1988 Australian Grand Prix

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  1988 Australian Grand Prix

Race details
Race 16 of 16 in the 1988 Formula One season.
Date	November 13, 1988
Official name	LIII Foster's Australian Grand Prix
Location	Adelaide Street Circuit,Adelaide, Australia
Course	Temporary street circuit 2.347 mi / 3.770 km
Distance	82 laps, 192.600 mi / 309.960 km
Weather	Cloudy and hot
Pole position
Driver	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda
Time	1:17.748
Fastest lap
Driver	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda
Time	1:21.216 on lap 59
Podium
First	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda
Second	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda
Third	Nelson Piquet	Lotus-Honda

The 1988 Australian Grand Prix was a Formula One race held at the Adelaide Street Circuit, Adelaide, on November 13, 1988. It was the last race of the 1988 Formula One season, as well as the last race for turbo engines.

Contents 1 Race summary 2 Classification 3 Notes 4 References

[edit] Race summary

McLaren notched up the last front row of the season, with Ayrton Senna taking his 13th pole of the season after a great qualifying duel. Alain Prost led off the start from Senna, Gerhard Berger, Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell, and by lap 4 the lead had grown to 5.5 seconds. Michele Alboreto's Ferrari was an early retirement after being hit by Alex Caffi's Dallara.

Berger passed Senna on that lap at the second-gear Racetrack Hairpin and began a determined drive, passing Prost at the same place on lap 14. By lap 23 he had a 3 second lead coming up to lap Stefano Modena and René Arnoux. The Ligier turned in and took both drivers off in a violent collision. This left the McLarens in their usual 1-2 position although Senna was battling a faulty gearbox. Piquet was maintaining 3rd ahead of the Williams of Riccardo Patrese and Mansell. The Italian made several attempts to pass Piquet, but was hampered by a lack of power on the straights.

On lap 53 Patrese spun, letting Mansell past, but he was equally unsuccessful in passing Piquet and eventually retired when his brakes failed and he hit the wall on lap 66. By lap 59 Prost was putting in a succession of fast laps, gaining a lead of over 30 seconds and lapping the whole field up to 5th placed Andrea de Cesaris' Rial who had driven up from 15th in an underpowered car.

The circuit's demanding nature was obvious: Satoru Nakajima and Mauricio Gugelmin collided, Alessandro Nannini spun, Jonathan Palmer retired with transmission problems, whilst engine problems claimed Derek Warwick and Eddie Cheever and driveshaft failures accounted for Stefano Modena and Oscar Larrauri. Alex Caffi succumbed to clutch failure and Philippe Alliot ran out of fuel.

At the finish, only 11 cars were classified of which just 7 were running. Prost led home Senna in yet another McLaren 1-2, Piquet claimed 3rd and Patrese 4th. De Cesaris' Rial - which had the smallest fuel tank in the field - ran dry just four laps from home, handing 5th place to Thierry Boutsen despite a spin and a stuttering engine, whilst Ivan Capelli came home 6th despite a puncture.

This was the last race in which turbocharged cars, introduced in 1977, would be permitted to compete as new regulations for 1989 allowed only normally aspirated engines to race, due to increasing concerns in safery.

There was also some criticism of the scoring system. Prost scored 105 points during the season and finished 1st or 2nd in each race he completed. However, Senna won the World Championship scoring only 94 points, including a 4th and a 6th. This was because of the "discard rule", which counted only the best 11 results of the year toward the Championship total; this meant that Prost ended the season with 87 and Senna with 90. Senna become only the second champion after John Surtees to win the Championship without having scored the largest number of points.

[edit] Classification

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	11	Alain Prost	McLaren-Honda	82	1:53:14.676	2	9
2	12	Ayrton Senna	McLaren-Honda	82	+ 36.387	1	6
3	1	Nelson Piquet	Lotus-Honda	82	+ 47.546	5	4
4	6	Riccardo Patrese	Williams-Judd	82	+ 1:20.088	6	3
5	20	Thierry Boutsen	Benetton-Ford	81	+ 1 Lap	10	2
6	16	Ivan Capelli	March-Judd	81	+ 1 Lap	9	1
7	23	Pierluigi Martini	Minardi-Ford	80	+ 2 Laps	14
8	22	Andrea de Cesaris	Rial-Ford	77	Out of Fuel	15
9	26	Stefan Johansson	Ligier-Judd	76	Out of Fuel	22
10	30	Philippe Alliot	Larrousse-Ford	75	Out of fuel	24
11	14	Philippe Streiff	AGS-Ford	73	Electrical	16
Ret	9	Piercarlo Ghinzani	Zakspeed	69	Fuel System	26
Ret	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Judd	65	Spun Off	3
Ret	19	Alessandro Nannini	Benetton-Ford	63	Spun Off	8
Ret	33	Stefano Modena	Euro Brun-Ford	63	Halfshaft	20
Ret	17	Derek Warwick	Arrows-Megatron	52	Engine	7
Ret	18	Eddie Cheever	Arrows-Megatron	51	Engine	18
Ret	15	Mauricio Gugelmin	March-Judd	46	Collision	19
Ret	2	Satoru Nakajima	Lotus-Honda	45	collision	13
Ret	24	Luis Perez-Sala	Minardi-Ford	41	Engine	21
Ret	36	Alex Caffi	Dallara-Ford	32	Clutch	11
Ret	28	Gerhard Berger	Ferrari	25	Collision	4
Ret	25	René Arnoux	Ligier-Judd	24	Collision	23
Ret	3	Jonathan Palmer	Tyrrell-Ford	16	Transmission	17
Ret	32	Oscar Larrauri	Euro Brun-Ford	12	Halfshaft	25
Ret	27	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari	0	Collision	12
DNQ	31	Gabriele Tarquini	Coloni-Ford
DNQ	4	Julian Bailey	Tyrrell-Ford
DNQ	29	Pierre-Henri Raphanel	Larrousse-Ford
DNQ	10	Bernd Schneider	Zakspeed
DNPQ	21	Nicola Larini	Osella

[edit] Notes

• This was the 176th race for Riccardo Patrese, who set the new record for races started.

[edit] References

• Unless otherwise indicated, all race results are taken from The Official Formula 1 website. Retrieved on 2007-07-12.

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