1988 British Grand Prix
| Race details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 8 of 16 in the 1988 Formula One season | |||
 |
|||
| Date | 10 July 1988 | ||
| Official name | XLI Shell Oils British Grand Prix | ||
| Location | Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone, Great Britain | ||
| Course | Permanent racing facility | ||
| Course length | 4.778 km (2.969 mi) | ||
| Distance | 65 laps, 310.570 km (192.979 mi) | ||
| Weather | Wet and cool | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | Ferrari | ||
| Time | 1:10.133 | ||
| Fastest lap | |||
| Driver |
 Nigel Mansell
|
Williams-Judd | |
| Time | 1:23.308 on lap 48 | ||
| Podium | |||
| First | McLaren-Honda | ||
| Second | Williams-Judd | ||
| Third | Benetton-Ford | ||
The 1988 British Grand Prix (formally the XLI Shell Oils British Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held on 10 July 1988 at the Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone. It was the eighth race of the 1988 Formula One season. The 65-lap race was won by McLaren driver Ayrton Senna after he started from third position. Nigel Mansell finished second for the Williams team and Benetton driver Alessandro Nannini came in third.
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Silverstone Circuit, many facilities had been added to the circuit, including a Press Centre complex, an internal ring road, debris fencing, wide screens to show live action as broadcast by the BBC, and a 600-metre long hospitality tent for corporate guests. However, the weekend was overshadowed by the death of the RAC Chief Executive Peter Hammond in a car crash on the way to the track.
After weeks of speculation, Nigel Mansell announced that he would race for Ferrari in the 1989 season, encouraged to go to the Italian team by a series of high speed accidents on Friday as a result of problems with Williams' reactive suspension, as well as a streak of seven consecutive retirements.
Williams were in major trouble during qualifying. With Mansell only 13th in Friday Qualifying and Riccardo Patrese 30th and seemingly set to fail to qualify, some 14 seconds from 26th place, the team's Technical Director Patrick Head made a snap decision to dump the reactive suspension until the end of the season. This they did overnight between the Friday and Saturday sessions of the event after previously telling both drivers that changing to the more conventional suspension was next to impossible without months of work. Head said in an interview on race morning that "It's a bodge frankly. We've put steel mechanical springs and dampers on. We've changed the front struts into dampers, designed some new bits and pieces which we machined up overnight. We did some new pistons for the front struts...it's a bit of a bodge as I said".
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