1988 Canadian Grand Prix

  1988 Canadian Grand Prix

Race details
Race 5 of 16 in the 1988 Formula One season
Date	12 June 1988
Official name	Molson Gran Prix du Canada
Location	Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal, Canada
Course	Temporary street circuit
Course length	4.390 km (2.728 mi)
Distance	69 laps, 302.910 km (188.220 mi)
Weather	Sunny and hot with temperatures up to 29 °C (84 °F); wind speeds up to 19 kilometres per hour (12 mph)[1]
Pole position
Driver	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda
Time	1:21.681
Fastest lap
Driver	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda
Time	1:24.973 on lap 53
Podium
First	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda
Second	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda
Third	Thierry Boutsen	Benetton-Ford

The 1988 Canadian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 12 June 1988 at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal. It was the fifth race of the 1988 Formula One season.

Qualifying

Formula One returned to Canada after a one year's absence from the calendar. In that time the pits and facilities of the Gilles Villeneuve circuit had been upgraded and moved further up the track and some modifications had been carried out eliminating two turns in order to make the new pit straight. As usual, the qualifying session was to McLaren's benefit. Ayrton Senna collected his fifth consecutive pole from Alain Prost with a time of 1:21.681, this was 2.4 seconds faster than Nigel Mansell's pole time from 1986 when there were no restrictions on turbos, though there were two less turns on the circuit. As expected the Ferraris of Gerhard Berger and Michele Alboreto filled the second row followed by the Benetton-Ford of Alessandro Nannini in 5th, the fastest of the atmo cars with a time of 1:23.968, 2.3 seconds slower than Senna.

Both Williams drivers were suffering from continuing problems with the FW12's reactive suspension leaving Mansell and Riccardo Patrese in 9th and 11th respectively with Mansell, 3.2 seconds slower than Senna's pole time and 0.8 slower than his own 1986 pole time set in the Williams-Honda.

Derek Warwick suffered a serious accident coming onto the new pit straight on the Saturday session when his car flew over the curbs after his Arrows A10B lost control in the braking area for the chicane on dirt kicked up moments before by the AGS of Philippe Streiff. Thierry Boutsen in the Benetton-Ford was following the AGS and seeing what happened he was able to avoid the dirt Streiff had kicked onto the track. Warwick was next through arriving moments later not knowing about the mess and under breaking the Arrows broke away at the rear as Warwick was turning into the right-left chicane. The Arrows bounced over the inside curb and became airborne. When it hit the ground the impact caused Warwick to black out. The car, still travelling at speed then became airborne again before landing and hitting what is now the "Mur du Québec" (Quebec Wall) or "The Wall Of Champions" opposite the new pits at unabated speed. In the Williams pit directly opposite was Nigel Mansell who had suffered a similar crash in practice for the 1987 Japanese Grand Prix. Knowing the best thing Warwick could do was not to move at that point he immediately jumped the pit fence onto the track and was the first on the scene to give aid to a now conscious Warwick, removing his helmet and instructing him to stay in the car until F1's on-track medical team headed by Prof. Sid Watkins arrived. Courageously, Warwick, who had injured his back in the accident and admitted in an interview on race morning to being very stiff and sore, would start from his 16th qualifying position the next day in the same car he crashed, the Arrows team having repaired it overnight.

Race summary

At this, another circuit notoriously heavy on fuel for the turbos, Honda engineers decided to set the pop-off valve at 2.3 Bar for the race to lessen the possibility of running out of fuel. While this gave both McLaren and Lotus approximately 40 bhp (30 kW; 41 PS) less than they could use in qualifying, it was expected that the power of the Honda would enable McLaren to once again run comfortably in front of their rivals. Despite this, the leading atmo team Benetton were reasonably confident about the race and the B188s of Nannini and Boutsen allegedly went to the grid with 215 litres of fuel on board. The theory being that the while initially slower due to the weight, when the fuel load lightened the atmo cars could continue pushing while the turbo cars would be getting slower in order to finish before running dry.

