1988 French Grand Prix

  1988 French Grand Prix

Race details
Race 7 of 16 in the 1988 Formula One season
Date	3 July 1988
Official name	Rhône-Poulenc Grand Prix de France
Location	Circuit Paul Ricard, Le Castellet, France
Course	Permanent racing facility
Course length	3.813 km (2.369 mi)
Distance	80 laps, 305.040 km (189.543 mi)
Weather	Sunny and hot
Pole position
Driver	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda
Time	1:07.589
Fastest lap
Driver	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda
Time	1:11.737 on lap 45
Podium
First	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda
Second	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda
Third	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari

The 1988 French Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 3 July 1988 at the Circuit Paul Ricard, Le Castellet. The race, contested over 80 laps, was the seventh race of the 1988 Formula One season and was won by Alain Prost, driving a McLaren-Honda, with team-mate Ayrton Senna second and Michele Alboreto third in a Ferrari.

Qualifying

The two McLarens lined up in their usual front row places, but, for the first time this season, Alain Prost was ahead of Ayrton Senna, the Frenchman beating the Brazilian by almost half a second to take his first pole since the 1986 Monaco Grand Prix and in doing so stopping his team mate from a record breaking 7th pole in succession. The two Ferraris filled the second row, Gerhard Berger beating Michele Alboreto by over 1.1 seconds, though neither driver believed they could race with the McLarens simply because of fuel consumption. On the third row were the two normally-aspirated Benettons of Thierry Boutsen and Alessandro Nannini, while the Lotuses of Nelson Piquet and Satoru Nakajima filled the fourth row, Piquet being the last driver to qualify under 1:10. The top ten was completed by the Williams of Nigel Mansell and the March of Ivan Capelli, who had recovered after fracturing his left foot in a crash during practice in Detroit two weeks before.

Meanwhile, Ligier had a disastrous weekend on their home turf with both René Arnoux and Stefan Johansson failing to qualify, though they did have a celebration of sorts over the weekend as Arnoux turned 40 the day after the race. Julian Bailey also failed to qualify in his Tyrrell, while Piercarlo Ghinzani qualified 22nd in his Zakspeed but was excluded for missing a weight check, thus promoting Oscar Larrauri's EuroBrun to the last grid spot. Larrauri qualifying was to the displeasure of many of those towards the front of the grid as the Argentine in the slower than most EuroBrun-Ford Cosworth had developed a reputation of being a mobile chicane in both qualifying and races and most felt that would be a problem on the shortest track on the F1 calendar.

Race summary

Prost led away from Senna and the two Ferraris, with Piquet passing the two Benettons for fifth. Despite worries in the McLaren pit about overly high fuel consumption (the fuel readouts in the cars were showing less fuel used than what the Honda telemetry was telling the team), Ron Dennis was reportedly prepared to let his drivers run out of fuel at the expense of a perfect season if it taught them to be more conservative given their obvious advantage over the field, though ultimately the onboard readouts were proved correct. Prost maintained a two-second advantage over Senna until the mid-race pit stops, while an early stop for by Berger on lap 22 allowed team-mate Alboreto through into third. While both McLarens were racing each other out front, they were still pulling away from the field at sometimes a second per lap.

Senna made his pit stop three laps before Prost, enabling him to take the lead thanks to a slow stop for Prost with a sticking front wheel, but traffic on the Mistral Straight (including a less than helpful Piquet who most likely enjoyed seeing Senna lose the lead to Prost at close quarters) and a gearbox problem allowed Prost to close right up to him and then overtake him on lap 61 as they lapped Alex Caffi and Pierluigi Martini at the Signes corner. Meanwhile, Berger reclaimed third only for Alboreto to pass him again during the pit stops, while Mansell suffered his seventh consecutive retirement, dropping out on lap 49 with suspension problems though he had been dropping back for a number of laps with power loss from his Judd V8 engine. After returning to the pits and getting himself cleaned up, the Englishman left the circuit profoundly fed up with the performance of the Williams, fuelling ongoing speculation in the press that he would leave the team at the end of the year to join Ferrari after the Italian team had announced they would not be keeping Alboreto for 1989. Despite the rumours turning out to be correct, Mansell continued to deny he was joining Ferrari.

In the closing laps, Prost pulled away as Senna's gearbox troubles continued, losing several gears. The Brazilian eventually finished nearly 32 seconds behind the Frenchman, though he was still nearly 35 seconds ahead of Alboreto, the last man on the lead lap. Berger was fourth ahead of Piquet, who also suffered gearbox problems in the later stages of the race; the final point went to the Benetton of Nannini. France was the first time since the 1987 Monaco Grand Prix that Alboreto had finished in front of his team mate in a race where they both finished. During the race Alboreto had the advantage of an almost perfectly balanced car, while Berger complained of severe understeer, something not needed at the high speed Signes corner at the end of the Mistral.

The fastest lap of the race, a 1:11.737 set by Prost on lap 45, was over two seconds slower than the 1:09.548 set by Piquet in a Honda-powered Williams the previous year - a consequence of the restrictions imposed on turbocharged engines this season with the major difference being the speeds attained on the now 1 km long Mistral Straight. In 1987 the fastest turbo cars (Honda powered) were timed at 325 km/h (202 mph) on the straight. In 1988 the top speed was recorded at 311 km/h (193 mph).

