Qualifying
As expected, the two McLarens dominated qualifying. Even so, Senna was easily the class of the field, posting a time over a second and a half faster than team-mate Prost. The Ferraris of Gerhard Berger and Nigel Mansell filled the second row, with Berger just edging his own team-mate into fourth place by two tenths of a second. The Williams of Riccardo Patrese was half a second behind Mansell in fifth place, and joining him on row three was fellow Italian Alessandro Nannini in his Benetton. Behind Nannini positions were closely contested, with only six tenths of a second covering the next six qualifying times, including that of former World Champion Nelson Piquet's Lotus in eleventh position. Jonathan Palmer's Tyrrell took the final grid slot in twenty-sixth place, while thirteen drivers failed to qualify.
Read more about this topic: 1989 Japanese Grand Prix