1987 Spanish F1 Grand Prix Race Report & Results
Event: Spanish Grand Prix
Track: Circuito de Jerez
Weather: overcast, mild, dry
Nigel Mansell won his 12th F1 World Championship race at the 1987 Spanish F1 GP. The Williams driver started from second and won on the Jerez de la Frontera circuit for the first time. It was also his 5th win of the season and the 39th win for the Williams F1 team.
Williams confirms Patrese, Mansell loses his temper
Williams used the Spanish weekend to confirm Riccardo Patrese as Nelson Piquet's 1988 replacement, a 33-year-old veteran of 156 grands prix and the Brabham experiment of the previous two years. The team's choice was driven by Honda's defection. With Judd V8s for 1988 instead of the Honda turbo, Williams needed experience next door to Mansell in 1988 more than it needed youth. On Saturday afternoon, Mansell himself provided a contribution to the drama. After Piquet, using the active suspension Mansell had refused, took pole position by six tenths, Mansell refused to drive his car onto the weighbridge as the regulations required. While Alan Challis argued with the marshals, Mansell sprinted to the pit lane, climbed into the spare Williams (which had active suspension), drove two laps, was stopped by Roland Bruynseraede, ripped off his overalls, ran to the car park, dropped into his road car and sped out of the circuit. The FISA fined him $3,000 and annulled his Saturday lap times, which did not affect his grid position. The British press wrote it up; nobody asked Patrick Head what he made of it.
Off-track the Honda divorce had already booked its aftermath. Williams's new partnership with John Judd was committed; McLaren's with Honda and Senna was committed; Lotus's with Honda and Camel was committed; Ron Dennis was in late talks with Elf about a 1988 fuel partnership, and although that deal would collapse the following Monday when Elf opted to stay with Lotus, McLaren would land back at Shell with an enhanced contract. The 1988 grid had nearly settled.
Mansell's lead, Senna's bluff
Sunday opened under a low ceiling. Mansell jumped Piquet at the last corner of the opening lap and led from there. Piquet, on a heavier active-suspension chassis, ran second comfortably, until Senna, third on a Lotus that had qualified fifth, settled in behind him and declined to stop for tyres. By lap fifteen Mansell was four seconds clear of Piquet; Senna held third by twenty seconds with Berger, Alboreto, Boutsen, Fabi and Prost queuing behind him on a sinuous track that offered almost nowhere to overtake.
Prost was the first of that queue to recognise the strategic opportunity. He pitted on lap twenty-seven for an 11.3s stop, dropping behind Johansson, and rejoined with fresh rubber and traffic to pass. He picked off Fabi at his stop on lap twenty-nine; then Boutsen at the same lap thirty-two; then both Ferraris on lap forty-four when Berger came up the inside of his own team-mate at the corner before the pit straight, both Ferraris ran wide on the exit, and Prost simply held the inside line and out-accelerated the pair of them on the run to the next corner. Inside a single straight he had taken third place from fifth. It was a piece of pure opportunism that nobody else in the field saw coming.
Piquet's spin, the championship still not settled
Mansell pitted on lap forty-three for 11s; Piquet did the same a lap later but forgot to keep his brakes pressed, so his crew could not loosen the wheel nuts. The stop took nineteen seconds. He emerged in fifth behind the Ferraris and ahead of Prost, and lost his temper. On lap forty-eight he tried the outside line on Prost into turn one, locked the brakes when Prost held the inside, looped the Williams into a half-spin that left him pointing the wrong way, fought it back around and lost two more places to Alboreto and Boutsen. The points lead he had been managing toward a championship-clinching second place on this very weekend was now suddenly fourth, with Mansell winning, Prost second and Johansson third.
Senna's no-stop strategy had finally died around the same time. On lap sixty-three Piquet caught the Lotus, drafted it down the start straight, and on lap sixty-four Senna's worn Goodyears finally surrendered to first Boutsen and then Prost. Boutsen, in turn, made his own mistake at turn eight one lap later, distracted by a lapped Williams pirouetting in front of him, and spun off into the gravel for good. Berger's race had ended on lap sixty-three when he punched the underfloor of his Ferrari against a kerb and broke an oil cooler. Alboreto's engine exploded on lap sixty-nine. The race ended with Mansell taking his twelfth career grand prix victory, his fifth of the season, by 22 seconds over Prost.
Williams's fourth constructors' title
Johansson took third for McLaren's 2-3, the 55th career podium for Prost, a new all-time record. Piquet recovered to fourth and held off Senna for it; the Brazilian, having spent his afternoon staring in his mirrors, took fifth on a chassis whose tyres had simply not survived. Philippe Alliot scored Larrousse-Calmels's second point of the season in sixth, having taken the atmospheric class win after Jonathan Palmer's Tyrrell was punted off by Rene Arnoux's Ligier on lap fifty-eight. Streiff was seventh; Larrousse had two seasons of foundation already in the bank by the time of his second points-paying weekend.
Williams formally clinched the constructors' championship, the team's fourth, by outscoring McLaren on the day, but the celebrations were muted. Honda was leaving. Piquet was leaving. Frank Williams accepted the cup with a small smile and a wheelchair tilted up the pit-lane ramp. The drivers' table now read Piquet 70, Mansell 52, Senna 51, Prost 46, with three races still to run, Piquet 18 clear of Mansell, but the championship still in mathematical play. Mansell, his Saturday tantrum forgiven if not forgotten, climbed off the podium with the left leg of his overalls cramping after his seat had broken loose mid-race and sent him sliding around the cockpit. "If I have a good car and a good engine, I am in front. If that had happened every time, I wouldn't be where I am in the championship today." The Honda divorce had been visible in the Williams pit for months. Once Piquet was no longer in the team, both sides knew, the engine supplier would no longer have a champion to crown.
Classification 1987 Spanish F1 GP
Fastest lap: 1:26.986 min by Gerhard Berger (Ferrari F1-87) in lap 49
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