1989 Formula One World Championship

The 1989 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 43rd season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It began on 26 March and ended on 5 November. Alain Prost won his third Drivers' Championship, and McLaren won the Constructors' Championship. [ 1 ] [ 2 ]

The Drivers' Championship was decided in controversial circumstances at the penultimate race of the season in Japan , when Prost and teammate Ayrton Senna , who needed to win the race, collided in the closing laps. [ 3 ] Prost retired while Senna rejoined the track after a push start and crossed the line first, only to be disqualified for not rejoining the track correctly. [ 3 ] This handed Prost the title, his last with McLaren before joining Ferrari in 1990. [ 2 ] [ 3 ]

The season also saw an unprecedented number of entries, with 21 constructors originally entered, fielding a total of 40 cars. However, FIRST Racing withdrew from the championship before the opening race, leaving 20 constructors fielding a total of 39 cars, which remains the highest entry in the modern era. [ 4 ]

This year was the first year of the new mandatory 3.5 litre engine formula following the FIA's ban on turbocharged engines following the conclusion of the previous season. Renault also returned as engine supplier for the first time since 1986 with both Renault and Honda developing engines with a V10 configuration, an engine configuration never previously used in Formula One.

As of 2025 [update] , this was the last time Honda and the same engine manufacturer won both the Formula One and MotoGP world manufacturers' titles in the same year.

The following teams and drivers competed in the 1989 FIA Formula One World Championship. FIRST Racing injected material into their chassis in order to pass a mandatory FIA pre-season crash test, however, it made its car significantly overweight and they withdrew before the opening Brazilian Grand Prix . After this, they instead focused on the Formula 3000 series. [ 5 ]

McLaren , having won fifteen of the sixteen races in 1988 , kept their successful driver line-up of 1985 and 1986 World Champion Alain Prost and defending champion Ayrton Senna . [ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ] [ 11 ] They would drive the new MP4/5 powered by a Honda V10 engine . [ 12 ]

Ferrari completed the signing of British driver Nigel Mansell , taking the place of Michele Alboreto alongside Austrian Gerhard Berger . [ 13 ] The new 640 , designed by John Barnard , featured a semi-automatic electronic gearbox, the first of its kind, [ 14 ] as well as the team's first 12-cylinder engine since 1980 . [ 15 ] [ 16 ]

Williams recruited Belgian driver Thierry Boutsen from Benetton as Mansell's replacement, alongside veteran Italian Riccardo Patrese . [ 17 ] The team had also done a deal with Renault , returning to F1 after a three-year break, that would see them have exclusive use of the French company's V10 engines. [ 17 ] [ 18 ] For most of the season, Williams ran with the FW12C , an updated version of their 1988 car, before the new FW13 was introduced at the Portuguese Grand Prix . [ 19 ]

Lotus kept their 1988 line-up of triple World Champion Nelson Piquet and Satoru Nakajima , but lost their Honda engines. [ 20 ] The new Lotus 101 , designed by Frank Dernie , used the Judd V8 engine instead. [ 21 ] [ 22 ]

Benetton retained Alessandro Nannini and signed British rookie Johnny Herbert to replace Boutsen. [ 23 ] [ 24 ] However, Herbert was still recovering from severe foot injuries sustained in a Formula 3000 crash at Brands Hatch , and was eventually replaced by McLaren test driver Emanuele Pirro . [ 23 ] [ 25 ] Benetton continued as the de facto works Ford team, but had to make do with the Cosworth DFR -powered 1988 car, the B188 , until the new HB -powered B189 was introduced at the French Grand P...

The climate as the Formula One circus arrived at Jacarepaguá was one of much optimism in what many saw as a new age, with many revelling in the brutal and much more appealing sounds of the V10 and V12 engines. Brazil proved to be an excitement filled race, and dramatic too. Qualifying had a few surprises, with Riccardo Patrese , scoring his first front row start since 1983 , next to the home favourite, world champion Ayrton Senna . Williams and Renault were both surprised by the position, but bo...

