1989 San Marino Grand Prix

Infobox Grand Prix race report
Type = F1
Grand Prix = San Marino
Country = San Marino
Official name = IX Gran Premio di San Marino
Date = April 23
Year = 1989
Race_No = 2
Season_No = 16
Location = Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari
Imola, Italy
Course_mi = 3.132
Course_km = 5.040
Distance_laps = 58
Distance_mi = 181.638
Distance_km = 292.32
Weather = Warm, dry, sunny
Pole_Driver = Ayrton Senna
Pole_Country = Brazil
Pole_Team = McLaren-Honda
Pole_Time = 1:26.010
Fast_Driver = Alain Prost
Fast_Country = France
Fast_Team = McLaren-Honda
Fast_Time = 1:26.795
Fast_L

First_Driver = Ayrton Senna
First_Country = Brazil
First_Team = McLaren-Honda
Second_Driver = Alain Prost
Second_Team = McLaren-Honda
Second_Country= France
Third_Driver = Alessandro Nannini
Third_Country = Italy
Third_Team = Benetton-FordThe 1989 San Marino Grand Prix was a Formula One race held at Imola on April 23, 1989.

Race Summary

The only change to the entry list for the San Marino Grand Prix was the arrival of Gabriele Tarquini in the second car minnows AGS, who had only run one car in Brazil after Philippe Streiff had suffered career ending injuries in pre-season testing.

At the start Senna got away well but behind him Prost found himself with a mirror full of Nigel Mansell's Ferrari but the Englishman could not find his way around Prost's McLaren. Mansell fell off a little after that and found himself battling with Riccardo Patrese while on the second lap Ivan Capelli had a nasty accident in his March. On lap four a moment of even greater heart-stopping fear took place as fifth placed Gerhard Berger's Ferrari speared off the track at the lightning-quick Tamburello corner due to a mechanical failure. Berger hit the wall at an estimated 180 mph and when his car came to a rest it immediately burst into flames. The marshalls arrived an amazing sixteen seconds after impact and the fire was put out ten seconds later. The race was unsurprisingly red-flagged and Berger was extremely lucky to only escape with broken ribs and second degree burns; it could have been much worse.

The race restarted after half an hour and this time Prost got away much better and got past Senna while behind them Mansell made a poor start and fell behind Patrese and Naninni. On the run-down to Tosa Senna was in no mood to sit behind his teammate and made a daring move to get alongside Prost into Villeneuve and out-braked him into the Tosa Hairpin, disregarding a prior team arrangement where the driver leading into turn one would not be overtaken, adding further to their looming rivalry. The McLarens proceeded to pull away from the competition while behind them there was more drama as Stefano Modena put his Brabham into the wall rather violently, the Italian was unhurt.

As the McLarens pulled away in their own world Mansell, Patrese, and Nannini were busy fighting over third place. It was settled in the space of three laps as Patrese retired with a timing belt failure and Mansell followed shortly thereafter with a gearbox problem. This left Nannini all by his lonesome in third while up front Senna cruised home to victory from Prost, who had time to spin along the way. Nannini led home Boutsen, Warwick in the Arrows, and Dr. Jonathan Palmer in the Tyrrell. After the race Boutsen was disqualified for changing a puncture during the red-flag period but after a protest from the WIlliams team he was later reinstated.

Classification

Pre Qualifying

Notes

*The race was stopped after three laps due to Gerhard Berger's accident and run a further 55 laps on aggregate timing.
*Olivier Grouillard was disqualified because Ligier illegally repaired his car on the grid before the second start. Thierry Boutsen and Alex Caffi were initially disqualified after a protest from Ligier because they had changed tyres in the pitlane before the second start, but were reinstated following an appeal.
*The Alain Prost/Ayrton Senna war began to build up speed, Senna passed Prost despite the Frenchman claiming that McLaren had a pre race agreement not to overtake and that who ever got to turn 1 ahead should stay there.

References

* "Unless otherwise indicated, all race results are taken from cite web |title=The Official Formula 1 website |url=http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1989/232/ |accessdate=2007-08-04

F1 race report
Name_of_race = San Marino Grand Prix
Year_of_race = 1989
Previous_race_in_season = 1989 Brazilian Grand Prix
Next_race_in_season = 1989 Monaco Grand Prix
Previous_year's_race = 1988 San Marino Grand Prix
Next_year's_race = 1990 San Marino Grand Prix