1988 Mexican Grand Prix

1988 Mexican Grand Prix
Race details
	Race 4 of 16 in the 1988 Formula One season
	;
Date	May 29, 1988
Official name	Gran Premio de Mexico
Location	Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Mexico City, Mexico
Course	Permanent circuit ; 4.421 km (2.747 mi)
Distance	67 laps, 296.207 km (184.054 mi)
Weather	Sunny and hot
Pole position
Time	1:17.468
Fastest lap
Time	1:18.608 on lap 52
Podium

The 1988 Mexican Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on May 29, 1988 at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Mexico City. It was the fourth race of the 1988 Formula One season and the 12th Mexican Grand Prix held.

Qualifying[]

Qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix saw few surprises. The turbo powered cars were expected to dominate in the high (2,240 meters (7,350 ft)) altitude where the naturally aspirated cars would lose approximately 10% of their power in the thinner air.

The McLaren-Hondas dominated the qualifying session once again. Ayrton Senna took pole from Alain Prost with a lap time that was almost a second faster than Nigel Mansell's 1987 time despite the restriction in turbo boost from 4.0 Bar to 2.5 bar for 1988 (a drop of approximately 300 bhp (224 kW; 304 PS)). It was the first time in 1988 that a 1987 pole time had been beaten. Gerhard Berger (Ferrari) and Nelson Piquet (Lotus-Honda) made up the 2nd row. Notoriously poor qualifiers Satoru Nakajima (Lotus-Honda) and Eddie Cheever (Arrows-Megatron) made good use of the turbos' altitude advantage to qualify 6th and 7th respectively behind the 5th placed Ferrari of Michele Alboreto. For Nakajima it was something of a redemption as he had failed to qualify at Monaco. Mansell in the Williams-Judd could only make 14th due to continuing problems with the FW12's reactive suspension.

Alessandro Nannini's Benetton-Ford was the fastest 'atmo' car, some 3.3 seconds slower than Senna's pole time, while the Tyrrells of Jonathan Palmer and Julian Bailey, the turbo Osella of Nicola Larini and the Minardi of Adrián Campos failed to qualify. German Bernd Schneider qualified in 15th place for his first Grand Prix start in the Zakspeed turbo.

The last qualifying session was dominated by Philippe Alliot's terrifying crash after he lost control of his Lola, coming out of the Peraltada curve that leads onto the pit straight (the Peraltada, being slightly banked, was being taken at speeds in excess of 240 km/h (149 mph) in qualifying). After riding the outside curbing, the car suddenly pulled hard right, cut across the track and collided with the pit wall, barrel-rolling down the straight and back across the track, immediately disintegrating, and in the end stopped upside down in the middle of the track. Remarkably, Alliot was not only unhurt, but the Larrousse team was able to rebuild the car overnight and Alliot was able to take his place on the starting grid.

Race summary[]

The first start was aborted because of Alessandro Nannini, who stalled the engine of his Benetton on the grid. On the second start, Prost made the best get away and took the lead. Senna was slightly slowed by the pop-off valve opening too soon and was passed by Nelson Piquet. This allowed Prost to take advantage and build a lead of almost two seconds by the end of the first lap. Senna passed Piquet for second coming into the Peraltada curve on the first lap, but could only ever bridge the ever growing gap to Prost when lapping traffic. While the McLarens held the first two places throughout the race, Berger had passed Piquet for 3rd place under braking at the end of the main straight, and by half distance he had moved to within three seconds of Senna when he backed off after receiving a 'low fuel' warning (which turned out to be incorrect). On lap 28 Nakajima retired with piston failure in his Honda engine, followed on lap 59 by teammate Piquet with a similar engine failure.

The two Ferraris thus finished 3rd and 4th ahead of the two Arrows of Derek Warwick and Eddie Cheever who had a race-long duel and were separated by just 0.7s at the line. The first 'atmo' cars home were the two Benettons who finished two laps down and out of the points in 7th and 8th after another race long duel with Nannini coming out on top, battling not only his team mate but a pinched nerve in his right foot. Yannick Dalmas (Lola-Ford) fought his way from 22nd up to 9th at the flag and after starting 15th, Bernd Schneider had run as high as 11th in the early laps before retiring with a blown engine on lap 17.

Alain Prost set a new lap record on lap 52 of the 67 lap race with a time of 1:18.608, half a second faster than Nelson Piquet's 1987 lap record when the turbo engines had approximately 300 more horsepower, which showed the advancements in engines, tyres, aerodynamics and chassis development in the seven months between the 1987 and 1988 races.

Classification[]

Qualifying[]