For Prost it was his third win in his home Grand Prix after winning in both 1981 at Dijon (his first Grand Prix victory) and 1983 at the full length Paul Ricard. On both occasions he had been driving for the factory Renault team.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Q1	Q2	Gap
1	11	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda	1:08.171	1:07.589	—
2	12	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda	1:08.456	1:08.067	+0.478
3	28	Gerhard Berger	Ferrari	1:09.032	1:08.282	+0.693
4	27	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari	1:09.624	1:09.422	+1.833
5	20	Thierry Boutsen	Benetton-Ford	1:11.170	1:09.587	+1.998
6	19	Alessandro Nannini	Benetton-Ford	1:10.743	1:09.718	+2.129
7	1	Nelson Piquet	Lotus-Honda	1:09.734	1:09.900	+2.145
8	2	Satoru Nakajima	Lotus-Honda	1:11.394	1:10.250	+2.661
9	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Judd	1:11.112	1:10.337	+2.748
10	16	Ivan Capelli	March-Judd	1:11.779	1:10.496	+2.907
11	17	Derek Warwick	Arrows-Megatron	1:11.339	1:10.634	+3.045
12	22	Andrea de Cesaris	Rial-Ford	1:11.854	1:10.861	+3.272
13	18	Eddie Cheever	Arrows-Megatron	1:11.567	1:10.979	+3.390
14	36	Alex Caffi	Dallara-Ford	1:13.144	1:11.211	+3.622
15	6	Riccardo Patrese	Williams-Judd	1:11.671	1:11.286	+3.697
16	15	Maurício Gugelmin	March-Judd	1:11.315	1:11.404	+3.726
17	14	Philippe Streiff	AGS-Ford	1:12.004	1:11.466	+3.877
18	30	Philippe Alliot	Lola-Ford	1:12.286	1:11.511	+3.922
19	29	Yannick Dalmas	Lola-Ford	1:12.547	1:11.747	+4.158
20	33	Stefano Modena	EuroBrun-Ford	1:12.997	1:12.007	+4.418
21	10	Bernd Schneider	Zakspeed	1:13.527	1:12.026	+4.437
22	23	Pierluigi Martini	Minardi-Ford	1:13.039	1:12.268	+4.679
23	3	Jonathan Palmer	Tyrrell-Ford	1:13.063	1:12.316	+4.272
24	21	Nicola Larini	Osella	1:13.037	1:12.406	+4.817
25	24	Luis Pérez-Sala	Minardi-Ford	1:12.938	1:12.525	+4.936
26	32	Oscar Larrauri	EuroBrun-Ford	1:13.888	1:12.538	+4.949
DNQ	25	René Arnoux	Ligier-Judd	1:12.654	1:12.736	+5.065
DNQ	4	Julian Bailey	Tyrrell-Ford	1:13.839	1:12.697	+5.108
DNQ	26	Stefan Johansson	Ligier-Judd	1:13.629	1:12.801	+5.212
EX	9	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Zakspeed	1:14.797	1:12.121
DNPQ	31	Gabriele Tarquini	Coloni-Ford

Race

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	11	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda	80	1:37:37.328	1	9
2	12	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda	80	+ 31.752	2	6
3	27	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari	80	+ 1:06.505	4	4
4	28	Gerhard Berger	Ferrari	79	+ 1 Lap	3	3
5	1	Nelson Piquet	Lotus-Honda	79	+ 1 Lap	7	2
6	19	Alessandro Nannini	Benetton-Ford	79	+ 1 Lap	6	1
7	2	Satoru Nakajima	Lotus-Honda	79	+ 1 Lap	8
8	15	Maurício Gugelmin	March-Judd	79	+ 1 Lap	16
9	16	Ivan Capelli	March-Judd	79	+ 1 Lap	10
10	22	Andrea de Cesaris	Rial-Ford	78	+ 2 Laps	12
11	18	Eddie Cheever	Arrows-Megatron	78	+ 2 Laps	13
12	36	Alex Caffi	Dallara-Ford	78	+ 2 Laps	14
13	29	Yannick Dalmas	Lola-Ford	78	+ 2 Laps	19
14	33	Stefano Modena	EuroBrun-Ford	77	+ 3 Laps	20
15	23	Pierluigi Martini	Minardi-Ford	77	+ 3 Laps	22
NC	24	Luis Pérez-Sala	Minardi-Ford	70	Not Classified	25
Ret	32	Oscar Larrauri	EuroBrun-Ford	64	Clutch	26
Ret	21	Nicola Larini	Osella	56	Halfshaft	24
Ret	10	Bernd Schneider	Zakspeed	55	Gearbox	21
Ret	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Judd	48	Suspension	9
Ret	30	Philippe Alliot	Lola-Ford	46	Electrical	18
Ret	3	Jonathan Palmer	Tyrrell-Ford	40	Engine	23
Ret	6	Riccardo Patrese	Williams-Judd	35	Brakes	15
Ret	20	Thierry Boutsen	Benetton-Ford	28	Engine	5
Ret	14	Philippe Streiff	AGS-Ford	20	Fuel Leak	17
Ret	17	Derek Warwick	Arrows-Megatron	11	Spun Off	11
DNQ	25	René Arnoux	Ligier-Judd
DNQ	4	Julian Bailey	Tyrrell-Ford
DNQ	26	Stefan Johansson	Ligier-Judd
DNPQ	31	Gabriele Tarquini	Coloni-Ford
EX	9	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Zakspeed		Excluded
Source:[1]

Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Alain Prost 54 2 Ayrton Senna 39 3 Gerhard Berger 21 4 Michele Alboreto 13 5 Nelson Piquet 13

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 McLaren-Honda 93 2 Ferrari 34 3 Lotus-Honda 14 4 Benetton-Ford 13 5 Arrows-Megatron 9

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

References