The race started with a bang, as Senna's hopes at a home Grand Prix victory were dashed after a clash with Berger in the first turn. In what would prove to be a regular occurrence during the season, the semi-automatic transmission in the Ferrari 640 allowed Berger to get a lightning start from 3rd on the grid and he attempted to go inside of Senna and Patrese into the turn. Senna refused to give room, causing a collision that destroyed the front wing of his car. Patrese got through unscathed and...

Double world champion Alain Prost's McLaren had been having problems all weekend with the Frenchman finding the McLaren MP4/5 hard to set up, and when his two stop strategy was ruined by a clutch failure, he knew he had to continue the race having made just one of his scheduled two pit stops on the notoriously abrasive Rio circuit. He finished second. Nigel Mansell secured a surprising win for the Scuderia, with no problems despite ongoing gearbox faults all weekend and a lack of winter testing ...

During the awards ceremony, Mansell cut his hand open on the trophy, ending the celebration early.

This was to be the last race at this fast, flat and abrasive Jacarepaguá circuit in Rio de Janeiro. Formula One would move to a shortened Interlagos circuit in Senna's hometown of São Paulo for the 1990 season onwards.

At Imola in Italy, "normal service" was resumed. McLaren settled on the front row of the grid and stayed that way for the race, with Mansell's Ferrari retiring midway with gearbox issues. Gerhard Berger, despite showing promise by setting the fastest time in the wet Friday qualifying, suffered front wing failure thanks to Berger's curb hopping style and careered off the track at Tamburello at high speed and hit the concrete retaining wall very hard and spun multiple times along the wall. This fo...

After the Grand Prix, Prost seemed disgruntled and said he wished to not make a comment on the race, other than that "orders were not respected". Senna refused to comment on the matter. Before the race at Monaco, Prost said he wanted "nothing to do with (Senna)" and refused to speak with him.

With Berger out, there were 29 cars in qualifying instead of 30, because Ferrari did not have a replacement driver. Senna had scored his third pole of the season, with the number 2 car of Prost again alongside. March introduced their new 1989 design. [ 37 ] Senna went on to win by almost a whole minute over Prost while Stefano Modena secured a valuable third for the underfunded Brabham team on its return to Formula One after a year out. This result effectively allowed Brabham to avoid prequalify...

During practice Prost revealed his discontent with Senna. According to Prost the pair had an agreement that if they were leading, whoever won the start would not be challenged by the other at the first corner, an agreement he previously had with former teammates Niki Lauda and Keke Rosberg . Despite Marlboro 's John Hogan supporting Prost's story by stating he was present when the agreement was made, Senna continued to deny that any such agreement existed. He also contended that the corner he pa...

At the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City, Mexico , Gerhard Berger made a return despite continued pain in his fingers. However, transmission and gearbox problems forced the Ferraris to retire from point-scoring positions for the third race straight. While they lamented their results, McLaren and Senna took a third win on the trot by a differing choice of tyres. Prost's choice, and the wrong set of tyres being given to him at a pit stop (which prompted team boss Ron Dennis to issue Pros...

Mexico was the first time that Prost would publicly complain that his Honda V10 did not seem to work as well as Senna's, pointing out that early in the race he was clearly faster than Senna through the Peraltada curve heading onto the long front straight, but that even with a tow from Senna he was not able to make any ground on him. Then later in the race when Senna was coming up to lap Prost (who had much fresher tyres), the Brazilian was easily able to catch and pass him on the straight despit...

The United States Grand Prix had a new destination, this time in the hot desert city of Phoenix , Arizona . It was a new place, but the same old dirty and dusty street circuits, and while wider, faster, less dirty and less bumpy than both Detroit and Dallas , like Detroit the mostly right angled turns on Phoenix's street grid system gave the drivers few reference points for when to use their brakes- but this created many good overtaking spots. The dreadfully hot 100+ degree dry desert summer hea...

Senna won the start and built up a small lead over Prost. Senna suffered an electrical problem when leading the race and his engine started to misfire. He signalled Prost through to a lead he would not lose on lap 34. Williams ended up being the only team to finish with both cars as the dirty track and unforgiving concrete walls ended six races, with the heat and dust cutting out many more. One driver, Alessandro Nannini , suffered from a severely sore neck after a crash in the morning warm-up a...

