The 1991 Mexican Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Mexico City, on 16 June 1991. It was the sixth race of the 1991 Formula One World Championship.
The 67-lap race was won by Italian Riccardo Patrese, driving a Williams-Renault, after he started from pole position. Patrese's teammate, Briton Nigel Mansell, finished second, with Brazilian Ayrton Senna third in a McLaren-Honda.
, it was the most recent Formula One race to feature a car powered by a Porsche engine.
Pre-race In the run-up to the race, Tyrrell had lost talented designer Harvey Postlethwaite to the Mercedes-Benz sportscar team, while Ayrton Senna had been injured in a jet-ski incident. During Friday qualifying, Senna suffered a big accident at the high-speed Peraltada bend, in which his McLaren rolled and landed upside-down, but he emerged unscathed.
Qualifying Pre-qualifying report In the Friday morning pre-qualifying session, JJ Lehto was fastest for Scuderia Italia for the third time this season. His Dallara was over half a second faster than the second-placed runner, Fondmetal's Olivier Grouillard. It was the first time this season that Grouillard had pre-qualified and progressed to the main qualifying sessions. Initially, the third fastest driver was Nicola Larini in the Modena Lambo, but he was later excluded when his rear wing was found to be too high. This promoted the two Jordans one position each, with Andrea de Cesaris taking third, a second faster than Bertrand Gachot in fourth.
Missing out in fifth place was Eric van de Poele in the other Lambo, just 0.056 of a second behind Gachot. Over six seconds behind van de Poele was Pedro Chaves in the Coloni, with the team suffering from financial problems. Emanuele Pirro was seventh in the other Dallara, having not posted a representative lap time.
Pre-qualifying classification Pos No Driver Constructor Time Gap 1 22 JJ Lehto Dallara-Judd 1:28.381 — 2 14 Olivier Grouillard Fondmetal-Ford 1:28.959 +0.578 3 33 Andrea de Cesaris Jordan-Ford 1:29.545 +1.164 4 32 Bertrand Gachot Jordan-Ford 1:30.599 +2.218 5 35 Eric van de Poele Lambo-Lamborghini 1:30.655 +2.274 6 31 Pedro Chaves Coloni-Ford 1:37.144 +8.763 7 21 Emanuele Pirro Dallara-Judd 1:40.164 +11.783 34 Nicola Larini Lambo-Lamborghini —
Qualifying report For the second race in succession, the Williams team filled the front row with Riccardo Patrese ahead of Nigel Mansell. Senna recovered from his dramatic accident on the Friday to take third on Saturday, with Jean Alesi fourth for Ferrari. Senna's McLaren teammate Gerhard Berger was fifth ahead of Benetton's Nelson Piquet, the winner of the previous race in Canada. The top ten was completed by Alain Prost in the second Ferrari, Stefano Modena in the Tyrrell, Roberto Moreno in the second Benetton and, remarkably, Olivier Grouillard in the Fondmetal. The latter seven drivers were separated by little more than 0.3 of a second.
Qualifying classification Pos No Driver Constructor Q1 Q2 Gap16 Riccardo PatreseWilliams-Renault1:16.6961:17.19225 Nigel MansellWilliams-Renault1:16.9781:18.346 +0.28231 Ayrton SennaMcLaren-Honda1:17.2641:18.711 +0.568428 Jean AlesiFerrari1:18.1291:19.581 +1.43352 Gerhard BergerMcLaren-Honda1:18.1561:18.980 +1.460620 Nelson PiquetBenetton-Ford1:18.1681:19.117 +1.472727 Alain ProstFerrari1:18.1831:20.778 +1.48784 Stefano ModenaTyrrell-Honda1:18.9111:18.216 +1.520919 Roberto MorenoBenetton-Ford1:18.5891:18.375 +1.6791014 Olivier GrouillardFondmetal-Ford1:18.4531:29.560 +1.7571133 Andrea de CesarisJordan-Ford1:20.0531:18.935 +2.239128 Mark BlundellBrabham-Yamaha1:19.06449:28.503 +2.368133 Satoru NakajimaTyrrell-Honda1:19.9711:19.092 +2.3961425 Thierry BoutsenLigier-Lamborghini1:20.9781:19.201 +2.5051523 Pierluigi MartiniMinardi-Ferrari1:19.2151:19.878 +2.5191622 JJ LehtoDallara-Judd1:19.2911:20.029 +2.595177 Martin BrundleBrabham-Yamaha1:20.3781:19.647 +2.9511829 Éric BernardLola-Ford1:20.4421:19.785 +3.0891930 Aguri SuzukiLola-Ford1:21.7371:20.049 +3.3532032 Bertrand GachotJordan-Ford1:20.0501:20.551 +3.3542115 Maurício GugelminLeyton House-Ilmor1:20.2001:20.535 +3.5042216 Ivan CapelliLeyton House-Ilmor1:20.2521:21.053 +3.5562324 Gianni MorbidelliMinardi-Ferrari1:21.2571:20.322 +3.6262411 Mika HäkkinenLotus-Judd1:20.8231:22.072 +4.1272512 Johnny HerbertLotus-Judd1:20.8301:22.964 +4.134269 Michele AlboretoFootwork-Porsche 1:21.4291:21.178 +4.4822726 Érik ComasLigier-Lamborghini1:21.7371:21.225 +4.5292817 Gabriele TarquiniAGS-Ford1:22.2581:22.398 +5.5622910 Stefan JohanssonFootwork-Porsche1:22.9381:22.598 +5.902 3018 Fabrizio BarbazzaAGS-Ford1:22.8991:23.920 +6.203
Race Race report
The actual race needed three attempts to get underway: the first start was aborted when a fire marshal thought he saw a fire in the back of JJ Lehto's Dallara and jumped onto the track, while Grouillard stalled at the second start and was relegated to the back of the grid.
