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1987 Brazilian Grand Prix

The 1987 Brazilian Grand Prix was a Formula One race held on April 12, 1987 at the Autódromo Internacional Nelson Piquet, Rio de Janeiro. It was the 1st race of the 1987 Formula One season.

Race summary

Qualifings were dominated by the Honda powered Williams, with Nigel Mansell ahead of Nelson Piquet. Third was Ayrton Senna, with Lotus.
The total number of cars entered for the event was 23, but on race day the March team ran out of engines and there were only 22 entrants. At the start Piquet was fastest, taking the lead from Senna, while Mansell made a bad start; the Benettons of Thierry Boutsen and Teo Fabi outdragged him and Alain Prost. Piquet's lead did not last long: on lap 7, he had to pit with engine overheating caused by litter on the track getting into the radiator sidepods. He rejoined back in 11th position, leaving Senna to lead Mansell (who in the meantime fought back to second) although he too entered in the pits to have his radiators cleared. He rejoined behind Piquet, and the pair began to climb through the field.

Then, Senna pitted because of handling troubles of his Lotus and so Prost went into the lead. When he stopped for fresh tires the lead was briefly passed to Thierry Boutsen, who was performing admirably with his Benetton, before Piquet went back to first before his second stop, on lap 21. Prost then went ahead again and led for the rest of the race, never looking threatened as he preserved his tyres to only require two stops, while his rivals Senna and Piquet had three.

Mansell's race was compromised late in the race by a tyre puncture, who sent him back to seventh place. On lap 51 Senna suffered an engine failure, causing him to retire from the 2nd place he held for much of the race despite problems with the Lotus' active suspensions. Prost won ahead of Piquet, his teammate Stefan Johansson, Gerhard Berger (who battled for the whole race with handling problems of his Ferrari), Boutsen and Mansell, who caught the last point.

Classification

Numbers in brackets refer to positions of normally-aspirated entrants competing for the Jim Clark Trophy.

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	1	Alain Prost	McLaren-TAG	61	1:39:45.141	5	9
2	6	Nelson Piquet	Williams-Honda	61	+ 40.547	2	6
3	2	Stefan Johansson	McLaren-TAG	61	+ 56.758	10	4
4	28	Gerhard Berger	Ferrari	61	+ 1:39.235	7	3
5	20	Thierry Boutsen	Benetton-Ford	60	+ 1 Lap	6	2
6	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Honda	60	+ 1 Lap	1	1
7	11	Satoru Nakajima	Lotus-Honda	59	+ 2 Laps	12
8	27	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari	58	Spun Off	9
9	10	Christian Danner	Zakspeed	58	+ 3 Laps	17
10 (1)	3	Jonathan Palmer	Tyrrell-Ford	58	+ 3 Laps	18
11 (2)	4	Philippe Streiff	Tyrrell-Ford	57	+ 4 Laps	20
12 (3)	14	Pascal Fabre	AGS-Ford	55	+ 6 Laps	22
Ret	18	Eddie Cheever	Arrows-Megatron	52	Overheating	14
Ret	12	Ayrton Senna	Lotus-Honda	50	Engine	3
Ret	7	Riccardo Patrese	Brabham-BMW	48	Electrical	11
Ret	8	Andrea de Cesaris	Brabham-BMW	21	Differential	13
Ret	17	Derek Warwick	Arrows-Megatron	20	Engine	8
Ret	21	Alex Caffi	Osella-Alfa Romeo	20	Withdrew	21
Ret	24	Alessandro Nannini	Minardi-Motori Moderni	17	Suspension	15
Ret	9	Martin Brundle	Zakspeed	15	Turbo	19
Ret	19	Teo Fabi	Benetton-Ford	9	Turbo	4
DSQ	23	Adrián Campos	Minardi-Motori Moderni	3	Disqualified	16
DNS	16	Ivan Capelli	March-Ford	0	Non Starter	23

Notes

This was Prost's 26th victory, which made him the second most successful Grand Prix driver at the time, after Jackie Stewart.
Adrián Campos was disqualified for an incorrect starting procedure.