1989 Monaco Grand Prix

Background

The event, officially called the Grand Prix de Monaco, was the third round of the 1989 Formula One World Championship and was held at the Circuit de Monaco in Monte Carlo, Monaco. Free and qualifying practice sessions were held on Thursday 4 May and Saturday 6 May, with a morning warm-up session and the main Grand Prix race held on Sunday 7 May 1989. Thirty-nine cars were entered by twenty list of Formula One constructors, although Scuderia Ferrari withdrew one of their entries as Gerhard Berger had been injured during the previous race. Ferrari made changes to Nigel Mansell's cars to try and avoid a repeat of the failure that had caused Berger's prior crash, but were unable to complete certain planned upgrades in time for this event as they had to replace the car destroyed in Imola. Automobiles Gonfaronnaises Sportives (AGS), Arrows, Brabham, EuroBrun, Ligier, Larrousse, Team Lotus, McLaren, Onyx Grand Prix, Williams, and Zakspeed all brought updates or modifications to their cars for this race. March Engineering debuted Adrian Newey's CG891 at this event. Thirteen teams used Goodyear tyres whilst the other seven teams used Pirelli tyres.

Qualifying

Pre-qualifying report

The field was one fewer in Monaco as Ferrari had elected not to run a second car to replace Berger, who had been injured in an accident during the last race at Imola (the Austrian was present in the pits at Monaco, but even with the Ferrari 640's revolutionary semi-automatic gearbox meaning he did not have to take his hands off the steering wheel, the burns on his hands were not sufficiently recovered to be able to take on the Circuit de Monaco). However, unlike the similar situation at the first race in Brazil, no extra pre-qualifier would be allowed through to the main qualifying sessions, and due to the much tighter confines of both the circuit and the pits, Monaco would only run with 29 cars.

Brabham again topped the time sheets during the Thursday morning pre-qualifying session, with Stefano Modena fastest, but the Dallara of Alex Caffi was only 0.141 seconds behind. Third was Pierre-Henri Raphanel, who put in a fine performance in his Coloni, pre-qualifying for the first, and ultimately, only time. The fourth pre-qualifier was the other Brabham, driven by Martin Brundle, who edged out the Osella of Piercarlo Ghinzani by just two-hundredths of a second.

Joining Ghinzani on the sidelines were Stefan Johansson in the Onyx, then Nicola Larini in the other Osella, followed by Bernd Schneider in the Zakspeed. Ninth was the other Onyx of Bertrand Gachot, ahead of the sole EuroBrun driven by Gregor Foitek. The Rial of Volker Weidler was eleventh, followed by Aguri Suzuki in the other Zakspeed. Slowest on this occasion was Joachim Winkelhock in the AGS.

Pre-qualifying classification

Qualifying report

Tyrrell had a new car that looked sleek and promising, but only Jonathan Palmer hit the track with it on the first day of practice and qualifying. Michele Alboreto's car wasn't finished yet (it would be by Saturday practice and qualifying) and he point blank refused to drive the older car. Ayrton Senna was on pole by a full second over teammate Alain Prost with Thierry Boutsen sharing row two with the surprisingly competitive Brabham of Martin Brundle. Nigel Mansell was fifth followed by Derek Warwick (who's all-out driving in the under-powered Arrows-Ford had found a new fan in the spectating Gerhard Berger), Riccardo Patrese, Stefano Modena, Alex Caffi, and Andrea de Cesaris.

It was at this race that many in the paddock started noticing that the Pirelli qualifying tyres were superior to Goodyear's (the Brabhams and Caffi's Dallara ran on Pirelli rubber).

For the second Monaco in a row, Team Lotus, previous winners in the Principality on 7 different occasions (1960, 1961, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1974 and 1987), would start the Monaco Grand Prix with only one car in the field. As he had done in 1988, Japanese driver Satoru Nakajima failed to qualify. Triple World Champion Nelson Piquet, never at ease on the Monaco streets, qualified 19th, 4.738 seconds behind his reigning World Champion countryman.

Qualifying classification

Race

Race report

The first start was aborted when Patrese stalled his Williams. At the second start, for which Patrese was relegated to the back of the grid, Senna was first into Sainte-Dévote and Prost could do nothing but slot in behind him. The McLarens proceeded to pull away from the field, while behind them Williams were in all sorts of trouble, as both Boutsen and Patrese had to stop for new rear wings. Nigel Mansell went out on lap 20 with more gearbox issues for Ferrari and one of the talking points of the race came on lap 33 when de Cesaris attempted to pass Nelson Piquet at Loews Hairpin. The predictable accident occurred and some choice words were exchanged between the two drivers (while still in their respective cars) and a huge traffic jam was caused. Brundle was looking good in 3rd place in the Brabham, until he had to pit for a new battery and dropped back to seventh (the car's battery was located under the driver's legs forcing Brundle to evacuate the car to allow it to be changed. The problem ultimately cost him a podium finish).

Senna, continued to dominate the race while Prost, including having been slowed by the Piquet-de Cesaris incident (he lost over 20 seconds to Senna in one lap having to wait for clear road to get moving again), could not recover and finished second behind his team mate. He was also held up for many laps trying to lap the Ligier of former Renault team mate René Arnoux who ignored both his mirrors and the blue flags prompting BBC commentator James Hunt to describe Arnoux's explanation of why he was so slow these days compared to his race winning days as "Bullshit" on live television. It was Senna's second win at Monaco and he did it the hard way, his McLaren losing first and second gear later in the race and disguising it to his best so Prost wouldn't react and push for the lead. Modena benefited from Brundle's stop and finished third, scoring his first points in Formula One and Brabham's last podium finish. Alex Caffi, Michele Alboreto, and Brundle, who was promoted to sixth on the final lap as a result of the retirement of Ivan Capelli, completed the point scoring positions. Caffi achieved both his and Dallara's first points while Alboreto scored Tyrrell's first points with their impressive new car.

Race classification

Championship standings after the race

;Drivers' Championship standings

;Constructors' Championship standings

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

References

|Previous_year's_race = 1988 Monaco Grand Prix |Next_year's_race = 1990 Monaco Grand Prix

References

1. "Motor Racing Programme Covers: 1989". The Programme Covers Project.
2. (1989). "Autocourse 1989-90". Hazleton Publishing.
3. Walker, Murray. (1989). "Murray Walker's Grand Prix Year". First Formula Publishing.
4. "1989 Monaco Grand Prix". Formula1.com.
5. "Monaco 1989 - Championship • STATS F1".