The race of attrition saw Christian Danner score a surprise 4th place in his Rial , while Herbert and Boutsen rounded out the scoring zone. The race ran for the full 2 hours and was flagged after 75 of the scheduled 81 laps. Alain Prost scored his only ever win in the US, while Cheever's 3rd place was his final podium in Formula One. Before the race with the heat and practice times proving some 10–15 seconds per lap slower than predicted, a petition was circulated among the teams requesting the ...

The Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal was run in wet conditions and provided many retirements, but also a new winner. Senna was comfortably leading with only three laps to go when engine problems forced him to retire, handing Boutsen his first victory. Patrese came home second to make it a 1–2 finish for Williams, the first time a team other than McLaren had achieved this since Ferrari in Monza the previous year . Making up for his Phoenix indiscretion, Andrea de Cesaris picked up third for Dallar...

Triple World Champion Nelson Piquet picked up his and Lotus's first points of the year by finishing 4th, only 4.8 seconds behind de Cesaris. René Arnoux would score the final points of his career by finishing 5th for Ligier . Caffi snatched the final point by finishing 6th.

In his home race at the Paul Ricard circuit near Marseille, Prost took pole and won convincingly, while fellow Frenchman Jean Alesi made his debut for the Tyrrell team, replacing Alboreto due to the team now having Camel sponsorship which conflicted with his personal Marlboro sponsorship. This proved to pay off as Alesi secured a fourth-place finish (having run second at one stage). Nigel Mansell ended Ferrari's run of retirements with a secure second while Patrese was third. Swede Stefan Johans...

The race had to be restarted when, on the first lap, Gugelmin caused a major first corner accident when he lost control of his March, flew into the air and landed on Mansell's rear wing. Luckily, no one was hurt and all drivers managed to take the restart. The French marshals were widely criticised for tipping the upside down March back on its wheels before Gugelmin had a chance to get out of the car.

The British Grand Prix at the very fast Silverstone circuit proved much the same – McLaren front row, Senna retiring from the lead after a spin, and Prost winning. Mansell finished second in his home race to please the British fans, whose Mansellmania coupled with the tifosi made for hysteria. Nannini finished third, Piquet 4th, while both Minardis , Martini followed by Pérez-Sala , took the final 2 points positions.

At this, the halfway point of the championship, Prost's lead over Senna had increased to 20 points; Britain was the 4th consecutive race Senna had retired from- and Prost had won 3 of those 4 races. Despite much talk, he downplayed the thought of a third championship. "I don't want to start talking about the championship, getting into all that," he said, "but I'm much happier now, yes. Motivated again. I've had no engine problems since Mexico, which is nice, and also I'm pleased to see Ferrari g...

At Hockenheim in Germany (another very fast circuit) however, Senna's bad luck ended after scoring a treble – pole, fastest lap and the win, but he had to fight almost all the way with Prost to do so. After both McLarens suffered bad mid-race stops for tyres, Prost emerged in the lead and looked to have the race in his grasp but lost top gear with less than two laps to go. Berger's pointless season continued with a tire puncture causing a spectacular accident and robbing him of a possible podium...

The dirty Hungaroring near Budapest provided an almost gripless practice and qualifying, that eventually led to the first non-McLaren pole position of the year – Riccardo Patrese made a Senna-like performance with a 0.31 gap between him and Senna. Another surprise was the equally impressive Alex Caffi , who scored third with a time less than a second slower than that of Patrese – in a car that had been notoriously midfield. The Ferraris, however, suffered badly. Mansell was over two seconds off ...

This eventually cost him a point scoring position, as the gearbox went on to fail. Countering this was Mansell's impressive 12th-to-first race, even overtaking Senna in the area he excelled most, lapping back markers – an impressive move on a track notorious for mediocre and unpassable races. He went on to compare the race to his win at Silverstone two years earlier and dedicated it to the late Enzo Ferrari , a year after the Old Man's death. Caffi's race was the exact counterpoint of Mansell's ...

A wet Spa showcased Senna's wet weather skills at their best. 'Magic' (Senna's nickname during the wet [ 40 ] ) shone that day to give him another win despite engine troubles that also befell Prost with Mansell in third saying that problems like that he could certainly use – he finished less than two seconds behind Senna. Boutsen, Nannini and Warwick, in that order, took the final three points-paying positions.

