The 1990 Belgian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Spa-Francorchamps on 26 August 1990. It was the eleventh race of the 1990 Formula One World Championship. The race was the 48th Belgian Grand Prix. It was the 36th to be held at Spa-Francorchamps and the seventh since the circuit was extensively redeveloped in 1979. The race was held over 44 laps of the seven kilometre circuit for a race distance of 301 kilometres.
Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna claimed his fifth race victory for the season in his McLaren MP4/5B taking a four-second win over the Ferrari 641 driven the reigning world champion, Frenchman Alain Prost. It was Senna's fourth victory in the Belgian Grand Prix, and his third in succession. Senna's Austrian teammate Gerhard Berger finished third, while further back Maurício Gugelmin scored a point for the Leyton House team.
Three attempts were made to start the race, the first two being red-flagged after collisions. Aguri Suzuki's Lola LC90 was eliminated after the first start, Paolo Barilla's Minardi M190 after the second.
Off-track, Nigel Mansell was rumoured to be reconsidering his prior announcement to retire, and he was strongly linked with Williams. He had demanded undisputed number one status as a driver, and various assurances from engine supplier Renault, which Frank Williams had told him were impossible.
The Onyx team pulled out of Formula One before the weekend of the race, for financial reasons, having competed at this level for a season and a half.
Qualifying Pre-qualifying report With the withdrawal of the Onyx team, Ligier were relieved of the requirement to pre-qualify, and returned to the main qualifying pool. They had only been required to pre-qualify twice, which both cars did comfortably on both occasions.
Therefore, there was slightly less pressure on the other entrants in the pre-qualifying session. Olivier Grouillard was fastest in the Osella, the second time he had been top of the Friday morning time sheets, and the first time since round six in Mexico. Second fastest was Yannick Dalmas in the AGS, his fifth successful pre-qualification of the season from eleven attempts. Third fastest was Bertrand Gachot in the improving Coloni, and this was the first time in 1990 that he had pre-qualified. Fourth was Gabriele Tarquini in the other AGS, his fourth pre-qualification this season.
Missing the cut in fifth and sixth positions were the EuroBruns of Roberto Moreno and Claudio Langes. The margin of failure was fairly narrow however, with Moreno 0.36 seconds behind Tarquini, and Langes just over a second further behind. Bruno Giacomelli was slowest again in the Life, with the L190 refusing to start until the closing stages of the session. The car managed five slow laps before an electrical failure. "Nothing impressive," Giacomelli stated. He also announced that work was restarting on the chassis to allow a Judd CV V8 engine to be fitted by round 13 in Portugal, in place of the disastrous in-house W12.
Pre-qualifying classification Pos No Driver Constructor Time Gap 1 14 Olivier Grouillard Osella-Ford 1:57.941 — 2 18 Yannick Dalmas AGS-Ford 1:58.339 +0.398 3 31 Bertrand Gachot Coloni-Ford 1:59.130 +1.189 4 17 Gabriele Tarquini AGS-Ford 1:59.910 +1.969 5 33 Roberto Moreno EuroBrun-Judd 2:00.270 +2.329 6 34 Claudio Langes EuroBrun-Judd 2:01.405 +3.464 7 39 Bruno Giacomelli Life 2:19.445 +21.504
Qualifying report The two McLarens were on the front row, with Senna ahead of Berger. Prost in the Ferrari was third ahead of Boutsen and the second Ferrari of Mansell.
Qualifying classification Pos No Driver Constructor Q1 Q2 Gap 1 27 Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda 1:52.278 1:50.365 — 2 28 Gerhard Berger McLaren-Honda 1:51.211 1:50.948 +0.583 3 1 Alain Prost Ferrari 1:51.841 1:51.043 +0.678 4 5 Thierry Boutsen Williams-Renault 1:54.024 1:51.902 +1.537 5 2 Nigel Mansell Ferrari 1:52.601 1:52.267 +1.902 6 19 Alessandro Nannini Benetton-Ford 1:55.800 1:52.648 +2.283 7 6 Riccardo Patrese Williams-Renault 1:54.260 1:52.703 +2.338 8 20 Nelson Piquet Benetton-Ford 1:53.689 1:52.853 +2.488 9 4 Jean Alesi Tyrrell-Ford 1:54.116 1:52.885 +2.520 10 3 Satoru Nakajima Tyrrell-Ford 1:55.798 1:53.468 +3.103 11 30 Aguri Suzuki Lola-Lamborghini 1:55.294 1:53.523 +3.158 12 16 Ivan Capelli Leyton House-Judd 1:55.012 1:53.783 +3.418 13 8 Stefano Modena Brabham-Judd 1:57.014 1:53.916 +3.551 14 15 Maurício Gugelmin Leyton House-Judd 1:54.497 1:54.120 +3.755 15 29 Éric Bernard Lola-Lamborghini 1:56.213 1:54.251 +3.886 16 23 Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Ford 1:56.074 1:54.312 +3.947 17 21 Emanuele Pirro Dallara-Ford 1:56.239 1:54.595 +4.230 18 11 Derek Warwick Lotus-Lamborghini 1:56.246 1:55.068 +4.703 19 10 Alex Caffi Arrows-Ford 1:56.562 1:55.199 +4.834 20 22 Andrea de Cesaris Dallara-Ford 1:56.923 1:55.261 +4.896 21 25 Nicola Larini Ligier-Ford 1:57.471 1:55.278 +4.913 22 12 Martin Donnelly Lotus-Lamborghini 1:56.666 1:55.304 +4.939 23 14 Olivier Grouillard Osella-Ford 1:57.770 1:55.334 +4.969 24 7 David Brabham Brabham-Judd 1:58.034 1:55.668 +5.303 25 24 Paolo Barilla Minardi-Ford 1:57.221 1:55.859 +5.494 26 9 Michele Alboreto Arrows-Ford 1:57.255 1:56.055 +5.690 27 26 Philippe Alliot Ligier-Ford no time 1:56.118 +5.753 28 17 Gabriele Tarquini AGS-Ford 1:58.293 1:57.566 +7.201 29 18 Yannick Dalmas AGS-Ford 1:58.995 1:57.704 +7.339 30 31 Bertrand Gachot Coloni-Ford no time 1:58.520 +8.155
Race Race report The first start had seen two incidents. The first of them saw Nelson Piquet in the Benetton push the Ferrari 641 of Nigel Mansell off the track. In the second of the incidents, the Tyrrell of Satoru Nakajima collided with the Brabham of Stefano Modena, which caused the race to be stopped.
