

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Williams-Honda 122 2 McLaren-TAG 72 3 Lotus-Honda 57 4 Ferrari 26 5 Benetton-Ford 20

Jim Clark Trophy standings Pos Driver Points 1 Jonathan Palmer 71 2 Philippe Streiff 64 3 Ivan Capelli 38 4 Pascal Fabre 35 5 Philippe Alliot 34

Colin Chapman Trophy standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Tyrrell-Ford 135 2 March-Ford 38 3 AGS-Ford 35 4 Lola-Ford 34

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for all four sets of standings.

References

• Unless otherwise indicated, all race results are taken from "The Official Formula 1 website". http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1987/291/. Retrieved 2007-07-08. 

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This page uses some content from Wikipedia. The original article was at 1987 Spanish Grand Prix. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Autopedia, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.