1989 Japanese Grand Prix

  1989 Japanese Grand Prix

Race details
Race 15 of 16 in the 1989 Formula One season
Date	October 22, 1989
Official name	XV Fuji Television Japanese Grand Prix
Location	Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka, Japan
Course	Permanent racing facility 5.859 km (3.641 mi)
Distance	53 laps, 310.527 km (192.952 mi)
Weather	Dry, warm, cloudy
Pole position
Driver	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda
Time	1:38.041
Fastest lap
Driver	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda
Time	1:43.506 on lap 43
Podium
First	Alessandro Nannini	Benetton-Ford
Second	Riccardo Patrese	Williams-Renault
Third	Thierry Boutsen	Williams-Renault

The 1989 Japanese Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Suzuka Circuit, Japan, on October 22, 1989. It was the 15th and penultimate round of the 1989 Formula One World Championship. This race would become one of the most notorious in F1 history, as the culmination of Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna's tumultuous two year rivalry as team mates at McLaren. The Japanese Grand Prix decided the 1989 Drivers' Championship in Prost's favour, after a collision at the final chicane between him and Senna put them both off the track. While Prost abandoned his stalled car, Senna restarted his, made a pit stop to change his front wing, and overhauled Alessandro Nannini to take victory. Following the race Senna was controversially disqualified for using the chicane's escape road to rejoin the circuit, handing the title to Prost.

Pre-race

As in 1988, the McLaren team had been dominant throughout 1989. Going into this race, Prost had a 16-point lead in the Drivers' Championship over Senna, 76 to 60. The Brazilian had won six races to the Frenchman's four, including the previous race in Spain, but had only finished in the points on one other occasion, while Prost had only finished out of the points once all season. Therefore, Senna had to win both this race and the final race in Australia to have any chance of beating Prost to the Championship.

Qualifying

As expected, the two McLarens dominated qualifying. Even so, Senna was easily the class of the field, posting a time over a second and a half faster than team-mate Prost. The Ferraris of Gerhard Berger and Nigel Mansell filled the second row, with Berger just edging his own team-mate into fourth place by two tenths of a second. The Williams of Riccardo Patrese was half a second behind Mansell in fifth place, and joining him on row three was fellow Italian Alessandro Nannini in his Benetton. Behind Nannini positions were closely contested, with only six tenths of a second covering the next six qualifying times, including that of former World Champion Nelson Piquet's Lotus in eleventh position. Jonathan Palmer's Tyrrell took the final grid slot in twenty-sixth place, while thirteen drivers failed to qualify.

The race

At the start Prost got away much faster than Senna, instantly wiping out the Brazilian's pole position advantage. In fact, Senna's start was so poor that Gerhard Berger managed to get alongside him from his third place on the grid. But Senna's McLaren had the inside line into the first corner, and he managed to keep the Ferrari behind him. Over the first half of the race Prost steadily built his lead up to almost six seconds, and then Senna lost an additional two seconds due to a slow pitstop. However, with a new set of tyres on the balance of power shifted, and the reigning World Champion began to reel in the Frenchman's lead.

Behind the leading pair, after his initial charge, Gerhard Berger's Ferrari gearbox failed on lap 34, and the sister Ferrari of Nigel Mansell suffered engine failure nine laps later. With the Scuderia's cars gone, all real challenge to the McLaren charge had evaporated. The only opposition left for Senna and Prost were each other.

Senna finally caught Prost (who had eased his pace, forcing Senna to use up his tyres) on lap 40, and for the next five laps the gap between the two remained at approximately one second as the two McLaren drivers tried to position themselves tactically. Prost had greater top speed on the straights, while Senna's high-downforce settings gave him the advantage through the corners. On lap 46 Senna used his greater cornering speed to make sure that he remained close behind Prost's car through the challenging, double-apex Spoon Corner. This put Senna's car directly in the aerodynamic tow from the leading McLaren, negating much of Prost's straight line advantage. Through the infamous 130R, ultra high-speed, left curve, Senna cut Prost's lead still further, putting his MP4/5 only one car length behind his rival.

