Report
There were two changes to the entry list, the first was at Lotus where Johnny Herbert was replaced by young German Michael Bartels because of the former's Japanese Formula 3000 commitments, and the second was at Footwork where Alex Caffi was back in action after his road accident. Elsewhere Satoru Nakajima announced he would retire at the end of the year. The pre-qualifying draw was also redrawn, with Dallara, Modena, and Jordan escaping the Friday morning dungeon, and condemning Brabham, AGS, and Footwork to join Fondmetal and Coloni in the jittery Friday morning session.
In Saturday Practice Érik Comas had a massive accident in his Ligier, the French driver was unhurt, but it raised questions about the safety of the second chicane. Qualifying saw Nigel Mansell take pole from title rival Ayrton Senna. Gerhard Berger was third, followed by Riccardo Patrese, Alain Prost, Jean Alesi, Andrea de Cesaris, Nelson Piquet, Roberto Moreno, and Pierluigi Martini in the Minardi, taking full advantage of his Ferrari engine around the high speed circuit.
On Sunday, a couple of hours before the race, there was a FIA driver's meeting and Senna requested to race director Roland Brunseryade that the tire walls at the chicanes be replaced with traffic cones because of the possibly of hitting the tires and rolling; that happened to him during qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix, and this heated up when FIA president Jean-Marie Balestre, Senna and a few other drivers had a brief argument over the regulations involving safety. Balestre then instigated a democratic vote, and the vote went towards removing the tire walls and replacing them with traffic cones.
At the start of the race, Mansell made a great start while Berger slotted into second ahead of team-mate Senna, with Prost, Patrese, and Alesi rounding out the top six. At the back Mark Blundell collided with Nicola Larini, Blundell continued, but Larini's day was over. Berger made a bad pit-stop and fell back to tenth, while Prost started to reel in Senna. Mansell was running away at the front and when he pitted for tyres he dropped just behind Alesi, but did not waste time in changing the situation and passed Alesi two laps later to re-take the lead. While Mansell was surging away, a tremendous battle developed for third place between Senna, Prost, and Patrese, with Riccardo beating both men before setting off after Alesi. Senna and Prost continued to squabble over fourth and the major talking point came on lap 37 when Prost attempted to pass Senna going into the first chicane. Prost was faster and tried to go around the outside, Senna would not give way and Prost went off and proceeded to stall the engine. Prost blamed Senna and said he would not be so forgiving the next time while Senna accused Prost of complaining for the sake of complaining. Meanwhile Mansell cruised to his third straight win, leading home Patrese, Alesi, Berger, de Cesaris, and Gachot, Senna having run out of fuel on the last lap for the second straight race, allowing Mansell to close to within eight points of Senna in the drivers championship.
Read more about this topic: 1991 German Grand Prix
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