1988: Senna clinches first title

Friday. Ayrton's day. Thirty-one drivers were in Suzuka for the Japanese Grand Prix, but nearly all the attention was given over to just two. It's that time of the season. Nearly all next year's contracts have been signed, and most people by now are thinking ahead to holidays, rest, a break from Formula 1. This is a long trip, relieved for many, between Suzuka and Adelaide, by a few days in Hamilton Island or Bali, places like that.

Senna and Prost, though, had something else to consider - indeed, it is hard to imagine Ayrton's mind considering anything other than Formula 1, even if he were no longer involved in this year's World Championship. But he is. Deeply. He wants that title perhaps more than anyone ever has. At Suzuka, indeed, there were muttered rumours that if he were to win it he just might quit at season's end, go home to his beloved Sao Paulo, find some peace.

For now, though, there was Suzuka to consider. If he won the race, he won the championship; it was that simple. But four points from three races have not been good for his morale. As long ago as Spa he seemed to have the title bought and paid for - even Prost acknowledged it. Publicly, anyway... Then Alain dominated Estoril and Jerez, and the whole thing was alive again.

On paper, even more than usual this had to be a McLaren-Honda race. Emanuele Pirro has tested endlessly for the team this year, nearly all of his work at Suzuka. A staggering 8000 miles the Italian has logged, so between them there is not too much McLaren and Honda need to find out about Suzuka. It was therefore no surprise to find Prost and Senna at the top of the times on Friday morning.

Alain, however, was not feeling great. "I slept for about an hour last night," he said. "No more than that. I should have taken a pill, I suppose, but the later it got the more I was afraid to, in case I was drowsy through the morning..."

Still, he felt a little better in the afternoon - about himself, anyway. Not so his car. In the untimed session, he said, the engine had been fine, but in qualifying set-up it seemed down on power. "The biggest problem, though, was the throttle response," he reckoned. "There was much more lag than usual, and the effect of that is understeer. Then the power would come in abruptly, which gives you wheel-spin.

"I went wrong on set-up this afternoon, too," Prost went on. "As it got cleaner, the track surface changed, and we altered the settings to cope with it. Obviously," he concluded, "we went the wrong way. But tomorrow has to be better in all ways, I think."

Nevertheless, Alain was third at the end of the opening day, behind Senna and Berger. And Ayrton was quite happy with his car. Indeed, some said, he nearly smiled as he talked about it.

The spare McLaren was his on the first day, and it was this he used to set his best time: "I tried both cars this morning, and decided to concentrate on the T-car for qualifying. First set was good - I got a clear lap, and that was my best time. On the second set, there was too much traffic while the tyres were at their best, so I decided it was better to wait until tomorrow to try for a quicker lap."

Senna's poor fortunes in the recent past - retired, sixth, fourth - were perhaps responsible for FISA President Jean-Marie Balestre's extraordinary letter to Mr Kume, the President of Honda, 10 days ago. A letter, it should be remembered, he chose also to issue to the press.

After congratulating the company on its Formula 1 successes this year, Balestre reminded Mr Kume that "...all over the world eyes will be riveted on the Japanese and Australian Grands Prix, the results of which will be decisive for the drivers."

Fine so far. Then, unbelievably, JMB plunged into this: "We should make every effort to ensure that utmost technical objectivity reigns over these two competitions, and that equipment (car or engine) of equal quality be made available to the two drivers of the McLaren team, for otherwise the image of the World Championship, present and future, would be tarnished."

And he wasn't finished yet. "I thank you in advance," he concluded, "for helping the FIA to achieve this end by giving the necessary instructions to all the Honda technical executives who may play a part in these two forthcoming events."

Couched in (by Balestre standards) diplomatic language, the message seemed fairly unequivocal: make sure, you Honda people, that you don't favour one driver or the other. Most reasonable people would go along with the sentiment, but it seemed inappropriate coming from the head of the governing body...

Perhaps Mr Kume saw it that way, too. In an exquisitely, icily polite reply, he had this to say: "Honda Motor Company Ltd sees fairness as the highest requirement of its philosophy for conducting business, and sets this quality as an ideology in its corporate dealings."

Wordy, perhaps, but worthy, too. And Mr Kume finished by saying this: "For the last two races, Honda will continue to supply identical engines which will allow the drivers supreme examples of their skills, as we have always done in line with our basic ideology." He then thanked Balestre for "consistently performing your important role as President of the FIA."

The omission of the word "well" in the final remark was presumably accidental. Wasn't it? Either way, Honda was clearly neither amused nor impressed by Balestre's 'public warning'.

