Race Summary
McLaren notched up the last front row of the season, with Ayrton Senna taking his 13th pole of the season after a great qualifying duel. Alain Prost led off the start from Senna, Gerhard Berger, Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell, and by lap 4 the lead had grown to 5.5 seconds. Michele Alboreto's Ferrari was an early retirement after being hit by Alex Caffi's Dallara.
Berger passed Senna on that lap at the second-gear Racetrack Hairpin and began a determined drive, passing Prost at the same place on lap 14. By lap 23 he had a three second lead coming up to lap Stefano Modena and René Arnoux. The Ligier turned in and took Berger off, handing Prost the lead. This left the McLarens in their usual 1–2 position although Senna was battling a faulty gearbox. Piquet was maintaining third ahead of the Williams of Riccardo Patrese and Mansell. The Italian made several attempts to pass Piquet, but was hampered by a lack of power on the straights.
On lap 53 Patrese spun, letting Mansell past, but he was equally unsuccessful in passing Piquet and eventually retired when his brakes failed and he hit the wall on lap 66. By lap 59 Prost was putting in a succession of fast laps, gaining a lead of over 30 seconds and lapping the whole field up to 5th placed Andrea de Cesaris' Rial who had driven up from 15th in an underpowered car.
The circuit's demanding nature was obvious: Satoru Nakajima and Maurício Gugelmin collided, Alessandro Nannini spun, Jonathan Palmer retired with transmission problems, whilst engine problems claimed Derek Warwick and Eddie Cheever and driveshaft failures accounted for Stefano Modena and Oscar Larrauri. Alex Caffi succumbed to clutch failure and Philippe Alliot ran out of fuel.
At the finish, only eleven cars were classified of which just seven reached the chequered flag with three cars running out of fuel in the closing laps and Philippe Streiff having an electrical failure in his AGS JH23 in the last nine laps. Prost led home Senna in yet another McLaren 1–2, Piquet claimed third and Patrese fourth. De Cesaris' Rial – which had the smallest fuel tank in the field – ran dry just four laps from home, handing fifth place to Thierry Boutsen despite a spin and a stuttering engine, whilst Ivan Capelli came home sixth despite a puncture.
This was the last race in which turbocharged cars, introduced by Equipe Renault in 1977, would be permitted to compete as new regulations for 1989 allowed only normally aspirated engines to race, due to increasing concerns in safety regarding the speeds the cars were reaching with 351.22km/h (218.23mph) seen in 1986 as well as the cost involved with companies like Honda and Ferrari spending countless millions on R&D for their engines. Banning the turbos was the FIA's attempt at reducing costs in F1.
There was also some criticism of the scoring system. Prost scored 105 points during the season and finished first or second in each race he completed. However, Senna won the World Championship scoring only 94 points, including a fourth and a sixth but had won 8 races to Prost's 7. This was because of the "discard rule", which counted only the best eleven results of the year toward the Championship total; this meant that Prost ended the season with 87 and Senna with 90, the system would not change until 1991. Senna become only the second champion after John Surtees to win the Championship without having scored the largest number of points.
Read more about this topic: 1988 Australian Grand Prix
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