1987 British Grand Prix

United Kingdom  1987 British Grand Prix
Race details
Race 7 of 16 in the 1987 Formula One season
Date 12 July 1987
Official name XL Shell Oils British Grand Prix
Location Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone, Great Britain
Course Permanent racing facility
Course length 4.778 km (2.969 mi)
Distance 65 laps, 310.570 km (192.979 mi)
Weather Sunny and warm
Pole position
Driver Williams-Honda
Time 1:07.110
Fastest lap
Driver United Kingdom Nigel Mansell Williams-Honda
Time 1:09.832 on lap 58
Podium
First Williams-Honda
Second Williams-Honda
Third Lotus-Honda

The 1987 British Grand Prix (formally the XL Shell Oils British Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held on 12 July 1987 at the Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone. It was the seventh race of the 1987 Formula One season. It was the 42nd British Grand Prix and the 23rd to be held at Silverstone. The race was held over 65 laps of the five kilometre circuit for race distance of 311 kilometres.

British driver Nigel Mansell won his third race for the year in his Williams FW11B. For the second time in eight days Mansell hunted down his more illustrious team mate Brazilian two-time World Champion Nelson Piquet to take victory. This time though Mansell was a lot further back with less time than at the French Grand Prix. In one of the most memorable performances in Formula One, Mansell took the lead from Piquet with two laps remaining. Ayrton Senna finished third in his Lotus 99T.

Mansell's win put him into second place in the championship, tied with Piquet and one point behind Senna.

Race summary

Qualifying

As usual, Honda-powered cars dominated the qualifying sessions, with Nelson Piquet taking pole position from Williams team-mate Nigel Mansell by seven-hundredths of a second, and Ayrton Senna third in his Lotus despite being a full second slower than Mansell. Alain Prost was fourth in his McLaren, while the Benettons of Thierry Boutsen and Teo Fabi were fifth and sixth, and the Ferraris of Michele Alboreto and Gerhard Berger seventh and eighth. Completing the top ten were Andrea de Cesaris in the Brabham and Stefan Johansson in the second McLaren.

During qualifying, Piercarlo Ghinzani's Ligier ran out of fuel in front of the pits. His mechanics jumped the pit wall, refuelled him on the track and then push-started him, a clear violation of the rules leading to Ghinzani's exclusion from the remainder of the event. Before the incident, the Italian had set a time which would have put him 19th on the grid.

Race

At the start, Prost was the quickest and took the lead, only to be passed by Piquet at Maggotts; Mansell soon followed his team mate. The race then became a close fight between the two Williams drivers, as neither Senna (also Honda powered) nor Prost were a match for them. Lotus were finding that while the active suspension worked well on bumpy street circuits, at smoother tracks like Silverstone finding balance with the car was proving difficult. Piquet led most of the race.

By lap 35 Mansell was around 2 seconds behind his team-mate. Both Williams drivers were scheduled to complete the race without a tyre change, but Mansell and the team elected to make a stop in order to change tyres. Mansell rejoined the race some 29 seconds behind Piquet, with 28 laps remaining. On fresh rubber Mansell began an epic charge which saw the lap record broken 8 times to the delight of the over 100,000 strong British crowd.

By lap 62 the two cars were nose to tail and on lap 63 Mansell performed his now famous 'Silverstone Two Step' move, selling Piquet a dummy on the Hangar Straight and then diving down the inside into Stowe Corner. 2 corners after crossing the finish line, Mansell's car slowed down and was engulfed by the crowd. Initially it was thought that he had run out of fuel, but he had actually blown up the engine, out of the stress of running the last 6 laps on "Q" mode (which gives the engine +100hp), and risking running out of fuel at any moment (his fuel display was reading "minus 2.5 laps"). In fact that incident was the last straw for the patience of the Honda management, since it had - again - threatened their easily-attainable 1, 2 result. Honda moved to McLaren the following year, leaving Williams with no options but to sign for underpowered Judd V8 units. Nelson Piquet went on to sign with Lotus on the following weeks, a move that kept Honda powering that team in 1988 as well. [1] Senna finished a quiet race in third place while his team mate Satoru Nakajima had his best F1 finish by coming home 4th. Rounding out the points were Derek Warwick (Arrows-Megatron) and Teo Fabi (Benetton-Ford).

