The 1988 Belgian Grand Prix (formally the XLVI Champion Belgian Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps on 28 August 1988. It was the eleventh race of the 1988 Formula One World Championship.
The 43-lap race was won from pole position by Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna, driving a McLaren-Honda. Senna's French teammate Alain Prost was second, with Italy's Ivan Capelli third in a March-Judd after the Benetton-Fords of local driver Thierry Boutsen and Alessandro Nannini were disqualified for fuel irregularities.
The win, Senna's seventh of the season and fourth in succession, gave him a three-point lead over Prost in the Drivers' Championship.
Qualifying summary This was the first race after the death of Enzo Ferrari. Nigel Mansell was forced to miss the race due to chicken pox and was replaced at Williams by Martin Brundle who actually managed to be fastest in the second, wet qualifying session. The McLaren-Hondas had dominated the first qualifying session and occupied the whole front row for the 7th time in 11 races, though neither Ayrton Senna nor Alain Prost could match Michele Alboreto on the uphill Kemmel Straight as he pushed his Ferrari to . This was the first race in 1988 where neither of the new EuroBrun cars made the field.
Riccardo Patrese did a fine job to be 5th on the grid in his naturally aspirated Williams-Judd, but his time of 1:57.138 was still 3.420 seconds slower than pole man Senna. Local driver Thierry Boutsen gave the Belgian crowd something to cheer when he put his Benetton-Ford in 6th place on the grid.
The grid was set by Friday's qualifying session as Saturday's qualifying was held in wet conditions. Martin Brundle surprised by being fastest in the Williams, but even more of a surprise was Satoru Nakajima who was second fastest in his Lotus-Honda. Alain Prost, never a fan of driving in the wet and knowing his second place on the grid was safe, did not drive in the second session.
The Minardis of Luis Pérez-Sala and Pierluigi Martini, Stefano Modena in the EuroBrun and Julian Bailey in the Tyrrell all failed to qualify while Modena's teammate Oscar Larrauri failed to pre-qualify.
Race summary Throughout 1988, Senna had copied Prost's car settings feeling that the Frenchman had a better handle on setting up the McLaren (after driving Prost's spare car in Brazil he found that his teammates settings actually suited his own driving style, plus they were easier on the car). At Spa Prost decided at the last minute to alter the settings on his car by taking off some wing for more straight line speed in a bid to gain an advantage. Unfortunately for the Frenchman this had a detrimental result and he was unhappy with the balance and handling of his car in the race, compared to Senna with Prost's original settings who reported no such problems. At the start, pole sitter Senna had too much wheelspin and Prost was able to take the lead. However, the first time through Eau Rouge, Senna, with better downforce and grip, was clearly quicker and easily retook the lead after he slipstreamed Prost on the Kemmel Straight and out braked him at Les Combes. Senna powered off into the distance while Prost, struggling with a car that was no longer handling to his liking, settled for second place.
Gerhard Berger managed to get his Ferrari up to 3rd, challenging Prost briefly before pitting on lap 3 with electrical problems. He managed to rejoin and set the fastest lap before retiring on lap 12. Due to Berger's retirement, Boutsen climbed to 4th behind Alboreto and ahead of a thrilling battle between Alessandro Nannini (Benetton), Nakajima, Nelson Piquet (Lotus), and the two Arrows-Megatrons of Derek Warwick and Eddie Cheever. Piquet passed teammate Nakajima on lap 17, before the Japanese driver pitted with an acute misfire from a jammed plug, which caused him to retire. In the meantime, Ivan Capelli climbed from ninth to sixth in his March-Judd.
On lap 36, Alboreto's engine blew at Les Combes, sending him out of the race from third. On lap 38, Nannini passed Piquet for fourth at the La Source hairpin, before Capelli overtook the Brazilian driver for fifth on the penultimate lap.
McLaren's 1-2 sealed the Constructors' Championship for the British team with five races remaining. Boutsen and Nannini came home third and fourth for Benetton, with Capelli and Piquet rounding out the top six. In a post-race interview, Prost virtually conceded the championship to Senna, who had won his fourth race in succession and had taken the championship lead for the first time.
Post-race Both Benettons were later disqualified for using irregular fuel, so the third podium spot went to Ivan Capelli. It was his first podium finish in Formula One and March's first podium finish since Ronnie Peterson had won the 1976 Italian Grand Prix. The post race disqualification of the Benettons also meant that the two Arrows of Warwick and Cheever went into the points.
The disqualification of the Benettons was not made official until long after the season had finished, so many published records list them as having finished third and fourth. The three points Arrows gained from the disqualification brought the team to fifth in the Constructors' Championship.
