Ayrton Senna took his eighth pole position of the season by nearly six-tenths of a second from McLaren teammate Alain Prost , with almost a further second back to Gerhard Berger in the Ferrari in third. The two Williams were fourth and fifth with Thierry Boutsen , in his home race, ahead of Riccardo Patrese , followed by Nigel Mansell in the second Ferrari. Alessandro Nannini was seventh in the Benetton , over two seconds behind Mansell, and the top ten was completed by Stefano Modena in the Bra...
The major talking point, however, was the failure of both Nelson Piquet and Satoru Nakajima to qualify, the first time in the Lotus team's history that neither of its cars had qualified.