The next corner after 130R is the chicane, the second-slowest corner on the circuit. As Prost began to brake for the corner Senna dived alongside, but Prost saw the move in his mirrors and moved his car across the track to block his path. Neither driver was willing to back down and the two collided just before the apex of the turn. With their wheels locked and their engines stalled, the two cars slid to a halt in the mouth of the partially blocked chicane escape road. As the vehicles were directly in the line of any possible out of control cars, the marshals hurried to clear them. While Prost unbuckled his belts and left his car (thinking his race, and the World Championship, was over), Senna gestured to the marshals to push his down the escape road. As the McLaren was pushed forward, Senna used the forward motion to restart his engine, and after it fired he immediately accelerated down the escape road, weaving between the temporary chicane bollards arranged in the roadway.

Although his car was running, Senna's MP4/5 had suffered damage to its front wing during the collision, and while Prost slowly wandered back to the pit lane Senna had to complete almost an entire lap of the circuit before pitting for a repair. Once his nosecone had been replaced Senna continued the race. Some indication of McLaren's dominance is shown by the fact that – despite the collision, the subsequent period spent stalled, the slow in-lap, and the pit stop delay while his car was repaired – when Senna rejoined the race he was only five seconds behind the new race leader: Alessandro Nannini.

Senna drove like a man possessed and it did not take him long to catch Nannini's Benetton. He passed the Italian only two laps after having his nosecone replaced, in exactly the same place as the collision with Prost had occurred. Three laps later Senna took the chequered flag. Nannini finished in second place, followed by the two Williams-Renaults of Riccardo Patrese and Thierry Boutsen. The only other driver on the same lap as the winner was Nelson Piquet; almost a lap down, but still far better placed than the eleventh position he started in, mostly due to the race's high attrition rate. Only eleven of the twenty-six starters were still running at the finish. Behind Piquet were two British drivers who also benefited from the misfortune of others, and while Martin Brundle's sixth place finish was remarkable enough, Derek Warwick had come from the back row of the grid in his Arrows to take a seventh place.

Aftermath

Immediately after the race Senna was disqualified for missing the chicane following his collision with Prost. This was very controversial decision made by FIA president Frenchmen Jean-Marie Balestre. Nannini was awarded the victory and he, Patrese and Boutsen took the podium ceremony. This would prove to be Alessandro Nannini's only victory in a Formula One career that was cut short by a helicopter crash almost exactly a year later. Senna's disqualification also meant that it was mathematically impossible for him to overhaul Prost's points total, and so the 1989 Championship went to the Frenchman.

As he had gained no competitive advantage by missing the chicane, Senna and McLaren appealed the disqualification ruling. At the FIA hearing in Paris later the same week Senna's disqualification was not only upheld, but an additional US$100,000 fine and suspended six-month ban were imposed on the driver. Ever since the incident, there has been much debate as to whether Prost intentionally ran into Senna, whether Senna was overambitious in his overtaking manoeuvre, or whether the collision was simply a racing incident between two embittered team-mates.

Classification

Pre Qualifying

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Time	Gap
1	17	Nicola Larini	Osella-Ford	1:43.035	—
2	30	Philippe Alliot	Lola-Lamborghini	1:43.089	+0.054
3	34	Bernd Schneider	Zakspeed-Yamaha	1:44.053	+1.018
4	29	Michele Alboreto	Lola-Lamborghini	1:44.075	+1.040
5	18	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Osella-Ford	1:44.313	+1.278
6	31	Roberto Moreno	Coloni-Ford	1:44.498	+1.463
7	36	Stefan Johansson	Onyx-Ford	1:44.582	+1.547
8	35	Aguri Suzuki	Zakspeed-Yamaha	1:44.780	+1.745
9	33	Oscar Larrauri	EuroBrun-Judd	1:45.446	+2.411
10	37	JJ Lehto	Onyx-Ford	1:45.787	+2.752
11	40	Gabriele Tarquini	AGS-Ford	1:46.705	+3.670
12	41	Yannick Dalmas	AGS-Ford	1:48.306	+5.271
13	32	Enrico Bertaggia	Coloni-Ford	No Time	—

