Qualifying
The two McLarens lined up in their usual front row places, ahead of the two Ferraris, but, for the first time that season, it wasn't Ayrton Senna on pole. A newly motivated Alain Prost had stopped Senna taking a record seventh straight pole with a time of 1:07.589, half a second in front of his team mate. Behind the Ferrari-filled second row were the two normally aspirated Benetton-Fords, a great performance at a fast circuit like Paul Ricard and ahead of the two Lotus-Hondas that filled row 4.
Nigel Mansell, who 12 months earlier had sat on the pole with a time of 1:06.454 in his Williams-Honda turbo, could only manage ninth place on the grid with a time of 1:10.337 in his normally aspirated Williams-Judd.
Ligier, the leading French team in Formula One at the time, had a disastrous weekend with both René Arnoux and Stefan Johansson failing to qualify for the team's home Grand Prix, though they did have a celebration of sorts over the weekend as Arnoux turned 40 the day after the race. Also failing to qualify were the Zakspeed turbo of Piercarlo Ghinzani and the Tyrrell of Julian Bailey. Ghinzani was excluded for missing a weight check.
Read more about this topic: 1988 French Grand Prix