The Italian Grand Prix at the Monza Autodrome near Milan sealed the end of two things: Gerhard Berger's terrible season (he scored a second place on both the grid and in the race) and Prost's relationship with McLaren. Having become progressively distanced from the team due to his conflict with Senna, he announced his switch to Ferrari for 1990, and after inheriting the race win when Senna retired from the lead late on, he proceeded to give the trophy he had won to the tifosi . McLaren boss Ron ...

The World Championship was virtually decided in the thirteenth round at Estoril near Lisbon, as Prost finished second to Berger and Senna retired in controversial circumstances when he collided with Mansell, who had illegally reversed in the pit-lane and ignored the resultant black disqualification flags. Mansell was subsequently banned from the next race.

This was Prost's twelfth points finish of the season, which meant that he now had to drop points as only the eleven best points finishes counted, but he still led by 24 points with three races left.

Johansson finished a fine third for the struggling Onyx team (a result that meant they did not have to go through pre-qualifying in the first half of 1990), marveling at the car's performance on a low-grip track and speaking of optimism for Spain. Nannini finished in fourth, while Pierluigi Martini qualified fifth and finished in that position, also leading for one lap; the only time in the Minardi team's 21-year history that it led a Grand Prix. Tyrrell racing finished in sixth for the 2nd cons...

Senna kept the championship alive in Spain by taking pole position and leading throughout, beating Berger by almost half a minute at the Jerez circuit near Seville. Prost drove a cautious race and finished third, dropping more points, but it meant that Senna had to win both remaining races to have any chance of beating the Frenchman to the title. Meanwhile, Alesi scored another strong fourth place for the Tyrrell team. Finishing 5th was Patrese ahead of Philippe Alliot who would score the only p...

Then the Formula One circus arrived at Suzuka , Japan near Nagoya for the now infamous penultimate round for the championship. Prost said he would not leave the door open for his teammate, who he felt had made far too many risky moves on him. [ 41 ]

Senna took pole, but Prost beat him away from the grid and led by 1.4 seconds by the end of the first lap. By lap 15, however, Senna was all over the back of Prost's McLaren after moving through both Williams and Benettons. He whittled down Prost's 5 second lead to just under a second by lap 30, but the latter pulled a few seconds ahead by the 35th lap. By the end of lap 46, with 7 to go, the gap was just over a second. Senna, further back than he had been earlier in the race, made a move on Pro...

After pitting for repairs, Senna worked his way past both Williams and the Benettons to take a three-second victory. However, his altercation with Prost seven laps earlier meant he had missed the chicane and, according to FIA and FISA president Jean Marie Balestre , had not completed the lap. It is worth noting that many drivers in previous races had used the escape roads near chicanes after on-track incidents, as is customary, without receiving penalties. A penalty could have been given for res...

McLaren went on to appeal the decision. With the matter hanging in the air, Senna went on record saying it was a plot and conspiracy against him by Balestre, who he said favoured Prost. Senna would comment again on the matter after sealing his 1991 championship, reiterating his belief that he had been unfairly treated.

The final round at Adelaide saw the race run under heavy rain. Prost elected to withdraw at the end of the first lap in such torrentially wet conditions and would score no points. Senna, who considered quitting in protest of his disqualification in the previous race, was convinced to race by friends and team members. Starting from pole, by lap ten he had over 30 seconds to the Williams pair and counting. Instead of relaxing, he continued to push in poor visibility. On lap 13, he ran into the rea...

The Australian Grand Prix was overshadowed by the ongoing controversy surrounding the Japanese race, but once the appeals had been considered, Prost was crowned the champion for the third time.

Points were awarded to the top six classified finishers. For the Drivers' Championship, the best eleven results were counted, while, for the Constructors' Championship, all rounds were counted.

Numbers without parentheses are championship points; numbers in parentheses are total points scored. Points were awarded in the following system:

† Driver did not finish the Grand Prix, but was classified as he completed over 90% of the race distance.

The 1989 season also included a single event which did not count towards the World Championship, the Formula One Indoor Trophy at the Bologna Motor Show .