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Q1	Q2	Gap
1	12	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda	1:17.468	1:17.666	—
2	11	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda	1:18.097	1:18.301	+0.629
3	28	Gerhard Berger	Ferrari	1:19.725	1:18.120	+0.652
4	1	Nelson Piquet	Lotus-Honda	1:20.380	1:18.946	+1.478
5	27	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari	1:20.328	1:19.626	+2.158
6	2	Satoru Nakajima	Lotus-Honda	1:21.694	1:20.275	+2.807
7	18	Eddie Cheever	Arrows-Megatron	1:21.691	1:20.475	+3.007
9	19	Alessandro Nannini	Benetton-Ford	1:20.740	1:21.403	+3.272
9	17	Derek Warwick	Arrows-Megatron	1:20.775	1:21.403	+3.307
10	16	Ivan Capelli	March-Judd	1:22.335	1:21.952	+4.484
11	20	Thierry Boutsen	Benetton-Ford	1:22.164	1:22.029	+4.561
12	22	Andrea de Cesaris	Rial-Ford	1:22.864	1:22.245	+4.777
13	30	Philippe Alliot	Lola-Ford	1:22.348	1:22.557	+4.880
14	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Judd	1:23.246	1:22.363	+4.895
15	10	Bernd Schneider	Zakspeed	1:24.335	1:22.642	+5.174
16	15	Mauricio Gugelmin	March-Judd	1:22.801	5:30.133	+5.333
17	6	Riccardo Patrese	Williams-Judd	1:24.142	1:22.972	+5.511
18	9	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Zakspeed	1:25.375	1:23.078	+5.610
19	14	Philippe Streiff	AGS-Ford	1:23.191	1:23.750	+5.723
20	25	René Arnoux	Ligier-Judd	1:24.315	1:23.287	+5.819
21	31	Gabriele Tarquini	Coloni-Ford	1:24.662	1:23.603	+6.135
22	29	Yannick Dalmas	Lola-Ford	1:24.279	1:23.606	+6.138
23	36	Alex Caffi	Dallara-Ford	1:25.564	1:23.716	+6.248
24	26	Stefan Johansson	Ligier-Judd	1:25.277	1:23.721	+6.253
25	24	Luis Pérez-Sala	Minardi-Ford	1:23.911	1:23.857	+6.389
26	32	Oscar Larrauri	EuroBrun-Ford	1:23.405	1:24.032	+5.564
DNQ	3	Jonathan Palmer	Tyrrell-Ford	1:24.390	1:24.849	+6.922
DNQ	21	Nicola Larini	Osella	1:24.405	1:24.408	+6.937
DNQ	4	Julian Bailey	Tyrrell-Ford	1:25.525	1:25.231	+7.763
DNQ	23	Adrián Campos	Minardi-Ford	1:26.696	1:26.058	+8.590
EXC	33	Stefano Modena	EuroBrun-Ford

Race[]

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	11	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda	67	1:30:15.737	2	9
2	12	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda	67	+ 7.104	1	6
3	28	Gerhard Berger	Ferrari	67	+ 57.314	3	4
4	27	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari	66	+ 1 Lap	5	3
5	17	Derek Warwick	Arrows-Megatron	66	+ 1 Lap	9	2
6	18	Eddie Cheever	Arrows-Megatron	66	+ 1 Lap	7	1
7	19	Alessandro Nannini	Benetton-Ford	65	+ 2 Laps	8
8	20	Thierry Boutsen	Benetton-Ford	64	+ 3 Laps	11
9	29	Yannick Dalmas	Lola-Ford	64	+ 3 Laps	22
10	26	Stefan Johansson	Ligier-Judd	63	+ 4 Laps	24
11	24	Luis Pérez-Sala	Minardi-Ford	63	+ 4 Laps	25
12	14	Philippe Streiff	AGS-Ford	63	+ 4 Laps	19
13	32	Oscar Larrauri	Euro Brun-Ford	63	+ 4 Laps	26
14	31	Gabriele Tarquini	Coloni-Ford	62	+ 5 Laps	21
15	9	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Zakspeed	61	+ 6 Laps	18
16	16	Ivan Capelli	March-Judd	61	+ 6 Laps	10
Ret	1	Nelson Piquet	Lotus-Honda	58	Engine	4
Ret	22	Andrea de Cesaris	Rial-Ford	52	Gearbox	12
Ret	2	Satoru Nakajima	Lotus-Honda	27	Engine	6
Ret	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Judd	20	Engine	14
Ret	10	Bernd Schneider	Zakspeed	16	Engine	15
Ret	6	Riccardo Patrese	Williams-Judd	16	Engine	17
Ret	25	René Arnoux	Ligier-Judd	13	Accident	20
Ret	36	Alex Caffi	Dallara-Ford	13	Brakes	23
Ret	15	Maurício Gugelmin	March-Judd	10	Electrical	16
Ret	30	Philippe Alliot	Lola-Ford	0	Suspension	13
DNQ	23	Adrián Campos	Minardi-Ford
DNQ	3	Jonathan Palmer	Tyrrell-Ford
DNQ	21	Nicola Larini	Osella
DNQ	4	Julian Bailey	Tyrrell-Ford
EX	33	Stefano Modena	Euro Brun-Ford		Excluded

Notes[]

Stefano Modena was excluded for an illegal rear wing.
Neither of the Tyrrell cars made the field.

Standings after the race[]

Drivers' Championship standings

Pos	Driver	Points
1	Alain Prost	33
2	Gerhard Berger	18
3	Ayrton Senna	15
4	Michele Alboreto	9
5	Nelson Piquet	8

Constructors' Championship standings

Pos	Constructor	Points
1	McLaren-Honda	48
2	Ferrari	27
3	Lotus-Honda	9
4	Arrows-Megatron	9
5	Benetton-Ford	4

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

References[]

Unless otherwise indicated, all race results are taken from "The Official Formula 1 website". http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1988/266/. Retrieved 2007-07-12.

Previous race: 1988 Monaco Grand Prix	FIA Formula One World Championship 1988 season	Next race: 1988 Canadian Grand Prix
Previous race: 1987 Mexican Grand Prix	Mexican Grand Prix	Next race: 1989 Mexican Grand Prix

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