1990 Australian Grand Prix

Ayrton Senna took his tenth pole position of the season, and 52nd overall, in his McLaren - Honda with a time of 1:15.671, the fastest time recorded on the Adelaide street circuit to date. Alongside him on the front row, but over half a second slower, was his teammate Gerhard Berger . In his final race for Ferrari , Nigel Mansell took third, only 0.013 seconds ahead of teammate Alain Prost , followed by Jean Alesi in the Tyrrell and Riccardo Patrese in the Williams . The Benettons of Nelson Piqu...

Further down the grid David Brabham , driving for the Brabham team established by his father Jack , qualified 25th, becoming the first Australian to drive in his home race since Alan Jones in 1986 .

The four drivers failing to qualify were Michele Alboreto and Alex Caffi in the two Arrows , Yannick Dalmas in the AGS and Bertrand Gachot in the Coloni , the latter completing a clean sweep of non-qualifications for the season.

Then, as per normal practice, the annual end-of-season drivers photo shoot took place prior to the race. As the race was the 500th World Championship Grand Prix there was also a photo shoot taken with several World Champions who were in attendance, including legendary five time Champion Juan Manuel Fangio . Alain Prost, still angry over the events at Suzuka , did not appear in either photo by his own choice as he did not want to appear with Ayrton Senna. This, and his public statements about his...

Hunt, who as the 1976 Champion was in the photo shoot along with Fangio, Sir Jack Brabham , Denny Hulme , Stewart, and current drivers Senna and Nelson Piquet, claimed during the race commentary that Prost had been mentally beaten down by Senna after losing the championship to him in controversial circumstances and seemed to be "a driver who was under a form of mental collapse". [ citation needed ]

Other than Prost who chose not to take part, World Championship winning drivers who were still alive but not in the photo shoot due to not being in attendance in Adelaide were Phil Hill ( 1961 ), John Surtees ( 1964 ), Emerson Fittipaldi ( 1972 & 1974 ), Niki Lauda ( 1975 , 1977 & 1984 ), Mario Andretti ( 1978 ), Jody Scheckter ( 1979 ), and the winner of the inaugural race in Adelaide Keke Rosberg ( 1982 ). The most surprising absentee was Australia's 1980 World Champion Alan Jones who was actu...

After making the best start, but being blocked in by the slow starting Berger, Alain Prost drove a steady, but for him unremarkable race other than a rare mistake when he ran wide at Brewery Bend late in the race while trying to stay ahead of the charging Mansell. Prost ran in 5th for most of the race, but eventually finished 3rd after Senna crashed out of the lead on lap 61 with gearbox trouble, and after Berger had also run wide at Brewery Bend and had to back off to conserve his tyres. Berger...

On lap 50, Senna broke Gerhard Berger's 1987 lap record of 1:20.416 (set in the turbocharged Ferrari F1/87 ) with a time of 1:19.302. In his late race pursuit of Piquet, Mansell continued to lower the lap record and eventually lowered it to 1:18.203 on lap 75. In his efforts to stay ahead of Mansell, Piquet set his fastest race lap on lap 79 with a time of 1:18.527, and then emulated Prost and Berger's earlier feats by running wide at Brewery Bend on lap 80 which allowed Mansell to close within ...

The victory gave Piquet third place in the Drivers' Championship on countback, with the same number of points as Berger but two wins to the Austrian's none. It also secured third place in the Constructors' Championship for Benetton, equalling its best finish from 1988 .