Classification

Qualifying

Pos No Driver Constructor Time Gap Grid
1 6 Brazil Nelson Piquet Williams-Honda 1:07.110 1
2 5 United Kingdom Nigel Mansell Williams-Honda 1:07.180 +0.070 2
3 12 Brazil Ayrton Senna Lotus-Honda 1:08.181 +1.071 3
4 1 France Alain Prost McLaren-TAG 1:08.577 +1.467 4
5 20 Belgium Thierry Boutsen Benetton-Ford 1:08.972 +1.862 5
6 19 Italy Teo Fabi Benetton-Ford 1:09.246 +2.136 6
7 27 Italy Michele Alboreto Ferrari 1:09.274 +2.164 7
8 28 Austria Gerhard Berger Ferrari 1:09.408 +2.298 8
9 8 Italy Andrea de Cesaris Brabham-BMW 1:09.475 +2.365 9
10 2 Sweden Stefan Johansson McLaren-TAG 1:09.541 +2.431 10
11 7 Italy Riccardo Patrese Brabham-BMW 1:10.012 +2.902 11
12 11 Japan Satoru Nakajima Lotus-Honda 1:10.619 +3.509 12
13 17 United Kingdom Derek Warwick Arrows-Megatron 1:10.654 +3.544 13
14 18 United States Eddie Cheever Arrows-Megatron 1:11.053 +3.943 14
15 24 Italy Alessandro Nannini Minardi-Motori Moderni 1:12.293 +5.183 15
16 25 France René Arnoux Ligier-Megatron 1:12.402 +5.292 16
17 9 United Kingdom Martin Brundle Zakspeed 1:12.632 +5.522 17
18 10 West Germany Christian Danner Zakspeed 1:13.337 +6.227 18
19 26 Italy Piercarlo Ghinzani Ligier-Megatron 1:13.381 +6.271 EX
20 23 Spain Adrián Campos Minardi-Motori Moderni 1:13.793 +6.683 19
21 21 Italy Alex Caffi Osella-Alfa Romeo 1:15.558 +8.448 20
22 30 France Philippe Alliot Lola-Ford 1:15.868 +8.758 21
23 4 France Philippe Streiff Tyrrell-Ford 1:16.524 +9.414 22
24 3 United Kingdom Jonathan Palmer Tyrrell-Ford 1:16.644 +9.534 23
25 16 Italy Ivan Capelli March-Ford 1:16.692 +9.582 24
26 14 France Pascal Fabre AGS-Ford 1:18.237 +11.127 25

Race

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

Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points
1 5 United Kingdom Nigel Mansell Williams-Honda 65 1:19:11.780 2 9
2 6 Brazil Nelson Piquet Williams-Honda 65 + 1.918 1 6
3 12 Brazil Ayrton Senna Lotus-Honda 64 + 1 Lap 3 4
4 11 Japan Satoru Nakajima Lotus-Honda 63 + 2 Laps 12 3
5 17 United Kingdom Derek Warwick Arrows-Megatron 63 + 2 Laps 13 2
6 19 Italy Teo Fabi Benetton-Ford 63 + 2 Laps 6 1
7 20 Belgium Thierry Boutsen Benetton-Ford 62 + 3 Laps 5  
8 (1) 3 United Kingdom Jonathan Palmer Tyrrell-Ford 60 + 5 Laps 23  
9 (2) 14 France Pascal Fabre AGS-Ford 59 + 6 Laps 25  
Ret 4 France Philippe Streiff Tyrrell-Ford 57 Engine 22  
NC 9 United Kingdom Martin Brundle Zakspeed 54 Not Classified 17  
Ret 1 France Alain Prost McLaren-TAG 53 Engine 4  
Ret 27 Italy Michele Alboreto Ferrari 52 Suspension 7  
Ret 18 United States Eddie Cheever Arrows-Megatron 45 Engine 14  
Ret 23 Spain Adrián Campos Minardi-Motori Moderni 34 Fuel System 19  
Ret 21 Italy Alex Caffi Osella-Alfa Romeo 32 Engine 20  
Ret 10 West Germany Christian Danner Zakspeed 32 Gearbox 18  
Ret 7 Italy Riccardo Patrese Brabham-BMW 28 Turbo 11  
Ret 2 Sweden Stefan Johansson McLaren-TAG 18 Engine 10  
Ret 24 Italy Alessandro Nannini Minardi-Motori Moderni 10 Engine 15  
Ret 8 Italy Andrea de Cesaris Brabham-BMW 8 Turbo 9  
Ret 28 Austria Gerhard Berger Ferrari 7 Accident 8  
Ret 30 France Philippe Alliot Lola-Ford 7 Gearbox 21  
Ret 25 France René Arnoux Ligier-Megatron 3 Electrical 16  
Ret 16 Italy Ivan Capelli March-Ford 3 Accident 24  
EX 26 Italy Piercarlo Ghinzani Ligier-Megatron 0 Excluded 19  
Source:[2]

Notes

Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings
Pos Driver Points
1 Brazil Ayrton Senna 31
2 United Kingdom Nigel Mansell 30
3 Brazil Nelson Piquet 30
4 France Alain Prost 26
5 Sweden Stefan Johansson 13

Constructors' Championship standings
Pos Constructor Points
1 United Kingdom Williams-Honda 60
2 United Kingdom McLaren-TAG 39
3 United Kingdom Lotus-Honda 37
4 Italy Ferrari 17
5 United Kingdom Arrows-Megatron 6

Jim Clark Trophy standings
Pos Driver Points
1 United Kingdom Jonathan Palmer 42
2 France Pascal Fabre 34
3 France Philippe Streiff 30
4 France Philippe Alliot 15
5 Italy Ivan Capelli 6

Colin Chapman Trophy standings
Pos Constructor Points
1 United Kingdom Tyrrell-Ford 72
2 France AGS-Ford 32
3 France Lola-Ford 15
4 United Kingdom March-Ford 6

References

  1. "Honda engines report" (PDF). Honda. 26 April 2001. Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  2. "1987 British Grand Prix". formula1.com. Archived from the original on 3 November 2014. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
Previous race:
1987 French Grand Prix
FIA Formula One World Championship
1987 season
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1987 German Grand Prix
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1986 British Grand Prix
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1988 British Grand Prix
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