Classification
Pre-qualifying PosNoDriverConstructorTimeGap136 Alex CaffiDallara-Ford2:01.068—231 Gabriele TarquiniColoni-Ford2:02.101 +1.033321 Nicola LariniOsella2:02.347 +1.279433 Stefano ModenaEuroBrun-Ford2:02.933 +1.86532 Oscar LarrauriEuroBrun-Ford2:04.208 +3.140
Qualifying Pos No Driver Constructor Q1 Q2 Gap 1 12 Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda 1:53.718 2:15.196 — 2 11 Alain Prost McLaren-Honda 1:54.128 no time +0.410 3 28 Gerhard Berger Ferrari 1:54.581 2:17.115 +0.863 4 27 Michele Alboreto Ferrari 1:55.665 2:15.667 +1.947 5 6 Riccardo Patrese Williams-Judd 1:57.138 2:15.358 +3.420 6 20 Thierry Boutsen Benetton-Ford 1:57.455 2:15.236 +3.737 7 19 Alessandro Nannini Benetton-Ford 1:57.535 2:17.077 +3.817 8 2 Satoru Nakajima Lotus-Honda 1:57.616 2:14.739 +3.898 9 1 Nelson Piquet Lotus-Honda 1:57.821 2:15.027 +4.103 10 17 Derek Warwick Arrows-Megatron 1:57.925 2:16.770 +4.207 11 18 Eddie Cheever Arrows-Megatron 1:57.980 2:19.908 +4.262 12 5 Martin Brundle Williams-Judd 1:58.206 2:14.517 +4.488 13 15 Maurício Gugelmin March-Judd 1:58.361 no time +4.643 14 16 Ivan Capelli March-Judd 1:58.439 2:22.821 +4.721 15 36 Alex Caffi Dallara-Ford 1:59.736 2:18.052 +6.018 16 30 Philippe Alliot Lola-Ford 1:59.906 2:21.219 +6.188 17 25 René Arnoux Ligier-Judd 2:00.037 2:19.260 +6.319 18 14 Philippe Streiff AGS-Ford 2:00.410 2:23.953 +6.692 19 22 Andrea de Cesaris Rial-Ford 2:00.521 2:17.028 +6.803 20 26 Stefan Johansson Ligier-Judd 2:00.857 no time +7.139 21 3 Jonathan Palmer Tyrrell-Ford 2:01.078 2:20.594 +7.360 22 31 Gabriele Tarquini Coloni-Ford 2:01.359 2:19.939 +7.641 23 29 Yannick Dalmas Lola-Ford 2:01.467 2:19.909 +7.749 24 9 Piercarlo Ghinzani Zakspeed 2:01.899 2:22.064 +8.181 25 10 Bernd Schneider Zakspeed 2:01.938 2:19.825 +8.220 26 21 Nicola Larini Osella 2:02.029 2:17.127 +8.311 24 Luis Pérez-Sala Minardi-Ford 2:02.129 no time +8.411 23 Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Ford 2:02.314 no time +8.596 33 Stefano Modena EuroBrun-Ford 2:02.322 2:19.880 +8.604 4 Julian Bailey Tyrrell-Ford 2:02.519 no time +8.801
Race Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 12 Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda 43 1:28:00.549 1 9 2 11 Alain Prost McLaren-Honda 43 + 30.470 2 6 3 16 Ivan Capelli March-Judd 43 + 1:15.768 14 4 4 1 Nelson Piquet Lotus-Honda 43 + 1:23.628 9 3 5 17 Derek Warwick Arrows-Megatron 43 + 1:25.355 10 2 6 18 Eddie Cheever Arrows-Megatron 42 + 1 lap 11 1 7 5 Martin Brundle Williams-Judd 42 + 1 lap 12 8 36 Alex Caffi Dallara-Ford 42 + 1 lap 15 9 30 Philippe Alliot Lola-Ford 42 + 1 lap 16 10 14 Philippe Streiff AGS-Ford 42 + 1 lap 18 11 26 Stefan Johansson Ligier-Judd 39 Engine 20 12 3 Jonathan Palmer Tyrrell-Ford 39 Throttle 21 13 10 Bernd Schneider Zakspeed 38 Gearbox 25 20 Thierry Boutsen Benetton-Ford 43 Irregular fuel 6 19 Alessandro Nannini Benetton-Ford 43 Irregular fuel 7 31 Gabriele Tarquini Coloni-Ford 36 +7 Laps 22 27 Michele Alboreto Ferrari 35 Engine 4 6 Riccardo Patrese Williams-Judd 30 Engine 5 15 Maurício Gugelmin March-Judd 29 Spun off 13 9 Piercarlo Ghinzani Zakspeed 25 Oil leak 24 2 Satoru Nakajima Lotus-Honda 22 Engine 8 21 Nicola Larini Osella 14 Fuel system 26 28 Gerhard Berger Ferrari 11 Injection 3 29 Yannick Dalmas Lola-Ford 9 Engine 23 22 Andrea de Cesaris Rial-Ford 2 Collision 19 25 René Arnoux Ligier-Judd 2 Collision 17 24 Luis Pérez-Sala Minardi-Ford 23 Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Ford 33 Stefano Modena EuroBrun-Ford 4 Julian Bailey Tyrrell-Ford 32 Oscar Larrauri EuroBrun-Ford
Championship standings after the race Bold text indicates World Champions.
Drivers' Championship standings PosDriverPoints 1 Ayrton Senna 75 2 Alain Prost 72 3 Gerhard Berger 28 4 Thierry Boutsen 20 5 Michele Alboreto 16Source:
Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 McLaren-Honda147 2 Ferrari44 3 Benetton-Ford29 4 Lotus-Honda17 5 March-Judd11Source:
Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. Points accurate at final declaration of results. The Benettons were disqualified from this race, and their points reallocated, after the end of the season.
References