Qualifying
Pre-qualifying eliminated both the Zakspeeds. This would be their last entry in a Formula One race, providing a finishing touch for what had been a horrible season for the outfit, who were once headlined to be the next Ferrari. Ghinzani pre-qualified in his last race while Nicola Larini and Philippe Alliot both drove impressively to pre-qualify. The other driver was JJ Lehto in an Onyx. The two surprises were Michele Alboreto and Stefan Johansson both former Ferrari drivers, who were both very disappointing and failed to pre-qualify. All four pre-qualifiers were under Gerhard Berger's 1987 lap record.
Friday Qualifying saw Prost pip Senna to pole, with Thierry Boutsen impressing to come within under a tenth of a second behind Senna in third. Pierluigi Martini also impressed with fourth in his Minardi. The positions 4th-9th were filled with Italians with Alessandro Nannini fifth, Riccardo Patrese sixth, Stefano Modena doing well to come seventh, followed by the two Dallaras of Andrea de Cesaris ahead of team-mate Alex Caffi. British driver Martin Brundle was 10th. Ferrari were all at sea even before the downpour on Sunday and were very disappointing with Berger eleventh and Nigel Mansell way down in 16th.
Saturday was cooler, and Senna did a spectacular lap to qualify below the 1:17s, to take pole overall for the race. Prost did not improve and settled for 2nd, while Martini did an excellent lap to beat Nannini to third by just one tenth. The two Williamses were fifth and sixth with Nigel Mansell doing much better to qualify seventh going a second faster than he did on Friday while Berger, in his last race for Ferrari before joining McLaren in 1990, fell to 14th. Berger was unable to better his Friday time as his car experienced engine failure on the track and he was forced to use Mansell's race car for his qualifying run which was halted when the onboard fire extinguisher was triggered (Berger couldn't use the spare Ferrari as it reportedly had a development engine planned for 1990 and it was strictly for Mansell's use only. Rumor has it that McLaren boss Ron Dennis popped his head into the Ferrari garage and jokingly told Berger he could use the spare McLaren if he wished). The Dallaras were a remarkable 9th and 10th on the grid with Nicola Larini in the Osella in his (and the team's) highest qualifying result in 11th.
Only 24 seconds before the end of the final qualifying session Eddie Cheever in his Arrows-Ford caused the red flag to be shown as he had heavily crashed his car at the entrance to the pit straight directly opposite the pits. Television viewers worldwide were treated to a drivers eye view of the accident as the Arrows of Cheever and Derek Warwick were carrying forward facing cameras for the weekend. Coming out of the final hairpin onto pit straight Cheever ran wide and went over the curbing and hit the concrete wall that protected the grandstand from the cars severely damaging the left front and rear of the car and leaving a large pool of oil on the racing surface as the car came to rest laying across the middle of the track. Cheever himself was unharmed, after he threw his steering wheel away in disgust he climbed from the car, ran across the track and jumped the wall into the pits.
The four unfortunate ones that failed to qualify were Jonathan Palmer in his Tyrrell, which would be his last race before being a pit lane reporter for the BBC. Luis Perez-Sala in the Minardi, significantly slower than teammate Martini, and the two Rials, in what was also their last race. Despite an excellent fourth for Christian Danner at the Phoenix Grand Prix, it was not enough to save the team for next season. Bertrand Gachot and Pierre-Henri Raphanel were two seconds slower than Sala.
Read more about this topic: 1989 Australian Grand Prix