The 1989 French Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Paul Ricard on 9 July 1989. It was the seventh race of the 1989 Formula One World Championship.
The 80-lap race was won from pole position by local driver Alain Prost, driving a McLaren-Honda, with Englishman Nigel Mansell second in a Ferrari and Italian Riccardo Patrese third in a Williams-Renault.
Background The event, officially called the Rhône-Poulenc Grand Prix de France, was held at the Circuit Paul Ricard in Le Castellet, Var, near the French city of Marseille. Free and qualifying practice sessions were held on Friday 7 July and Saturday 8 July, while a morning warmup session and the main Grand Prix race were held on Sunday 9 July 1989.
In a press conference before the race, Alain Prost announced that he would be leaving McLaren at the end of the season, with the speculation being that he would join Scuderia Ferrari in .
Four drivers would make their F1 debuts at this race. Frenchman Jean Alesi, then contesting the Formula 3000 Championship, replaced Michele Alboreto at Tyrrell when the team took on Camel as its major sponsor, clashing with Alboreto's Marlboro sponsorship. Another Frenchman, Éric Bernard, replaced Yannick Dalmas at Larrousse, Dalmas still suffering the effects of Legionnaires' disease. Lotus test driver Martin Donnelly took the place of Derek Warwick at Arrows for this race after Warwick injured his back in a karting accident.
Finally, McLaren test driver Emanuele Pirro replaced Johnny Herbert at Benetton after it was decided that Herbert needed more time to recover from the leg and ankle injuries he had sustained in the Formula 3000 race at Brands Hatch in 1988. Benetton debuted their B189 car, with the new Ford HB engine, at Paul Ricard, Alessandro Nannini driving this car while Pirro drove the older, DFR-powered B188.
Qualifying Pre-qualifying report For the first time, both Onyx cars made it into the main qualifying sessions, as Bertrand Gachot and Stefan Johansson came first and second in pre-qualifying. It was Gachot's first pre-qualifying success in seven attempts. Alex Caffi in the Dallara was a few hundredths of a second back in third, and Stefano Modena in the Brabham was the fourth and last prequalifier, marginally faster than the Osella of Nicola Larini.
The other entrants who failed to pre-qualify on the Friday morning were Modena's Brabham team-mate Martin Brundle in sixth, the second time in a row the British driver had failed at this stage. Volker Weidler was seventh in the Rial, his seventh successive failure to pre-qualify. Both Zakspeeds again missed out, Bernd Schneider eighth, and Aguri Suzuki eleventh. Ninth was Piercarlo Ghinzani in the second Osella, the Italian's seventh consecutive pre-qualifying failure, and Pierre-Henri Raphanel was tenth in his Coloni. Gregor Foitek's EuroBrun and Joachim Winkelhock's AGS were bottom of the timesheets. Winkelhock left AGS after this weekend having failed to pre-qualify at any Grand Prix thus far, to be replaced by the recently sacked Larrousse-Lola driver Yannick Dalmas.
Pre-qualifying classification Pos No Driver Constructor Time Gap 1 37 Bertrand Gachot Onyx-Ford 1:09.617 2 36 Stefan Johansson Onyx-Ford 1:09.668 +0.051 3 21 Alex Caffi Dallara-Ford 1:09.726 +0.109 4 8 Stefano Modena Brabham-Judd 1:09.917 +0.300 5 17 Nicola Larini Osella-Ford 1:09.989 +0.372 6 7 Martin Brundle Brabham-Judd 1.10.181 +0.564 7 39 Volker Weidler Rial-Ford 1:11.059 +1.442 8 34 Bernd Schneider Zakspeed-Yamaha 1:11.098 +1.481 9 18 Piercarlo Ghinzani Osella-Ford 1:11.528 +1.911 10 32 Pierre-Henri Raphanel Coloni-Ford 1:11.953 +2.336 11 35 Aguri Suzuki Zakspeed-Yamaha 1:12.031 +2.414 12 33 Gregor Foitek EuroBrun-Judd 1:12.179 +2.562 13 41 Joachim Winkelhock AGS-Ford 1:13.173 +3.556
Qualifying report For the second successive race, Alain Prost narrowly beat McLaren teammate Ayrton Senna to pole position, this time by 0.025 seconds. On the second row were Nigel Mansell in the Ferrari and Nannini in the new Benetton, and on the third row were Thierry Boutsen in the Williams and Gerhard Berger in the second Ferrari. The Larrousse team had also sacked Philippe Alliot prior to the race only to then re-hire him; he responded by qualifying seventh, with the second Williams of Riccardo Patrese alongside him on the fourth row. The top ten was completed by Jonathan Palmer in the Tyrrell and Maurício Gugelmin in the March.
