1990 Monaco F1 Grand Prix Race Report & Results
Event: Monaco Grand Prix
Track: Monaco Circuit
Weather: overcast, mild, dry
Ayrton Senna won his 22nd F1 World Championship race at the 1990 Monaco F1 GP. The McLaren driver started from pole and won on the Monaco circuit for the third time. It was also his 2nd win of the season and the 82nd win for the McLaren F1 team.
Monaco's politics, and Marlboro's anxiety
Patrick Faure, Bernard Casin and Bernard Dudot arrived at Magny-Cours the week before Monaco for an informal Sunday at the Ligier factory. Guy Ligier was lobbying hard for the Renault V10 in 1991; Renault, with Williams locked into another title push, gave him the same answer it had given since 1988, no. Jean-Marie Balestre overheard the conversation at Loews on Friday evening and could not resist amplifying: "Guy, I'll help you!" He went public with a call for an "all-French team, Ligier, Renault, Michelin", which Casin batted away with practised irritation. At the same Loews ball, the new Philip Morris Europe president Walter Thoma made his first paddock appearance to warn that the European Community's anti-tobacco legislation would change the sport's economic shape within the decade. France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Belgium were already preparing total bans. The big three, Marlboro, Reynolds and the Seita, had begun coordinating their long retreat.
Out on the harbour Juan Manuel Fangio made one of his rare paddock visits. The old champion's verdict on the current generation was direct: Senna a class above everyone, Prost a quiet Ascari, Berger and Mansell "never put the car in the same place twice." Jackie Stewart added Alesi to the rare-praise list: "Here, Jean is the kind of driver who can beat Senna." Ivan Capelli, by contrast, was openly miserable about the Leyton House CG901's complete lack of downforce on slow circuits.
Senna's pole, Prost on the front row
Monte Carlo qualifying belonged to Senna again, pole in 1m21.314s, a full second below his own 1989 record. Prost vaulted from sixth at Imola to a front-row 1m21.776s on Saturday, his new "Scalabroni-spec" Ferrari 037 V12 finally giving him a setup he believed in. Alesi qualified third, Tyrrell's first front-of-grid Monaco lap in many years, Pirelli's softs eating the street circuit cleanly. Patrese fourth in the Williams, Berger fifth complaining about gear-selector trouble all weekend, Boutsen sixth, Mansell seventh, the Ferrari driver openly grumbling about being increasingly sidelined inside Maranello's technical decisions. Behind them: Martini eighth in the Minardi, Pirro ninth in the Dallara, Piquet tenth in the Benetton.
Sunday's morning F3 race had been won in a thunderstorm by the young Frenchman Laurent Aïello; the F1 race opened under cloud but stayed dry. Prost was excited about the warm-up, only a tenth behind Senna. Berger crashed his Saturday-night Ferrari-fitting plans into the start-line drama.
Berger triggers a restart at Mirabeau
Senna led off the line from Prost, with Alesi diving inside Prost on the brakes into Mirabeau on the opening lap to grab third. As Prost re-traced his line through the corner, Berger arrived from behind at full speed, eyes on Alesi, and hit Prost's right rear flush. The Ferrari spun into the descent toward the hairpin and triggered a chain-reaction: Modena hit Donnelly, Donnelly hit Prost, the road was completely blocked. Bruynseraede waved the red flag. Prost, Berger, Capelli and Modena ran to the pits for spares. Prost had to take Mansell's seven-speed car and listen to a thirty-second technical handover from his teammate; Berger climbed into Senna's spare and tried to fit his long legs into a Senna-shaped cockpit. The half-hour restart procedure was barely time enough.
The second start went straight from Senna's grid slot. Alesi tried his Mirabeau move on Prost again; Prost, this time, closed the door. Senna led Prost, Alesi, Berger, Patrese, and within three laps had a comfortable cushion. By lap fifteen Senna led by nine seconds, Prost was sandwiched between Alesi and Berger, and Mansell, now down to seventh, was beginning to lap the field as a one-man tactical demonstration.
Ferrari's batteries, Mansell's anger, Bernard's first point
The race's second story was Ferrari electrical disintegration. On lap thirty-one Prost's battery exploded in his cockpit, sulfuric acid coated his gloves and he had to abandon the car. Mansell, by then on his way back through the field after losing time changing a damaged nose, was carving through the order at three seconds a lap and was actively threatening Boutsen for fifth when, on lap sixty-four, on the boulevard Albert Ier, his Ferrari's battery also failed. The Englishman climbed out, walked into the Ferrari motorhome, exchanged a few terse words with Cesare Fiorio and left without acknowledging anyone. He was already publicly looking for a 1991 ride.
Patrese's Williams had failed on lap forty-one with a timing-gear problem. By lap fifty only ten cars were still circulating; by lap seventy that was down to seven. Warwick lost his brakes and spun the Lotus across the road in the second Piscine corner on lap sixty-eight, and Senna, arriving over the brow, narrowly missed it. The Brazilian was furious at the marshals who waved him incorrectly to one side of the abandoned Lotus when the danger was on the other.
And then, just when the race seemed under control, Senna's Honda V10 began to lose power. In the last six laps Alesi and Berger closed at three seconds per lap; what had been a 26-second margin was barely five seconds with two laps to go and under two seconds at the flag. Senna crossed the line for his 22nd career grand prix victory, his third at Monaco, his second of 1990 and McLaren's 82nd. Alesi took a stunning second, every paddock veteran agreed it was the best drive of his short career, and Berger third. Boutsen, lapped, took fourth for Williams. Alex Caffi was an unexpected fifth for Arrows, two points the team genuinely needed. And Éric Bernard finished sixth in the Larrousse-Lamborghini for his first ever F1 point, a point that simultaneously rescued Larrousse from second-half-of-season pre-qualifying purgatory.
That evening at the Sporting d'Été, in the Automobile Club de Monaco's gala dinner, Senna dedicated his victory to Fangio. "He is the champion of the values I cherish. Not only for his five world titles, but for his style, his personality, his humanity." The old Argentinian was visibly moved. Alesi, exhausted, fell asleep in his soup and left forty minutes before Senna. The 1990 championship now had a story: Senna leading at the front with a McLaren that had stopped being invincible, Alesi proving he could match anyone on the right circuit, Mansell openly hunting for a way out, and Prost back at Maranello deciphering, race by race, the limits of an Italian institution.
Classification 1990 Monaco F1 GP
Fastest lap: 1:24.468 min by Ayrton Senna (McLaren MP4-5B) in lap 59
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