1990 British Grand Prix
The 1990 British Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Silverstone on 15 July 1990. It was the eighth race of the 1990 Formula One World Championship. It was the 45th British Grand Prix and the 26th to be held at Silverstone. The race was held over 64 laps of the four kilometre circuit for a race distance of 306 kilometres.
| 1990 British Grand Prix | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 8 of 16 in the 1990 Formula One World Championship | |||
 | |||
| Race details | |||
| Date | 15 July 1990 | ||
| Official name | XLIII Foster's British Grand Prix | ||
| Location |
Silverstone Circuit Silverstone, England | ||
| Course | Permanent racing facility | ||
| Course length | 4.778 km (2.969 mi) | ||
| Distance | 64 laps, 305.904 km (190.080 mi) | ||
| Weather | Hot, dry, sunny | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | Ferrari | ||
| Time | 1:07.428 | ||
| Fastest lap | |||
| Driver |
 | Ferrari | |
| Time | 1:11.291 on lap 51 | ||
| Podium | |||
| First | Ferrari | ||
| Second | Williams-Renault | ||
| Third | McLaren-Honda | ||
|
Lap leaders
| |||
French reigning World Champion Alain Prost won his third race in succession in his Ferrari 641 taking a 40-second win over Belgian driver Thierry Boutsen driving a Williams FW13B. It was Boutsen's best result for the year to date. Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna was third driving a McLaren MP4/5B.
Prost's win put him into the lead of the championship for the first time in 1990, giving him a two-point lead.
Qualifying
Pre-qualifying report
In Friday morning pre-qualifying, the Larrousse-Lolas were again first and second, their fifth 1–2 of the season, with Éric Bernard nearly a second faster than team-mate Aguri Suzuki. As at the previous Grand Prix in France, third fastest was Gabriele Tarquini in the AGS. This time, the fourth pre-qualifying spot went to Olivier Grouillard in the sole Osella.
These four were quite comfortably faster than the other runners, the fastest of which was Robert Moreno in a revised EuroBrun in fifth place. Sixth was Yannick Dalmas in the other AGS, his sixth failure to pre-qualify so far this season. Claudio Langes was seventh in the other, unrevised EuroBrun, with Bertrand Gachot a distant eighth in the Coloni after its engine destroyed itself yet again.[1] Subaru ended their involvement with the Coloni team after this Grand Prix, with eight consecutive failures to pre-qualify, and the team were to source new engines for the next race in Germany.[2] The Life team had no pit garage in which to prepare their car, and worked on the grass near the pits.[1] Their car, still driven by Bruno Giacomelli, suffered an electrical failure after five laps, and was bottom of the time sheets again. Team manager Sergio Barbasio announced that they would stick with the hopeless in-house W12 engine, citing a lack of time to prepare the chassis for the Judd CV engines purchased from Lotus. However, Italian sources claimed that Life had simply been unable to complete the purchase due to lack of funds.[1]
Pre-qualifying classification
| Pos | No | Driver | Constructor | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 29 |  |
Lola-Lamborghini | 1:10.254 | — |
| 2 | 30 | .svg.png){kind=small} |
Lola-Lamborghini | 1:11.128 | +0.874 |
| 3 | 17 |  |
AGS-Ford | 1:11.516 | +1.262 |
| 4 | 14 | |
Osella-Ford | 1:11.953 | +1.699 |
| 5 | 33 | .svg.png){kind=small} |
EuroBrun-Judd | 1:12.554 | +2.300 |
| 6 | 18 | |
AGS-Ford | 1:12.653 | +2.399 |
| 7 | 34 | |
EuroBrun-Judd | 1:15.059 | +4.805 |
| 8 | 31 | .svg.png){kind=small} |
Coloni-Subaru | 1:19.230 | +8.976 |
| 9 | 39 | |
Life | 1:25.947 | +15.693 |
Qualifying report
Qualifying classification
| Pos | No | Driver | Constructor | Q1 | Q2 | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | |
Ferrari | 1:08.336 | 1:07.428 | — |
| 2 | 27 | |
McLaren-Honda | 1:08.071 | 1:09.055 | +0.643 |
| 3 | 28 |  |
McLaren-Honda | 1:08.246 | 1:08.674 | +0.818 |
| 4 | 5 | |