Senna may have been upset by his mysterious fuel read-out problems in Estoril and Jerez, but he seemed not to have any pressing need to worry at Suzuka, being almost 1.5secs quicker than anyone else on the first day. Berger, dominant here last year when the Ferrari V6 and 4 bar boost finally came together well, did a fine job to split the McLarens, although he doubted his ability to remain there in the final session.

"As for the race," Gerhard said, "I can't see we'll be able to stay with the McLarens. Fuel consumption again, that will be the problem." He used the spare Ferrari to set his best time, troubled by a sticking throttle on the race car.

Team mate Michele Alboreto was beaten only by the McLarens in the morning, but spun twice in the qualifying session, and slipped back to seventh. Frustrated by a poor engine, he said, he had taken off a lot of wing in an effort to compensate. It didn't work, but Michele - about to become number 1 in the reconstituted Brabham team - seemed unconcerned.

"Suzuka," Nigel Mansell said on Friday morning, "is a turbo circuit - a power circuit." And the times seemed to bear him out. Even Senna was more than 2 secs away from Berger's '4 bar' pole time of 1987. Even with the reduction this season to 2.5, qualifying times have generally been quicker than ever. But not at Suzuka.

Mansell was, therefore, agreeably surprised to find himself fourth fastest on the first day. Bodywork revisions to the Williams quite markedly improved the aerodynamics, and Nigel was pleased with his car:" I didn't expect to be as high as this," he said, leaving the circuit before the end of the session, and with some zest. What was the hurry? "I've eaten something," he said, "and I'm not feeling too good..." Quite so.

Only a tenth slower than Mansell - and causing no surprise these days - was the March of Ivan Capelli, who complained of too much understeer in the slow corners during the morning, but managed to find a much better balance for qualifying. Through the fast corners the March, as usual, looked the most stable car out there. Mauricio Gugelmin, half a second slower, had a difficult session, involving a puncture on his first set of tyres, an engine misfire on his second. Both men thought there was a great deal more to come on the second day.

So, too, did the Benetton drivers, Thierry Boutsen sixth and Sandra Nannini eighth. Their only problem of consequence, they said, was traffic. Give us a clear lap tomorrow, they added, and we'll be much quicker.

There was tremendous sympathy for home boy Nakajima, who learned half an hour before practice of his mother's death. In the circumstances, Satoru showed immense courage and resolve even to get into the Lotus, but he drove superbly on Friday morning, setting sixth fastest time, two clear seconds faster than team mate Nelson Piquet.

In the afternoon he was troubled by a succession of faulty pop-off valves, all of which were opening too early, but still he finished the day in 10th place, and still he was a fraction ahead of Piquet, who was another man - like Prost - to be feeling a little sick and jet-lagged.

Outside the top 10 at this 'turbo circuit' were the turbocharged Arrows-Megatrons of Eddie Cheever and Derek Warwick. "Because this is a quick track, we're using big turbos here," Eddie explained, "which is good for power, but gives us terrible throttle lag. That's our biggest problem."

In the final session Warwick nearly had a far bigger one. At around 170mph a rear tyre exploded, the result, it transpired, of running over a manhole cover... "Why the hell the thing wasn't firmly in the hole I can't understand," Derek said. "There were tyre marks on it, so people had been running over it all day. When I hit it, it was plucked out and flung into the air. After the session I went back to have a look at what had happened; the manhole cover was there, and I could hardly lift it! So imagine what might have happened if it had landed on someone..."

Further down the field it was the usual story, except that Streiff's AGS and Martini's Minardi surprisingly beat Caffi's Dallara. Palmer as usual did well with the clumsy Tyrrell, and the EuroBruns, Ligiers and Zakspeeds were again disastrous.

And there was one driver change. Japanese F3000 Champion Aguri Suzuki appeared in the second of Gerard Larrousse's Lolas, replacing Yannick Dalmas, who was suffering from an ear infection. This was not caused, as some cynic suggested, by having too many yen forced into it, and Suzuki did a fine job on his first day in a Formula 1 car, lapping a little over 1 sec slower than regular team man Philippe Alliot.

Saturday. Ayrton's day again, but less decisively so. The weather, for one thing, was unsettled. Through the morning there was a lot of blue sky and sun, as on Friday, but cloud was dotted around, too, and some of it was pretty black. Forecasters put the chance of rain at 10%; those on the spot thought them optimistic. Still, there was a gusty wind blowing, so maybe any shower would be brief.

For most of the morning session Senna concentrated on running full tanks - perhaps no bad plan after his experiences in Portugal and Spain: it was in the early laps there that he was most obviously unable to stay with Prost. And he decided to stick, for the balance of the weekend, with the spare McLaren-Honda.