Prost led from the start, away from Senna, the Ferraris and the Benettons, although after ten laps Gerhard Berger began having issues with the fuel system of his Ferrari. On lap 19 while coming up to traffic, Senna managed to pass his team mate at the L'Epingle hairpin to take a lead he would not lose. Alessandro Nannini retired from fourth position just past the pits with electrical problems on lap 15 while Berger retired with engine problems at the same place on lap 23. Meanwhile, Nigel Mansell relished passing his old team mate Nelson Piquet in the Honda turbo powered Lotus, although this would only last six laps before his engine failed leaving the Briton with his sixth DNF out of six races. The same happened five laps later to his team mate Riccardo Patrese.

On lap 34, Michele Alboreto retired, his Ferrari experiencing a similar engine problem as Berger allowing Thierry Boutsen to take the third place, which he maintained until the finish of the race, though he made no impression on the leading McLarens. With many of the front runners out, minor teams had a clear chance of scoring points. By the middle of the race Philippe Streiff brought his AGS up to the fifth place, ahead of Andrea de Cesaris' Rial in sixth. Their luck didn't last though: Streiff retired after rear suspension failure caused a spin on lap 41, while de Cesaris, with a car that was widely known to have too small a fuel tank, ran out of fuel with 3 laps to go. This allowed Ivan Capelli to put in the most surprising performance of the day, taking his March-Judd to the fifth place.

Ayrton Senna won, 5.9 seconds ahead of Prost with Boutsen 45.5 seconds behind Prost in third. Piquet was fourth in the Lotus, albeit a lap down on Senna, with Capelli finishing fifth in the March. The final point surprisingly went to Jonathan Palmer in the troublesome Tyrrell 017. The injured Derek Warwick put in the drive of the race in his Arrows-Megatron to finish just outside the points in seventh after a half-race long duel with team mate Eddie Cheever that ended when Cheever retired with a broken throttle cable on lap 31. Warwick also had to endure the turbo pop-off valve cutting in early leaving him with less than desirable power from his turbo engine and an increasingly sore back from his accident the previous day.

Senna set the circuit lap record with a 1:24.973 on lap 53 of the 69 lap race. This compared to Nelson Piquet's previous lap record set in 1986 of 1:25.443 set in a Williams-Honda when the turbo cars had approximately 400 bhp (298 kW; 406 PS) more than 1988. However, the changes to the circuit between the 1986 and 1988 races had eliminated what were the turn 5 and 6 curves which were replaced by making the new pit straight longer, leaving only a left hand turn leading into the now turn 2 Epingle de L'ile hairpin.

Boutsen's third place was the first time since the 1983 Dutch Grand Prix that a naturally aspirated powered car legally finished on a Formula One podium.

Classification

Ayrton Senna took pole position and the race win for McLaren.

Alain Prost finished just under six seconds behind his team-mate.

Thierry Boutsen took the final podium position for Benetton.

Gerhard Berger retired his Ferrari with electrical problems on lap 23.

Qualifying

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Q1	Q2	Gap
1	12	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda	1:22.392	1:21.681	—
2	11	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda	1:22.499	1:21.863	+0.182
3	28	Gerhard Berger	Ferrari	1:22.719	1:22.785	+1.038
4	27	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari	1:23.976	1:23.296	+1.615
5	19	Alessandro Nannini	Benetton-Ford	1:25.561	1:23.968	+2.287
6	1	Nelson Piquet	Lotus-Honda	1:24.166	1:23.995	+2.314
7	20	Thierry Boutsen	Benetton-Ford	1:25.173	1:24.115	+2.434
8	18	Eddie Cheever	Arrows-Megatron	1:24.679	1:25.068	+2.998
9	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Judd	1:24.844	1:25.251	+3.163
10	14	Philippe Streiff	AGS-Ford	1:25.878	1:24.968	+3.287
11	6	Riccardo Patrese	Williams-Judd	1:24.971	1:25.471	+3.290
12	22	Andrea de Cesaris	Rial-Ford	1:26.039	1:24.988	+3.307
13	2	Satoru Nakajima	Lotus-Honda	1:25.373	1:26.650	+3.692
14	16	Ivan Capelli	March-Judd	1:25.609	1:26.815	+3.928
15	33	Stefano Modena	EuroBrun-Ford	1:26.652	1:25.713	+4.032
16	17	Derek Warwick	Arrows-Megatron	1:26.052	1:25.740	+4.059
17	30	Philippe Alliot	Lola-Ford	1:27.543	1:25.765	+4.084
18	15	Maurício Gugelmin	March-Judd	1:25.910	1:25.982	+4.229
19	3	Jonathan Palmer	Tyrrell-Ford	1:27.230	1:26.092	+4.411
20	25	René Arnoux	Ligier-Judd	1:26.716	1:26.327	+4.646
21	24	Luis Pérez-Sala	Minardi-Ford	1:26.822	1:26.437	+4.756
22	9	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Zakspeed	1:28.400	1:26.786	+5.105
23	4	Julian Bailey	Tyrrell-Ford	1:28.737	1:27.139	+5.458
24	32	Oscar Larrauri	EuroBrun-Ford	1:27.676	1:27.321	+5.640
25	26	Stefan Johansson	Ligier-Judd	1:28.614	1:27.637	+5.956
26	31	Gabriele Tarquini	Coloni-Ford	no time	1:27.655	+5.974
DNQ	23	Adrián Campos	Minardi-Ford	1:27.885	1:27.979	+6.204
DNQ	21	Nicola Larini	Osella	1:39.782	1:27.981	+6.300
DNQ	29	Yannick Dalmas	Lola-Ford	no time	1:28.012	+6.331
DNQ	31	Bernd Schneider	Zakspeed	1:29.110	1:28.215	+6.534
DNPQ	36	Alex Caffi	Dallara-Ford

