Background
Winter testing had indicated Ferrari would be maintaining the edge that they had gained at the end of the 1987 season despite only having an updated version of their 1987 car, with McLaren-Honda and Williams-Judd also producing cars that looked like potential race winners. During the qualifying session there was controversy when Nelson Piquet made comments in the local media publicly insulting Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell, Mansell's wife Roxanne, and both drivers' families. BMS Dallara's Alex Caffi had to use a modified Formula 3000 chassis because the Formula One chassis was not ready.
Drivers making their debut in Rio were: Mauricio Gugelmin (March-Judd), Luis Perez-Sala (Minardi-Ford), Oscar Larrauri (EuroBrun-Ford), Julian Bailey (Tyrrell-Ford) and Bernd Schneider (Zakspeed), with Bailey and Schneider failing to qualify.
EuroBrun (with Larrauri and Stefano Modena) and Rial Racing (with Andrea de Cesaris as its sole driver) were making their F1 debuts as constructors. It was something of a return for both teams, the "Euro Racing" part of the Eurobrun team had run the factory backed Alfa Romeo team from 1982-1985, while Rial was run by German Günther Schmid, ex-owner of the ATS team who were in Grand Prix racing from 1977-1984. Both teams would use the 3.5L Ford DFZ V8 engine.
Read more about this topic: 1988 Brazilian Grand Prix
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