Qualifying

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Q1	Q2	Gap
1	1	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda	1:39.493	1:38.041	—
2	2	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda	1:40.875	1:39.771	+1.730
3	28	Gerhard Berger	Ferrari	1:41.253	1:40.187	+2.146
4	27	Nigel Mansell	Ferrari	1:40.608	1:40.406	+2.365
5	6	Riccardo Patrese	Williams-Renault	1:42.397	1:40.936	+2.895
6	19	Alessandro Nannini	Benetton-Ford	1:41.601	1:41.103	+3.062
7	5	Thierry Boutsen	Williams-Renault	1:42.943	1:41.324	+3.283
8	30	Philippe Alliot	Lola-Lamborghini	1:42.534	1:41.336	+3.295
9	8	Stefano Modena	Brabham-Judd	1:42.909	1:41.458	+3.417
10	17	Nicola Larini	Osella-Ford	1:42.483	1:41.519	+3.478
11	11	Nelson Piquet	Lotus-Judd	1:43.386	1:41.802	+3.761
12	12	Satoru Nakajima	Lotus-Judd	1:43.370	1:41.988	+3.947
13	7	Martin Brundle	Brabham-Judd	1:44.236	1:42.182	+4.141
14	24	Luis Pérez-Sala	Minardi-Ford	1:43.107	1:42.283	+4.242
15	21	Alex Caffi	Dallara-Ford	1:43.171	1:42.488	+4.447
16	22	Andrea de Cesaris	Dallara-Ford	1:43.904	1:42.581	+4.540
17	16	Ivan Capelli	March-Judd	1:43.851	1:42.672	+4.631
18	4	Jean Alesi	Tyrrell-Ford	1:43.306	1:42.709	+4.668
19	23	Paolo Barilla	Minardi-Ford	1:46.096	1:42.780	+4.739
20	15	Maurício Gugelmin	March-Judd	1:44.805	1:42.880	+4.839
21	34	Bernd Schneider	Zakspeed-Yamaha	1:44.323	1:42.892	+4.851
22	20	Emanuele Pirro	Benetton-Ford	1:43.217	1:43.063	+5.022
23	26	Olivier Grouillard	Ligier-Ford	1:45.801	1:43.379	+5.338
24	10	Eddie Cheever	Arrows-Ford	1:44.501	1:43.511	+5.470
25	9	Derek Warwick	Arrows-Ford	1:44.288	1:43.599	+5.558
26	3	Jonathan Palmer	Tyrrell-Ford	1:43.955	1:43.757	+5.716
27	25	René Arnoux	Ligier-Ford	1:44.221	1:44.030	+5.989
28	29	Michele Alboreto	Lola-Lamborghini	1:44.063	1:44.101	+6.022
29	38	Pierre-Henri Raphanel	Rial-Ford	2:11.328	1:47.160	+9.119
30	39	Bertrand Gachot	Rial-Ford	1:50.883	1:47.295	+9.254