At the third start, Patrese made a poor getaway and dropped to fourth behind Mansell, Alesi and Senna. Senna quickly overtook Alesi, while further back, Piquet and Prost dropped behind Modena and Prost also dropped behind the fast-starting Jordan of Andrea de Cesaris. Berger, meanwhile, suffered his third consecutive early retirement when his engine exploded on lap 5, the resulting oil causing Pierluigi Martini to spin off in his Minardi. Patrese started his recovery by overtaking Alesi and then out-braking Senna into turn 1, putting him into second behind Mansell.
On lap 15, Patrese passed his team-mate, who was having engine overheating concerns, for the lead. Mansell fell back towards Senna, Piquet, de Cesaris, Moreno and Alesi (who had spun), but eventually the concerns faded and the Englishman pulled away again. Alesi passed Moreno and de Cesaris for fifth, only for his clutch to fail on lap 43, team-mate Prost having dropped out on lap 17 with an alternator failure. Piquet's race ended on lap 45 with a broken wheel bearing, and when Moreno had a pit stop go wrong, Bertrand Gachot found himself fifth in the second Jordan, before spinning off.
Patrese eventually finished 1.3 seconds ahead of Mansell, with Senna almost a minute further back. De Cesaris held on to fourth after his throttle failed on the last lap and he pushed his car over the line, the stewards deciding that he had not broken the rules by starting to push after the race had ended. Moreno recovered from his botched pit stop to take fifth, while Larrousse's Éric Bernard finished sixth, the last point scored by a chassis manufactured by Lola Cars.
Race classification Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 6 Riccardo Patrese Williams-Renault 67 1:29:52.205 1 10 2 5 Nigel Mansell Williams-Renault 67 + 1.336 2 6 3 1 Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda 67 + 57.356 3 4 4 33 Andrea de Cesaris Jordan-Ford 66 + 1 lap 11 3 5 19 Roberto Moreno Benetton-Ford 66 + 1 lap 9 2 6 29 Éric Bernard Lola-Ford 66 + 1 lap 18 1 7 24 Gianni Morbidelli Minardi-Ferrari 66 + 1 lap 23 8 25 Thierry Boutsen Ligier-Lamborghini 65 + 2 laps 14 9 11 Mika Häkkinen Lotus-Judd 65 + 2 laps 24 10 12 Johnny Herbert Lotus-Judd 65 + 2 laps 25 11 4 Stefano Modena Tyrrell-Honda 65 + 2 laps 8 12 3 Satoru Nakajima Tyrrell-Honda 64 + 3 laps 13 8 Mark Blundell Brabham-Yamaha 54 Engine 12 32 Bertrand Gachot Jordan-Ford 51 Spun off 20 30 Aguri Suzuki Lola-Ford 48 Gearbox 19 20 Nelson Piquet Benetton-Ford 44 Wheel bearing 6 28 Jean Alesi Ferrari 42 Clutch 4 22 JJ Lehto Dallara-Judd 30 Engine 16 9 Michele Alboreto Footwork-Porsche 24 Engine 26 7 Martin Brundle Brabham-Yamaha 20 Wheel 17 16 Ivan Capelli Leyton House-Ilmor 19 Engine 22 27 Alain Prost Ferrari 16 Alternator 7 15 Maurício Gugelmin Leyton House-Ilmor 15 Engine 21 14 Olivier Grouillard Fondmetal-Ford 13 Engine 10 2 Gerhard Berger McLaren-Honda 5 Engine 5 23 Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Ferrari 4 Spun off 15 26 Érik Comas Ligier-Lamborghini 17 Gabriele Tarquini AGS-Ford 10 Stefan Johansson Footwork-Porsche 18 Fabrizio Barbazza AGS-Ford 35 Eric van de Poele Lambo-Lamborghini 31 Pedro Chaves Coloni-Ford 21 Emanuele Pirro Dallara-Judd 34 Nicola Larini Lambo-Lamborghini Rear wing infringement
Championship standings after the race
Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Ayrton Senna 44 2 2 Riccardo Patrese 20 1 3 Nelson Piquet 16 3 4 Nigel Mansell 13 2 5 Alain Prost 11Source:
Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 McLaren-Honda 54 1 2 Williams-Renault 33 1 3 Benetton-Ford 21 4 Ferrari 16 5 Tyrrell-Honda 11Source:
References