His original race car, therefore, was now the spare, and Prost began the morning session with it, also intending to run full tanks. Very shortly after the start, however, he was back into the pits with a fuel leak, and he hopped smartly out to douse his hands and upper body with water before the 'burns' had a chance to take hold. Although he'd had a good night's sleep this time, his stomach was still queasy, so all told his Japanese trip was still looking a little bleak.

His original race car, therefore, was now the spare, and Prost began the morning session with it, also intending to run full tanks. Very shortly after the start, however, he was back into the pits with a fuel leak, and he hopped smartly out to douse his hands and upper body with
This mishap meant putting Alain's race car into 'full tank' set-up, and he devoted most of the morning to getting it right, going out for a quick run only at the very end of the session. Senna did the same.

During the lunchbreak, though, Prost felt a deal more optimistic. On Friday he had run with new front wing 'skirts', and they had flexed too much, accounting for some of his dissatisfaction with the car's balance. Now it was back to standard, and he liked it much more. Too, his engine was working well now, and he also felt much better. In sum, he expected to go a lot quicker in the timed session.

And he did. Within 5mins he had taken 1sec from his Friday time, and was onto the front row with Senna. It looked as if his decision to go out early had been a wise one, too. There had been odd spots of rain shortly before one o'clock, and by 10 past umbrellas were going up on the hillsides. But the shower didn't last long, and by 1.30 the track was quite dry once more.

Out they came again - but only briefly, for Gugelmin put his March into a barrier, and the session was red-flagged.

And out they came again. A lot of them. Prost thought he was on a quick lap, but Stefano Modena had other ideas, declining to let the McLaren by. Alain backed off. It was the first of several such frustrations for him - which must have been further increased when Senna came out, found a clear lap and duly improved going even quicker than before.

Ayrton was now under 1:42, the only man to be so. Only his team mate, indeed, was below 1:43. That looked to be that: Senna had his 12th pole position of the season, the 28th of his career.

Prost, though, felt it was still his for the taking - if he could find an unhindered lap. And right at the end of the session he did. It was clearly an exceptional lap, obviously his fastest so far, maybe the pole. Into the final chicane, out of it, and the stopwatch looked right. But over the line the number 11 McLaren was still 0.3secs away from number 12...

"My fault," Alain admitted, as he always does. "That was my only absolutely clear lap all day, and I was sure I could take the pole. It was good all the way round - until I accelerated down to the finishing line, and got second instead of fourth. Stupid! Still, I know I am competitive for tomorrow. My only problem was with the pop-off valve, which was cutting in a bit early."

His humour was good. Senna, by contrast, may have been on pole position yet again, but wore his usual po-faced and bored expression. The face of so much modern professional sport, and remarkably unattractive and graceless, too.

"My first set of tyres was badly out of balance, so I only went hard on the second," he commented. Had his quick lap been clear? "Yes." A babble of conversation, our Ayrton.

Yet again, therefore, we had ourselves an all-McLaren front row. Pole position at Suzuka is on the right, the unused side of the track, the dirty side. Was Prost therefore in a better situation, like Senna in Estoril, when their positions were reversed? We wouldn't know that until one o'clock on Sunday afternoon. All we did know was this would be one crucial start.

Berger slipped but one place on Saturday, despite improving only marginally on his time from the first day. In the morning he spun luridly into a tyre barrier, damaging the nose and front suspension of the Ferrari. "I tried the car in low downforce trim," he grinned. "Took a lot of wing off - too much, obviously! But I'm happy enough to be third on the grid. To be honest, I thought that was my best hope, and the same goes for the race, too."

Alboreto was fastest of all in the morning, and really attacked in final qualifying, but all his efforts were wasted, his engine persistently cutting out. A second quicker than before, he may have been, but he qualified only ninth.

The sensation of Saturday afternoon was Capelli, who worked the March up to fourth place, the only non-turbo in the first seven. "We got the car balanced almost perfectly in the morning," Ivan said, and I was really upset when it rained so early in the last session..."

"We don't use tyre blankets for pre-heating, because we've found they can cause temperature fluctuation problems," commented Ian Phillips. "We prefer the drivers to warm the tyres up gradually."

When the shower came, therefore, neither Capelli nor Gugelmin had had the opportunity of a hot lap. And when he got out again, Ivan quickly realised that he had a poor set of tyres. "When practice was stopped, after Mauricio's accident, I had the second set put on, and they were much better. Also, I was so lucky: I got two clear laps."