Race

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	19	Alessandro Nannini	Benetton-Ford	53	1:35:06.277	6	9
2	6	Riccardo Patrese	Williams-Renault	53	+ 11.904	5	6
3	5	Thierry Boutsen	Williams-Renault	53	+ 13.446	7	4
4	11	Nelson Piquet	Lotus-Judd	53	+ 1:44.225	11	3
5	7	Martin Brundle	Brabham-Judd	52	+ 1 Lap	13	2
6	9	Derek Warwick	Arrows-Ford	52	+ 1 Lap	25	1
7	15	Maurício Gugelmin	March-Judd	52	+ 1 Lap	20
8	10	Eddie Cheever	Arrows-Ford	52	+ 1 Lap	24
9	21	Alex Caffi	Dallara-Ford	52	+ 1 Lap	15
10	22	Andrea de Cesaris	Dallara-Ford	51	+ 2 Laps	16
DSQ	1	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda	53	Disqualified	1
Ret	2	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda	46	Collision	2
Ret	8	Stefano Modena	Brabham-Judd	46	Engine	9
Ret	27	Nigel Mansell	Ferrari	43	Engine	4
Ret	12	Satoru Nakajima	Lotus-Judd	41	Engine	12
Ret	4	Jean Alesi	Tyrrell-Ford	37	Gearbox	18
Ret	30	Philippe Alliot	Lola-Lamborghini	36	Engine	8
Ret	28	Gerhard Berger	Ferrari	34	Gearbox	3
Ret	20	Emanuele Pirro	Benetton-Ford	33	Collision	22
Ret	26	Olivier Grouillard	Ligier-Ford	31	Engine	23
Ret	16	Ivan Capelli	March-Judd	27	Suspension	17
Ret	17	Nicola Larini	Osella-Ford	21	Brakes	10
Ret	3	Jonathan Palmer	Tyrrell-Ford	20	Fuel Leak	26
Ret	34	Bernd Schneider	Zakspeed-Yamaha	1	Gearbox	21
Ret	24	Luis Pérez-Sala	Minardi-Ford	0	Collision	14
Ret	23	Paolo Barilla	Minardi-Ford	0	Clutch	19
DNQ	25	René Arnoux	Ligier-Ford
DNQ	29	Michele Alboreto	Lola-Lamborghini
DNQ	38	Pierre-Henri Raphanel	Rial-Ford
DNQ	39	Bertrand Gachot	Rial-Ford
DNPQ	18	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Osella-Ford
DNPQ	31	Roberto Moreno	Coloni-Ford
DNPQ	36	Stefan Johansson	Onyx-Ford
DNPQ	35	Aguri Suzuki	Zakspeed-Yamaha
DNPQ	33	Oscar Larrauri	EuroBrun-Judd
DNPQ	37	JJ Lehto	Onyx-Ford
DNPQ	40	Gabriele Tarquini	AGS-Ford
DNPQ	41	Yannick Dalmas	AGS-Ford
DNPQ	32	Enrico Bertaggia	Coloni-Ford

Notes

• Lap leaders: Alain Prost 43 (1-20, 24-46), Ayrton Senna 8 (21-23, 47-48, 51-53), Alessandro Nannini 2 (49-50)

Standings after the race

• Bold Text indicates World Champions.

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Alain Prost 76 (81) 2 Ayrton Senna 60 3 Nigel Mansell 38 4 Riccardo Patrese 36 5 Thierry Boutsen 28

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 McLaren-Honda 141 2 Williams-Renault 64 3 Ferrari 59 4 Benetton-Ford 31 5 Tyrrell-Ford 16

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

References

• Henry, Alan (2000). Autocourse 50 Years of World Championship Grand Prix Motor Racing. Hazleton Publishing. 

• Rendall, Ivan (1999). The Power Game: 50 Years of Formula One. Weidenfeld Nicolson Illustrated. 

• Rendall, Ivan (1998). Chequered Flag: 100 Years of Motor Racing. Weidenfeld Nicolson Illustrated. 

• Cimarosti, Adriano (1997). The Complete History of Grand Prix Motor Racing. Aurum Press Ltd. 

• Henry, Alan (1994). Remembering Ayrton Senna. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 

• Race results and timings are taken from the The Official Formula One website.

External links

• Autosport/Atlas F1 "trial" of the collision case evidence.
• Race summary at GrandPrix.com
• Comments on 1989 Japanese GP

Previous race: 1989 Spanish Grand Prix	FIA Formula One World Championship 1989 season	Next race: 1989 Australian Grand Prix
Previous race: 1988 Japanese Grand Prix	Japanese Grand Prix	Next race: 1990 Japanese Grand Prix
Awards
Preceded by 1988 British Grand Prix	Formula One Promotional Trophy for Race Promoter 1989	Succeeded by 1990 Australian Grand Prix

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