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1988 Mexican Grand Prix
Race 4 of 16 in the 1988 Formula One World Championship
Race details
Date	29 May 1988
Official name	Gran Premio de México
Location	Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Mexico City, Mexico
Course	Permanent circuit
Course length	4.421 km (2.747 miles)
Distance	67 laps, 296.207 km (184.054 miles)
Weather	Sunny and hot
Pole position
Driver	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda
Time	1:17.468
Fastest lap
Driver	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda
Time	1:18.608 on lap 52
Podium
First	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda
Second	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda
Third	Gerhard Berger	Ferrari
Lap leaders

The 1988 Mexican Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 29 May 1988 at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Mexico City. It was the fourth race of the 1988 Formula One World Championship. The 67-lap race was won by Alain Prost, driving a McLaren-Honda, with teammate Ayrton Senna second and Gerhard Berger third in a Ferrari.

Report

Qualifying

Qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix saw few surprises. The turbo powered cars were expected to dominate in the high (2,240 metres (7,350 ft)) altitude of Mexico City where the naturally aspirated cars would lose approximately 20-25% of their power in the thinner air.

The McLaren-Hondas dominated the qualifying session once again. Ayrton Senna took his 20th career pole and his 4th pole from 4 races in 1988 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. Alain Prost was predictably second on the grid, though he was some 6/10ths slower than his teammate. Gerhard Berger (Ferrari) and Nelson Piquet (Lotus-Honda) made up the 2nd row. 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. Larini's failure to qualify in the Osella turbo, reportedly the most powerful used in Grand Prix racing in 1988, highlighted the problems the Osella team had with both the ancient Alfa Romeo 890T engine (badged as "Osella V8" for the year after Alfa's parent company Fiat pulled their support) and their car, the FA1L, in 1988 which was appropriately nicknamed "FAIL".

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 on the edge of the track. Remarkably, Alliot was not only unhurt, but the Larrousse team was able to rebuild the Lola LC88 overnight (the re-build was necessary as the team was still awaiting a replacement chassis after Alliot had also crashed in the previous race in Monaco). After being given a clean bill of health from chief F1 medico Professor Sid Watkins, Alliot was able to take his place on the starting grid.

Race

The first start was aborted because of Alessandro Nannini, who stalled the engine of his Benetton on the grid. As is normal practice since it meant an extra formation lap and as re-fueling on the grid was not allowed, this saw the race reduced from 68 to 67 laps. On the second start, Prost made a lightning getaway and took the lead. Senna was slightly slowed by the pop-off valve opening too soon and was passed by Nelson Piquet who had actually made the best start; so good that he was almost able to out brake Prost into the first turn. 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 have been incorrect). Nakajima was also slightly slowed by the pop-off valve opening too soon on his Honda engine and was passed by Michele Alboreto on lap 8. On lap 28 Nakajima retired with piston failure in his Honda engine, followed on lap 59 by teammate Piquet with a similar engine failure.

As predicted, the turbo cars dominated the race. The two Ferraris finished 3rd and 4th (Alboreto in 4th being the last car to be lapped by the McLarens) 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 with Cheever describing their dice as "good fun". The first 'atmo' cars home were the two Benettons who finished two laps down (even lapped by the two Arrows cars) and out of the points in 7th and 8th after another race long duel with Nannini coming out on top, battling not only his teammate 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. This, along with Senna's faster than 1987 pole time, showed the advancements in engines, tyres, aerodynamics and chassis development in the seven months between the 1987 and 1988 races.

Classification

Pre-qualifying

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Time	Gap
1	22	Andrea de Cesaris	Rial-Ford	1:24.720	—
2	36	Alex Caffi	Dallara-Ford	1:27.331	+2.611
3	32	Oscar Larrauri	EuroBrun-Ford	1:27.523	+2.803
4	31	Gabriele Tarquini	Coloni-Ford	1:28.498	+3.778
EX	33	Stefano Modena	EuroBrun-Ford	1:31.473	+6.753

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
8	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	Maurício 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	1:24.364	1:24.032	+6.564
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

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	EuroBrun-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	EuroBrun-Ford		Illegal Rear Wing
Source:

Championship 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 Source:

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 Source:

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

References

1. "1988 Mexican Grand Prix". formula1.com. Archived from the original on 18 January 2015. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
2. ^ "Mexico 1988 - Championship • STATS F1". www.statsf1.com. Retrieved 19 March 2019.

• 1988 Formula One races
• Mexican Grand Prix
• 1988 in Mexican motorsport
• May 1988 sports events in Mexico