Ayrton Senna Wins "Canadian Grand Prix" - June 12, 1988

June 12, 1988

(Photo: en.wikipedia.org)
Ayrton Senna drove his Honda/Marlboro McLaren to victory at the Molson Grand Prix of Canada on Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Senna won, 5.9 seconds ahead of Prost with Boutsen 45.5 seconds behind Prost in third. Piquet was fourth in the Lotus, albeit a lap down on Senna, with Capelli finishing fifth in the March. The final point surprisingly went to Jonathan Palmer in the troublesome Tyrrell 017.

The injured Derek Warwick put in the drive of the race in his Arrows-Megatron to finish just outside of the points in seventh after a half-race long duel with team mate Eddie Cheever that ended when Cheever retired with a broken throttle cable on lap 31. Warwick also had to endure the turbo pop-off valve cutting in early leaving him with less than desirable power from his turbo engine and an increasingly sore back from his accident the previous day.

Warwick suffered a serious accident coming onto the new pit straight on the Saturday session when his car flew over the curbs after his Arrows A10B lost control in the braking area for the chicane on dirt kicked up moments before by the AGS of Philippe Streiff. Thierry Boutsen in the Benetton-Ford was following the AGS and seeing what happened he was able to avoid the dirt Streiff had kicked onto the track. Warwick was next through arriving moments later not knowing about the mess and under breaking the Arrows broke away at the rear as Warwick was turning into the right-left chicane. The Arrows bounced over the inside curb and became airborne. When it hit the ground the impact caused Warwick to black out. The car, still travelling at speed then became airborne again before landing and hitting what is now the "Mur du Québec" (Quebec Wall) or "The Wall Of Champions" opposite the new pits at unabated speed. In the Williams pit directly opposite was Nigel Mansell who had suffered a similar crash in practice for the 1987 Japanese Grand Prix. Knowing the best thing Warwick could do was not to move at that point he immediately jumped the pit fence onto the track and was the first on the scene to give aid to a now conscious Warwick, removing his helmet and instructing him to stay in the car until F1's on-track medical team headed by Prof. Sid Watkins arrived. Courageously, Warwick, who had injured his back in the accident and admitted in an interview on race morning to being very stiff and sore, would start from his 16th qualifying position in the same car he crashed, the Arrows team having repaired it overnight.

Senna set the circuit lap record with a 1:24.973 on lap 53 of the 69 lap race. This compared to Nelson Piquet's previous lap record set in 1986 of 1:25.443 set in a Williams-Honda when the turbo cars had approximately 400 bhp more than 1988. However, the changes to the circuit between the 1986 and 1988 races had eliminated what were the turn 5 and 6 curves which were replaced by making the new pit straight longer, leaving only a left hand turn leading into the now turn 2 Epingle de L'ile hairpin.

Boutsen's third place was the first time since the 1983 Dutch Grand Prix that a naturally aspirated powered car legally finished on a Formula One podium.