The 1987 Japanese Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Suzuka on 1 November 1987. It was the fifteenth and penultimate race of the 1987 Formula One World Championship.
The race was won by Austrian driver Gerhard Berger driving a Ferrari F1/87. It was the end of a 38-race losing streak for Formula One's most famous team and Berger's second Grand Prix victory having won the Mexican Grand Prix the previous year driving for Benetton. Berger won by 17 seconds over Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna driving a Lotus 99T. Third was the McLaren MP4/3 of Swedish driver Stefan Johansson. This would turn out to be Team Lotus's last second place finish.
Following Nigel Mansell's withdrawal from the Grand Prix after his accident during qualifying, his teammate Nelson Piquet was prematurely crowned World Champion for the third and final time in his career before the race had even started.
Background The 1987 Japanese Grand Prix was the first race to be held in Japan since James Hunt won in his McLaren at Fuji, in 1977. This time, the Grand Prix circus utilised the Honda-owned Suzuka Circuit, which originated as a test track for Honda motorcycles and automobiles.
Soichiro Honda was extremely enthusiastic about this race, and told his racing engineers "We have to win. And we have to keep winning..." aiming for a hometown victory at Honda's home track in its native Japan. Soichiro Honda had reason for optimism as four of the entrants were powered by Honda-made engines. The Lotus 99Ts of Ayrton Senna, who had won races earlier in the season and was joined on Team Lotus with national favourite Satoru Nakajima, along with the dominating Williams FW11Bs driven by Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet, who were both vying for the overall championship.
Motor Sport stated that the new circuit "attracted almost unanimous praise from the drivers".
Qualifying The scene was set for a tense championship-deciding race between the Williams-Honda teammates, bitter rivals Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell. However, Mansell suffered a huge crash during Friday qualifying while trying to better Piquet's time, which put him out of action for both the Japanese race and the subsequent Australian Grand Prix. As a consequence, Piquet won his third World Championship before the race even began.
Qualifying once again demonstrated the return to form of Ferrari, as Gerhard Berger obtained his second pole position of the season, with the F1/87 being perfectly suited to the Suzuka circuit. Alain Prost qualified 2nd in his McLaren-TAG with Thierry Boutsen 3rd in his Benetton-Ford. Following Mansell's Friday crash, the three remaining Honda-powered cars of Piquet, Senna, and local favourite Satoru Nakajima, could only qualify in 5th, 7th and 11th places respectively. All drivers from 8th position and below moved up one position on the grid due to Mansell being unable to start. This also meant Roberto Moreno was permitted to race the AGS despite having the 27th fastest qualifying time.
Out of the 26 drivers who qualified for the race, only Riccardo Patrese had ever driven in a Japanese Grand Prix prior to 1987, having taken part of the 1977 race at Fuji.
Qualifying classification Pos No Driver Constructor Q1 Q2 Gap Grid 1 28 Gerhard Berger Ferrari 1:42.160 1:40.042 1 2 1 Alain Prost McLaren-TAG 1:42.496 1:40.652 +0.610 2 3 20 Thierry Boutsen Benetton-Ford 1:43.130 1:40.850 +0.808 3 4 27 Michele Alboreto Ferrari 1:42.416 1:40.984 +0.942 4 5 6 Nelson Piquet Williams-Honda 1:41.423 1:41.144 +1.099 5 6 19 Teo Fabi Benetton-Ford 1:43.351 1:41.679 +1.673 6 7 5 Nigel Mansell Williams-Honda 1:42.616 no time +2.573 8 12 Ayrton Senna Lotus-Honda 1:44.026 1:42.723 +2.681 7 9 7 Riccardo Patrese Brabham-BMW 1:44.767 1:43.304 +3.262 8 10 2 Stefan Johansson McLaren-TAG 1:43.612 1:43.371 +3.329 9 11 8 Andrea de Cesaris Brabham-BMW 1:46.399 1:43.618 +3.576 10 12 11 Satoru Nakajima Lotus-Honda 1:45.898 1:43.685 +3.643 11 13 18 Eddie Cheever Arrows-Megatron 1:45.427 1:44.277 +4.385 12 14 17 Derek Warwick Arrows-Megatron 1:44.768 1:44.626 +4.584 13 15 24 Alessandro Nannini Minardi-Motori Moderni 1:48.948 1:45.612 +5.570 14 16 9 Martin Brundle Zakspeed 1:46.715 1:46.023 +5.981 15 17 10 Christian