Race

The top 3 drivers of the race: Prost (2nd), Senna (winner), Boutsen (3rd)

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	12	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda	69	1:39:46.618	1	9
2	11	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda	69	+ 5.934	2	6
3	20	Thierry Boutsen	Benetton-Ford	69	+ 51.409	7	4
4	1	Nelson Piquet	Lotus-Honda	68	+ 1 Lap	6	3
5	16	Ivan Capelli	March-Judd	68	+ 1 Lap	14	2
6	3	Jonathan Palmer	Tyrrell-Ford	67	+ 2 Laps	19	1
7	17	Derek Warwick	Arrows-Megatron	67	+ 2 Laps	16
8	31	Gabriele Tarquini	Coloni-Ford	67	+ 2 Laps	26
9	22	Andrea de Cesaris	Rial-Ford	66	Out of Fuel	12
10	30	Philippe Alliot	Lola-Ford	66	Electrical	17
11	2	Satoru Nakajima	Lotus-Honda	66	+ 3 Laps	13
12	33	Stefano Modena	Euro Brun-Ford	66	+ 3 Laps	15
13	24	Luis Pérez-Sala	Minardi-Ford	64	+ 5 Laps	21
14	9	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Zakspeed	63	Engine	22
Ret	15	Maurício Gugelmin	March-Judd	54	Gearbox	18
Ret	14	Philippe Streiff	AGS-Ford	41	Suspension	10
Ret	25	René Arnoux	Ligier-Judd	36	Transmission	20
Ret	27	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari	33	Engine	4
Ret	6	Riccardo Patrese	Williams-Judd	32	Engine	11
Ret	18	Eddie Cheever	Arrows-Megatron	31	Throttle	8
Ret	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Judd	28	Engine	9
Ret	26	Stefan Johansson	Ligier-Judd	24	Engine	25
Ret	28	Gerhard Berger	Ferrari	22	Electrical	3
Ret	19	Alessandro Nannini	Benetton-Ford	15	Ignition	5
Ret	32	Oscar Larrauri	Euro Brun-Ford	8	Chassis	24
Ret	4	Julian Bailey	Tyrrell-Ford	0	Collision	23
DNQ	23	Adrián Campos	Minardi-Ford
DNQ	21	Nicola Larini	Osella
DNQ	29	Yannick Dalmas	Lola-Ford
DNQ	10	Bernd Schneider	Zakspeed
DNPQ	36	Alex Caffi	Dallara-Ford
Source:[2]

Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Alain Prost 39 2 Ayrton Senna 24 3 Gerhard Berger 18 4 Nelson Piquet 11 5 Michele Alboreto 9

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 McLaren-Honda 63 2 Ferrari 27 3 Lotus-Honda 12 4 Arrows-Megatron 9 5 Benetton-Ford 8

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

References

1. "Weather information for the "1988 Canadian Grand Prix"". The Old Farmers' Almanac. Retrieved 2014-09-07.
2. "1988 Canadian Grand Prix". formula1.com. Archived from the original on 18 January 2015. Retrieved 23 December 2015.

External links