Williams-Renault | 1:09.102 | 1:08.291 | +0.863 |
| 5 | 1 | |
Ferrari | 1:09.110 | 1:08.336 | +0.908 |
| 6 | 4 | |
Tyrrell-Ford | 1:09.147 | 1:08.370 | +0.942 |
| 7 | 6 | |
Williams-Renault | 1:08.677 | 1:08.864 | +1.249 |
| 8 | 29 | |
Lola-Lamborghini | 1:09.560 | 1:09.003 | +1.575 |
| 9 | 30 | |
Lola-Lamborghini | 1:09.243 | 1:09.865 | +1.815 |
| 10 | 16 | |
Leyton House-Judd | 1:10.691 | 1:09.308 | +1.880 |
| 11 | 20 | |
Benetton-Ford | 1:09.684 | 1:09.407 | +1.979 |
| 12 | 3 | |
Tyrrell-Ford | 1:09.937 | 1:09.608 | +2.180 |
| 13 | 19 | |
Benetton-Ford | 1:09.782 | 1:09.641 | +2.213 |
| 14 | 12 | |
Lotus-Lamborghini | 1:10.786 | 1:09.741 | +2.313 |
| 15 | 15 | |
Leyton House-Judd | 1:11.167 | 1:10.044 | +2.616 |
| 16 | 11 | |
Lotus-Lamborghini | 1:10.552 | 1:10.092 | +2.664 |
| 17 | 10 | |
Arrows-Ford | 1:10.480 | 1:10:110 | +2.682 |
| 18 | 23 | |
Minardi-Ford | 1:10.568 | 1:10.303 | +2.875 |
| 19 | 21 | |
Dallara-Ford | 1:11.413 | 1:10.847 | +3.419 |
| 20 | 8 | |
Brabham-Judd | 1:11.070 | 1:11.600 | +3.642 |
| 21 | 25 | |
Ligier-Ford | 1:11.942 | 1:11.180 | +3.752 |
| 22 | 26 | |
Ligier-Ford | 1:12.483 | 1:11.215 | +3.787 |
| 23 | 22 | |
Dallara-Ford | 1:11.705 | 1:11.234 | +3.806 |
| 24 | 24 | |
Minardi-Ford | 1:11.498 | 1:11.387 | +3.959 |
| 25 | 9 | |
Arrows-Ford | 1:11.562 | 1:12.644 | +4.134 |
| 26 | 17 | |
AGS-Ford | 1:12.506 | 1:11.681 | +4.253 |
| 27 | 14 | |
Osella-Ford | 1:12.179 | 1:11.710 | +4.282 |
| 28 | 7 | .svg.png){kind=small} |
Brabham-Judd | 1:11.741 | 1:13.016 | +4.313 |
| 29 | 36 |  |
Onyx-Ford | 1:12.712 | 1:12.631 | +5.203 |
| 30 | 35 |  |
Onyx-Ford | 1:13.413 | 1:13.271 | +5.843 |
Race
Race report
Local hero Nigel Mansell led until his gearbox began to malfunction. He was overtaken (against team orders, and to Mansell's chagrin) by Alain Prost and remained in second until his gearbox failed completely on lap 57. After retiring from the race Mansell famously threw his gloves into the crowd and announced he would retire from Formula One at the end of the season, a decision he later reversed.
Riccardo Patrese became the first driver ever to start 200 Grands Prix. On race day, he retired after damage was sustained in a collision with the Benetton of Alessandro Nannini on lap 27, whilst his team-mate Thierry Boutsen reached the podium and finished second.
Éric Bernard and Aguri Suzuki both scored the best results of their career up to this point. For Suzuki, it was the first points scoring finish of his career.
Ivan Capelli was the charger in the race. Starting 10th he spun early to avoid the collision between Patrese and Alessandro Nannini. Then racing with a broken exhaust header he charged hard, eventually passing Gerhard Berger for 3rd and for a time being the fastest driver on the track before retiring on lap 48 with a fuel leak.
Ligier needed at least a top eight finish to avoid pre-qualification, but Nicola Larini could not do better than 10th place, while teammate Philippe Alliot only managed to finish 13th.
This would be the last motor race on the original high-speed Silverstone circuit; the day after the race, a construction crew funded by Tom Walkinshaw immediately began work on reprofiling and incorporating the newly designed corners.
Race classification
Championship standings after the race
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
- Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.
References
- "Motoring News". 18 July 1990.
- Walker, Murray (1990). Murray Walker's Grand Prix Year. Hazleton Publishing. p. 71–78. ISBN 0 905138 82 1.
- "1990 British Grand Prix". formula1.com. Archived from the original on 21 December 2014. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
- "Britain 1990 - Championship • STATS F1". www.statsf1.com. Retrieved 13 March 2019.
| Previous race: 1990 French Grand Prix |
FIA Formula One World Championship 1990 season |
Next race: 1990 German Grand Prix |
| Previous race: 1989 British Grand Prix |
British Grand Prix | Next race: 1991 British Grand Prix |