Danner Zakspeed 1:49.337 1:46.116 +6.074 16 18 25 René Arnoux Ligier-Megatron 1:50.542 1:46.200 +6.158 17 19 30 Philippe Alliot Lola-Ford 1:49.470 1:47.395 +7.353 18 20 3 Jonathan Palmer Tyrrell-Ford 1:48.902 1:47.775 +7.733 19 21 16 Ivan Capelli March-Ford 1:49.814 1:48.212 +8.170 20 22 23 Adrián Campos Minardi-Motori Moderni 1:53.455 1:48.337 +8.295 21 23 29 Yannick Dalmas Lola-Ford 1:51.230 1:48.887 +8.845 22 24 21 Alex Caffi Osella-Alfa Romeo 1:49.017 1:50.902 +8.975 23 25 26 Piercarlo Ghinzani Ligier-Megatron 1:51.554 1:49.641 +9.599 24 26 4 Philippe Streiff Tyrrell-Ford 1:50.896 1:49.741 +9.699 25 27 14 Roberto Moreno AGS-Ford 1:51.835 1:50.212 +10.170 26Source:
Race At the start Berger immediately imposed his authority by building a cushion. Prost, in his McLaren, perhaps the only driver capable of challenging Berger for the victory, suffered a puncture on the first lap and, therefore, was out of contention. Prost, however, drove a superb race to climb up through the field finishing just outside the points with the consolation of having the fastest lap. Boutsen's Benetton ran second early on but could not live with the pace set by Berger, ultimately fading to fifth. Piquet spent much of the race behind Senna's Lotus but was unable to find a way past his countryman. The new world champion eventually retired in the pits with oil pouring from the rear of his Williams. At one stage Stefan Johansson in the McLaren closed on Berger, but the Austrian driver responded and eventually romped to a seemingly effortless victory, the first Ferrari's victory since the 1985 German Grand Prix. Ayrton Senna dramatically passed Johansson on the last lap to take second place. Michele Alboreto, in the second Ferrari, got away very slowly at the green lights leaving him towards the rear of the field. However, the Italian drove an aggressive race to climb his way back up the order to finish an excellent fourth despite suffering from a dragging undertray causing a huge amount of sparks. Boutsen and Nakajima rounded out the points.
Johansson's third place was the 54th and last podium finish for the Porsche-designed TAG turbo V6 engine which had been first used in Formula One by McLaren at the 1983 Dutch Grand Prix.
Race classification Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 28 Gerhard Berger Ferrari 51 1:32:58.072 1 9 2 12 Ayrton Senna Lotus-Honda 51 + 17.384 7 6 3 2 Stefan Johansson McLaren-TAG 51 + 17.694 9 4 4 27 Michele Alboreto Ferrari 51 + 1:20.441 4 3 5 20 Thierry Boutsen Benetton-Ford 51 + 1:25.576 3 2 6 11 Satoru Nakajima Lotus-Honda 51 + 1:36.479 11 1 7 1 Alain Prost McLaren-TAG 50 + 1 lap 2 8 (1) 3 Jonathan Palmer Tyrrell-Ford 50 + 1 lap 19 9 18 Eddie Cheever Arrows-Megatron 50 Out of fuel 12 10 17 Derek Warwick Arrows-Megatron 50 + 1 lap 13 11 7 Riccardo Patrese Brabham-BMW 49 + 2 laps 8 12 (2) 4 Philippe Streiff Tyrrell-Ford 49 + 2 laps 25 13 26 Piercarlo Ghinzani Ligier-Megatron 48 + 3 laps 24 14 (3) 29 Yannick Dalmas Lola-Ford 47 + 4 laps 22 15 6 Nelson Piquet Williams-Honda 46 Engine 5 25 René Arnoux Ligier-Megatron 44 Out of fuel 17 21 Alex Caffi Osella-Alfa Romeo 43 Out of fuel 23 14 Roberto Moreno AGS-Ford 38 Electrical 26 24 Alessandro Nannini Minardi-Motori Moderni 35 Engine 14 9 Martin Brundle Zakspeed 32 Engine 15 8 Andrea de Cesaris Brabham-BMW 26 Engine 10 19 Teo Fabi Benetton-Ford 16 Engine 6 10 Christian Danner Zakspeed 13 Engine 16 16 Ivan Capelli March-Ford 13 Accident 20 23 Adrián Campos Minardi-Motori Moderni 2 Engine 21 30 Philippe Alliot Lola-Ford 0 Accident 18 5 Nigel Mansell Williams-Honda Qualifying practice accident
Championship standings after the race Bold text indicates the World Champions.
Drivers' Championship standings PosDriverPoints 1 Nelson Piquet 73 (76) 2 Nigel Mansell 61 3 Ayrton Senna 57 4 Alain Prost 46 5 Stefan Johansson 30Source:
Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Williams-Honda137 2 McLaren-TAG76 3 Lotus-Honda64 4 Ferrari38 5 Benetton-Ford24Source:
Jim Clark Trophy standings PosDriverPoints 1 Jonathan Palmer 86 2 Philippe Streiff 74 3 Philippe Alliot 43 4 Ivan Capelli 38 5 Pascal Fabre 35
Colin Chapman Trophy standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Tyrrell-Ford160 2 Lola-Ford43 3 March-Ford38 4 AGS-Ford35
References