The Onyxes continued their good form from pre-qualifying, with Gachot taking 11th on the grid and Johansson 13th. Debutants Donnelly, Bernard and Alesi were 14th, 15th and 16th respectively, with Pirro 24th in the older Benetton. The other two pre-qualifiers, Modena and Caffi, were 22nd and 26th respectively, Caffi edging out teammate Andrea de Cesaris for the last grid spot.
During the season, the Pirelli qualifying tyres were regularly seen to be faster than their Goodyear counterparts, often allowing the usual lower grid teams to qualify higher up the grid than they might otherwise have been. In France however on the abrasive Paul Ricard surface, this was virtually reversed with Pirelli runners reporting little grip from their usually "demon" qualifiers while the Goodyear runners reported no such issues.
Qualifying classification Pos No Driver Constructor Q1 Q2 Gap 1 2 Alain Prost McLaren-Honda 1:08.285 1:07.203 2 1 Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda 1:07.920 1:07.228 +0.025 3 27 Nigel Mansell Ferrari 1:09.030 1:07.455 +0.252 4 19 Alessandro Nannini Benetton-Ford 1:09.615 1:08.137 +0.934 5 5 Thierry Boutsen Williams-Renault 1:08.299 1:08.211 +1.008 6 28 Gerhard Berger Ferrari 1:09.011 1:08.233 +1.030 7 30 Philippe Alliot Lola-Lamborghini 1:09.478 1:08.561 +1.358 8 6 Riccardo Patrese Williams-Renault 1:09.326 1:08.993 +1.790 9 3 Jonathan Palmer Tyrrell-Ford 1:10.238 1:09.026 +1.823 10 15 Maurício Gugelmin March-Judd 1:10.122 1:09.036 +1.833 11 37 Bertrand Gachot Onyx-Ford 1:10.564 1:09.122 +1.919 12 16 Ivan Capelli March-Judd 1:09.569 1:09.283 +2.080 13 36 Stefan Johansson Onyx-Ford 1:10.600 1:09.299 +2.096 14 9 Martin Donnelly Arrows-Ford 1:11.223 1:09.524 +2.321 15 29 Éric Bernard Lola-Lamborghini 1:25.401 1:09.596 +2.393 16 4 Jean Alesi Tyrrell-Ford 1:09.668 1:09.909 +2.465 17 26 Olivier Grouillard Ligier-Ford 1:10.410 1:09.717 +2.514 18 25 René Arnoux Ligier-Ford 1:10.725 1:10.077 +2.874 19 12 Satoru Nakajima Lotus-Judd 1:12.125 1:10.119 +2.916 20 11 Nelson Piquet Lotus-Judd 1:10.473 1:10.135 +2.932 21 40 Gabriele Tarquini AGS-Ford 1:11.136 1:10.216 +3.013 22 8 Stefano Modena Brabham-Judd 1:10.910 1:10.254 +3.051 23 23 Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Ford 1:10.640 1:10.267 +3.064 24 20 Emanuele Pirro Benetton-Ford 1:11.566 1:10.292 +3.089 25 10 Eddie Cheever Arrows-Ford 1:10.372 — +3.169 26 21 Alex Caffi Dallara-Ford 1:11.409 1:10.468 +3.265 27 22 Andrea de Cesaris Dallara-Ford 1:12.078 1:10.591 +3.388 28 24 Luis Pérez-Sala Minardi-Ford 1:11.539 1:11.079 +3.876 29 38 Christian Danner Rial-Ford 1:12.569 1:11.178 +3.975 30 31 Roberto Moreno Coloni-Ford 1:14.746 1:11.372 +4.169
Race Race report At the first start, Senna led into the first corner from Prost, while behind them, Gugelmin locked his brakes and veered into Boutsen's Williams and Berger's Ferrari. The March launched into the air and flipped upside down, also knocking off Mansell's rear wing. The race was immediately red-flagged, a shaken Gugelmin taking the restart from the pit lane along with Mansell and Donnelly.
