Pre-qualifying
Pre-qualifying had been reorganised going into the second half of the season; no points in the first half of the season meant that the Larrousse team with their Lamborghini V12 engines joined the session, where Philippe Alliot was now partnered by Michele Alboreto who had left Tyrrell over a rumored sponsorship dispute before the French Grand Prix (Alboreto was personally sponsored by Marlboro and Ken Tyrrell had signed the rival Camel brand as the team's major sponsor). Despite his 6th place finish at the Mexican Grand Prix, this was not enough to prevent Gabriele Tarquini from having to pre-qualify his AGS, so the Italian now joined his new team mate Yannick Dalmas in the session. Stefano Modena's 3rd place and team mate Martin Brundle's 6th place finish at the Monaco Grand Prix resulted in the Brabham team no longer having to pre-qualify for the remainder of the season, while Alex Caffi's 4th place in the same race also meant he would not have to pre-qualify his Dallara either. Volker Weidler also found himself free of pre-qualifying thanks to his Rial team mate Christian Danner's 4th place finish at the United States Grand Prix, despite the fact he had never finished any of the pre-qualifying sessions beforehand in a position higher than 7th. In the pre-qualifying session itself, Alboreto beat Dalmas by mere 0.001 second for the last berth in the qualifying sessions.
Read more about this topic: 1989 German Grand Prix