1988 San Marino Grand Prix
| Race details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 2 of 16 in the 1988 Formula One season | |||
 |
|||
| Date | 1 May 1988 | ||
| Official name | VIII Gran Premio di San Marino | ||
| Location | Autodromo Dino Ferrari, Imola, Emilia-Romagna, Italy | ||
| Course | Permanent racing facility | ||
| Course length | 5.040 km (3.131 mi) | ||
| Distance | 60 laps, 302.4 km (187.986 mi) | ||
| Weather | Sunny, warm | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | McLaren-Honda | ||
| Time | 1:27.148 | ||
| Fastest lap | |||
| Driver |
 Alain Prost
|
McLaren-Honda | |
| Time | 1:29.685 on lap 53 | ||
| Podium | |||
| First | McLaren-Honda | ||
| Second | McLaren-Honda | ||
| Third | Lotus-Honda | ||
The 1988 San Marino Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Imola on 1 May 1988. The 60-lap race was the second round of the 1988 Formula One season. Ayrton Senna scored his first victory for the McLaren team, with turbocharged Honda-powered cars sweeping the top three positions.
The McLaren-Hondas totally dominated qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix. Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost occupied the front row of the grid with times of 1:27.148 and 1:27.919 respectively. Their nearest challenger was the Lotus of reigning World Champion Nelson Piquet with a time of 1:30.500. All the more interesting was that Piquet's Lotus was powered by the same specification turbocharged Honda engine that powered the McLarens and he was as fast as them through the speed trap on the run to Tosa, yet he was over 3 seconds slower than Senna. The difference was that the lowline McLaren MP4/4's were untouchable under acceleration and they had superior grip to any other car on the grid.
Amazingly, considering the team's success in its Formula One history dating back to 1966, this was only the third time that there was an all-McLaren front row for a Grand Prix. The other two times had been at the 1972 Canadian Grand Prix (Peter Revson and Denny Hulme) and the 1986 German Grand Prix (Keke Rosberg and Alain Prost).
Not including the last two races of 1987 that he missed through injury, Nigel Mansell missed qualifying on the front row of the grid for the first time since the 1986 Mexican Grand Prix. He qualified his Williams-Judd in 11th place, five places behind team mate Riccardo Patrese in 6th. The fastest atmo car in qualifying was the Benetton-Ford of Alessandro Nannini who ended up 4th on the grid in front of the disappointing Ferrari of Gerhard Berger who, along with team mate Michele Alboreto (who qualified 10th, almost 4.5 seconds slower than Senna), found the turbocharged Italian V6 engines down on power throughout.
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