At the restart, Senna suffered a differential failure, leaving Prost to lead every lap of the race. Berger ran second in the early stages, ahead of Nannini, Boutsen and Ivan Capelli in the second March, before spinning on lap 12 and eventually retiring with a clutch failure. Boutsen developed gearbox problems while Nannini suffered a suspension failure on lap 41, promoting Capelli to second for three laps before his engine failed. This left Alesi second on his debut, ahead of Patrese and Mansell, before he pitted for tyres. Alliot and Gachot also ran in the top six before Alliot suffered an engine failure and Gachot pitted with a flat battery. On lap 61, Patrese spun under pressure from Mansell, allowing the Englishman through into second.
Prost took the chequered flag 44 seconds ahead of Mansell, with Patrese a further 22 seconds back. Alesi was fourth, seven seconds behind Patrese and the last driver on the lead lap, with Johansson scoring Onyx's first points in fifth and Olivier Grouillard in the Ligier scoring his only point for sixth. Pirro was ninth, Bernard 11th and Donnelly 12th, while Gugelmin recovered from his accident by setting the fastest race lap.
With the win, Prost extended his lead over Senna in the Drivers' Championship to 11 points.
Race classification Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 2 Alain Prost McLaren-Honda 80 1:38:29.411 1 9 2 27 Nigel Mansell Ferrari 80 + 44.017 3 6 3 6 Riccardo Patrese Williams-Renault 80 + 1:06.921 8 4 4 4 Jean Alesi Tyrrell-Ford 80 + 1:13.232 16 3 5 36 Stefan Johansson Onyx-Ford 79 + 1 Lap 13 2 6 26 Olivier Grouillard Ligier-Ford 79 + 1 Lap 17 1 7 10 Eddie Cheever Arrows-Ford 79 + 1 Lap 25 8 11 Nelson Piquet Lotus-Judd 78 + 2 Laps 20 9 20 Emanuele Pirro Benetton-Ford 78 + 2 Laps 24 10 3 Jonathan Palmer Tyrrell-Ford 78 + 2 Laps 9 11 29 Éric Bernard Lola-Lamborghini 77 + 3 Laps 15 12 9 Martin Donnelly Arrows-Ford 77 + 3 Laps 14 13 37 Bertrand Gachot Onyx-Ford 76 Engine 11 15 Maurício Gugelmin March-Judd 71 + 9 Laps 10 8 Stefano Modena Brabham-Judd 67 Engine 22 5 Thierry Boutsen Williams-Renault 50 Gearbox 5 12 Satoru Nakajima Lotus-Judd 49 Engine 19 16 Ivan Capelli March-Judd 43 Engine 12 19 Alessandro Nannini Benetton-Ford 40 Suspension 4 23 Pierluigi Martini Minardi-Ford 31 Engine 23 30 Philippe Alliot Lola-Lamborghini 30 Engine 7 40 Gabriele Tarquini AGS-Ford 30 Engine 21 28 Gerhard Berger Ferrari 29 Clutch 6 21 Alex Caffi Dallara-Ford 27 Clutch 26 25 René Arnoux Ligier-Ford 14 Gearbox 18 1 Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda 0 Differential 2 22 Andrea de Cesaris Dallara-Ford 24 Luis Pérez-Sala Minardi-Ford 38 Christian Danner Rial-Ford 31 Roberto Moreno Coloni-Ford 17 Nicola Larini Osella-Ford 7 Martin Brundle Brabham-Judd 39 Volker Weidler Rial-Ford 34 Bernd Schneider Zakspeed-Yamaha 18 Piercarlo Ghinzani Osella-Ford 32 Pierre-Henri Raphanel Coloni-Ford 35 Aguri Suzuki Zakspeed-Yamaha 33 Gregor Foitek EuroBrun-Judd 41 Joachim Winkelhock AGS-Ford
Championship standings after the race
Drivers' Championship standings PosDriverPoints 1 Alain Prost 38 2 Ayrton Senna 27 3 Riccardo Patrese 22 4 Nigel Mansell 15 5 Thierry Boutsen 13Source:
Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 McLaren-Honda65 2 Williams-Renault35 3 Ferrari15 4 Benetton-Ford13 5 Tyrrell-Ford10Source:
References