The second start had seen Senna's McLaren take the lead with the Williams of Thierry Boutsen slicing his way into second place from fourth, whilst rival Alain Prost had dropped down to fifth place after starting third. However, there was another first lap accident when the Minardi of Paolo Barilla crashed heavily at Eau Rouge, leaving debris all over the track in that area and causing the race to be stopped again.
The third start, however, had proven to be cleaner, as Senna held on to the lead ahead of teammate Gerhard Berger, Prost, Boutsen, Patrese and Alessandro Nannini in the leading Benetton. Mansell in the second Ferrari went into the pits on lap 11 with handling problems. He was able to rejoin the race but retired eight laps later. Meanwhile, back up front, Prost took second ahead of Berger but then pitted for tyres. The margin between Senna and Prost was only two seconds when they made their second pit stops for fresh tyres. Both the Williams cars of Patrese and Boutsen were soon forced to retire with gearbox problems by lap 22. The pit stops of Senna and Prost had allowed Nannini (who was once again planning to go the full race distance without a pit stop) to take second place. Prost was able to overtake Nannini and Berger attempted to do the same thing but was unable to pass until lap 41 when Nannini ran wide at La Source, which allowed Berger to take third place from the Italian. Ayrton Senna took his fifth win of the season by 3.5 seconds over Prost, whilst the rest of the top six were rounded out by teammate Berger, Nannini, Piquet in the second Benetton and Mauricio Gugelmin in the Leyton House.
Race classification Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 27 Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda 44 1:26:31.997 1 9 2 1 Alain Prost Ferrari 44 + 3.550 3 6 3 28 Gerhard Berger McLaren-Honda 44 + 28.462 2 4 4 19 Alessandro Nannini Benetton-Ford 44 + 49.337 6 3 5 20 Nelson Piquet Benetton-Ford 44 + 1:29.650 8 2 6 15 Maurício Gugelmin Leyton House-Judd 44 + 1:48.851 14 1 7 16 Ivan Capelli Leyton House-Judd 43 + 1 lap 12 8 4 Jean Alesi Tyrrell-Ford 43 + 1 lap 9 9 29 Éric Bernard Lola-Lamborghini 43 + 1 lap 15 10 10 Alex Caffi Arrows-Ford 43 + 1 lap 19 11 11 Derek Warwick Lotus-Lamborghini 43 + 1 lap 18 12 12 Martin Donnelly Lotus-Lamborghini 43 + 1 lap 22 13 9 Michele Alboreto Arrows-Ford 43 + 1 lap 26 14 25 Nicola Larini Ligier-Ford 42 + 2 laps 21 15 23 Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Ford 42 + 2 laps 16 16 14 Olivier Grouillard Osella-Ford 42 + 2 laps 23 17 8 Stefano Modena Brabham-Judd 39 Engine 13 7 David Brabham Brabham-Judd 36 Electrical 24 22 Andrea de Cesaris Dallara-Ford 27 Engine 20 5 Thierry Boutsen Williams-Renault 21 Transmission 4 2 Nigel Mansell Ferrari 19 Handling 5 6 Riccardo Patrese Williams-Renault 18 Gearbox 7 21 Emanuele Pirro Dallara-Ford 5 Water leak 17 3 Satoru Nakajima Tyrrell-Ford 4 Engine 10 30 Aguri Suzuki Lola-Lamborghini 0 Accident 11 24 Paolo Barilla Minardi-Ford 0 Accident 25 26 Philippe Alliot Ligier-Ford 17 Gabriele Tarquini AGS-Ford 18 Yannick Dalmas AGS-Ford 31 Bertrand Gachot Coloni-Ford 33 Roberto Moreno EuroBrun-Judd 34 Claudio Langes EuroBrun-Judd 39 Bruno Giacomelli Life
Championship standings after the race
Drivers' Championship standings PosDriverPoints 1 Ayrton Senna 63 2 Alain Prost 50 3 Gerhard Berger 33 4 Thierry Boutsen 27 5 Nelson Piquet 24Source:
Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 McLaren-Honda96 2 Ferrari63 3 Williams-Renault42 4 Benetton-Ford40 5 Tyrrell-Ford14Source:
Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.
References