1987 Mexican Grand Prix

Race

It was Mansell's sixth and last Grand Prix victory for the 1987 season. Riccardo Patrese finished third driving a Brabham BT56 . It was Patrese's best result since finishing third in the 1984 Italian Grand Prix . It was just the second podium of the year for Brabham. Brabham would only score one more podium before it would fold in 1992.

Race

Ayrton Senna was fined $15,000 for punching a corner marshal after they refused to push his stalled car.

Mansell's victory allowed him to close to within twelve points of his championship leading teammate. With just two races left, only the Williams drivers had enough points to win the championship.

Classification

During Saturday morning's 90 minute free practice session, a number of the turbo teams ran their cars at the 2.5 bar boost limit that would be enforced in 1988 . To the surprise of many, lap times actually proved faster than they would in the afternoon's qualifying session when the cars were running their full 4.0 bar boost settings with BBC commentator Murray Walker later attributing it to the fact that at 2.5 bar the drivers had more useable power whereas the high horsepower figures (900–1,000...

Race

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

Quick Facts

1987 Mexican Grand Prix Race 14 of 16 in the 1987 Formula One World Championship

1987 Mexican Grand Prix nan

1987 Mexican Grand Prix Race details

1987 Mexican Grand Prix Date

1987 Mexican Grand Prix Official name

1987 Mexican Grand Prix Location

1987 Mexican Grand Prix Course

1987 Mexican Grand Prix Course length

1987 Mexican Grand Prix Distance

1987 Mexican Grand Prix Weather

Table 1

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Q1	Q2
1	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Honda	1:20.696	1:18.383
2	28	Gerhard Berger	Ferrari	1:19.992	1:18.426
3	6	Nelson Piquet	Williams-Honda	1:20.701	1:18.463
4	20	Thierry Boutsen	Benetton-Ford	1:20.766	1:18.691
5	1	Alain Prost	McLaren-TAG	1:20.572	1:18.742
6	19	Teo Fabi	Benetton-Ford	1:22.666	1:18.992
7	12	Ayrton Senna	Lotus-Honda	1:21.361	1:19.089
8	7	Riccardo Patrese	Brabham-BMW	1:21.720	1:19.889
9	27	Michele Alboreto	Ferrari	1:21.290	1:19.967
10	8	Andrea de Cesaris	Brabham-BMW	1:22.930	1:20.141

Table 2

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired
1	5	Nigel Mansell	Williams-Honda	63	1:26:24.207
2	6	Nelson Piquet	Williams-Honda	63	+ 26.176
3	7	Riccardo Patrese	Brabham-BMW	63	+ 1:26.879
4	18	Eddie Cheever	Arrows-Megatron	63	+ 1:41.352
5	19	Teo Fabi	Benetton-Ford	61	+ 2 laps
6 (1)	30	Philippe Alliot	Lola-Ford	60	+ 3 laps
7 (2)	3	Jonathan Palmer	Tyrrell-Ford	60	+ 3 laps
8 (3)	4	Philippe Streiff	Tyrrell-Ford	60	+ 3 laps
9 (4)	29	Yannick Dalmas	Lola-Ford	59	+ 4 laps
Ret	12	Ayrton Senna	Lotus-Honda	54	Clutch

Table 3

Pos	Driver	Points	Unnamed: 3
1	Nelson Piquet	73 (76)	nan
2	Nigel Mansell	61	nan
3	Ayrton Senna	51	nan
4	Alain Prost	46	nan
5	Stefan Johansson	26	nan
Source: [6]	Source: [6]	Source: [6]	Source: [6]

F1ABY Commentary

Does the scent of burnt rubber truly tell the tale of a driver’s ambition, or merely the fleeting consequence of a fractured machine? Warwick’s Arrows, a veteran’s defiance against the relentless hunger of the Peraltada, crumpled like a spent prayer. Nakajima’s collision, a brutal, almost casual intervention, exposed the fragility of trust within this ballet of steel and speed. The rebuilt circuit, gleaming with a new coat of paint, seemed almost deliberately indifferent to the carnage unfolding beneath it. Perhaps the Hermanos Rodríguez brothers were simply weary of witnessing the same desperate struggle, the same yearning for glory carved out of a relentless, unforgiving landscape. The Lotus-Honda, a muted grey against the vibrant Mexican sky, carried a silent question: could a calculated risk ever truly justify the price?

The shadow of Derek Warwick’s shattered ambition clung to the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez today, a stark reminder that even the most gifted drivers are merely vessels susceptible to the capricious whims of machinery. A rear suspension, fractured by a brutal impact, had robbed him of a potential victory, exposing the agonizing vulnerability beneath the steely gaze of a racing legend. This wasn’t simply a crash; it was the unraveling of a man’s pursuit, a testament to the brutal, unforgiving nature of this sport.

F1ABY Trivia

The air hung thick with the scent of burning rubber and a palpable tension – a familiar cocktail at Hermanos Rodríguez. Warwick’s Arrows, a beast of 1. 5 liters of Ford-TAG power, lay crumpled against the Tecpro barrier, the rear suspension a victim of Nakajima’s brutal impact. That Lotus-Honda, a surprisingly nimble machine considering its 1. 5-liter engine, had momentarily tasted victory, a testament to Honda’s relentless pursuit of traction. The reverberations of that collision, a brutal reminder of the fragility of speed, settled over the circuit, silencing the afternoon’s growing optimism.

The air in Mexico City hung thick, not just with the October humidity, but with a palpable tension. Warwick’s abrupt exit—a shredded rear end spitting him into the gravel—was a brutal punctuation mark on a weekend already riddled with the unsettling geometry of the Peraltada. It wasn't just the Arrows’ misfortune, of course; the Lotus-Honda, having slammed into the back of the Arrows, now bore the scars of a collision that felt less like an accident and more like a deliberate, albeit catastrophic, shift in momentum. Consider this: Nakajima’s forceful impact, a statistically improbable event considering the relative speeds at that moment, introduced a ripple effect – a fractured sequence of times that ultimately widened the gap between the frontrunners, revealing a disconcerting pattern of Ferrari dominance that, frankly, felt almost… calculated.

F1ABY Tales

The air tasted of dust and impending disaster. Warwick’s Arrows, a mangled sculpture of carbon fiber and shattered dreams, lay embedded in the unforgiving asphalt. A silence descended, thick with the realization that the Peraltada hadn't just claimed a car; it had swallowed a man’s ambition. Nakajima, still pale and shaken, stared at the wreckage, a flicker of guilt warring with the stark physics of the collision. That rear suspension, weakened by a single, brutal impact – a testament to the brutal, unforgiving nature of this sport. It wasn’t simply a mechanical failure; it was the culmination of a thousand tiny pressures, a cascade of risk and consequence. The Mexican sun beat down, indifferent to the wreckage and the questions swirling within the Arrows garage.

The rain, a bruised purple slick against the darkening sky, held a particular sorrow for Satoru Nakajima. He’d always possessed a quiet intensity, a stillness that bordered on melancholy, a man sculpted by the ghosts of a childhood spent amongst the rice paddies of Japan. That brief, brutal collision – a desperate, fractured attempt to avoid Warwick – felt less like a mechanical failure and more like a release. The Lotus-Honda, a machine of intricate beauty, absorbed the impact with a shudder, but Nakajima remained motionless, a solitary figure amidst the swirling chaos. It was as if the circuit itself, a demanding mistress, had simply demanded a reckoning. The Peraltada, a beast of a corner, had claimed its due. A chilling reminder, perhaps, of the precarious balance between ambition and consequence.