Lucky, too, that he accepted a bet from Phillips, who wagered he wouldn't do a 43.8. In fact, he managed a 43.6, which cost Ian 1000 quid! He paid Ivan in the pits immediately afterwards. Capelli felt highly confident of his chances in the race, believing that the March would be competitive with anything.

Gugelmin agreed. He just wished he was also starting from the second row. At one stage during the morning he had been quickest, and he looked to the afternoon with relish. "The car feels great," he said, "with full tanks or empty."

After the rain he equalled his best time on his first quick lap, and with some ease, but on the second spun backwards into a guardrail. "My fault completely," he admitted. "I floored the throttle at the apex of the turn, same as usual, but I was going quicker than before, and the back of the car came round, and that was that..."

The impact split the March's gearbox, removed its left rear corner, and damaged the monocoque too severely for on-the-spot repairs. Gugelmin was therefore stuck with his time from the first day, now good only for 13th on the grid. He was a disappointed fellow.

Honda had the front row, thanks to McLaren, and also, surprisingly, the third. Remarkably, the Lotus-Hondas lapped Suzuka on Saturday afternoon in exactly the same time - exactly, to the thousandth: 1:43.693. But Piquet, still suffering with his stomach problems, set it before Nakajima, and that was the difference between fifth and sixth.

Satoru was disappointed. He had been quicker than Nelson on the first day, and hoped to start ahead of him in this, his home race. "I felt sick when I got out of the car," Nakajima said, "but I don't know whether it was something I've eaten or the nature of this circuit." What he wanted for Sunday, he added, was to finish better than last year, when he was sixth. And everyone, mindful of the awful circumstances of his weekend, wished him well.

Almost on a par with the Lotuses was Warwick's Arrows, which improved to seventh. With a new engine installed in his race car immediately before the final session, he made the most of a clear lap. "We might just have a good finish tomorrow," he said. "We've got rid of the understeer problem we had, and we're also good on fuel consumption. I'm looking forward to this race more than for a long time."

Not so Cheever, however, who blew an engine in the morning, then found its replacement running on only three of its four cylinders. Friday's time would have to stand, and now it was worth only 15th.

Mansell found more than half a second in the last session, yet dropped from fourth to eighth. He made a mistake, he said, on what would have been his quickest lap. Nigel therefore felt that a start on the fourth row was not representative of his - and the Williams's - state of competitiveness. Patrese, complaining about the traffic, was 11th, between the Benettons. Boutsen and Nannini both found their cars low on grip in Saturday's cooler conditions, but felt their race set-up was sound.

Andrea de Cesaris halved his accident rate on Saturday, crashing the Rial only once, as against his morning and afternoon episodes of the day before. However, this time the car was badly damaged, leaving team owner Gunther Schmid - only recently coherent after the Friday incidents - in a state of near apoplexy. Why do people give de Cesaris racing cars to drive? I'm sure someone can tell me. So far I haven't found anyone.

Both Tyrrells qualified (for the first time since the British Grand Prix), with Palmer an impressive 16th, and Bailey displacing Johansson's appalling Ligier from 26th in the last few minutes. Alongside Julian was Bernd Schneider, who did well to qualify a Zakspeed for a Grand Prix, then rather spoiled things by shunting the car badly. For the race he would have to use Ghinzani's car, Piercarlo not making the cut.

The crowds at Suzuka in qualifying were of a size rarely seen elsewhere on race day. They had come for Honda's glory day, perhaps, to see Nakajima, certainly, and also to cheer on Suzuki. Aguri went off the road more than once during the practice days, but by the end he was within 0.4sec of Lola team mate Alliot, and sat next to him on row 10.

Would Senna and Prost run away with the race? On qualifying times, it looked that way, but in a race fuel consumption comes into play, and there were suggestions from one or two quarters that, with only 150 litres available for the 51 laps of Suzuka, the Hondas might not be able to run much quicker than a first-rate normally-aspirated car. Ivan Capelli was one with such thoughts.

For Alain Prost, though, Sunday would be decisive. To keep the World Championship living in Adelaide, he had to win here, chance everything. Running out of fuel, after all, would hurt him no more than finishing second...



The day promised well. It was chilly, but bright, and there was thought to be little chance of rain. At 8.30, when the warm-up started, conditions were ideal, and Senna gave further notice of intent by setting the fastest time. Prost used the session to try a low downforce set-up, but it didn't work as he had hoped, and he set only fourth best time, separated from his team mate by Mansell and Boutsen.

For most of the leading runners the session was trouble-free, but Warwick - so confident after qualifying - had engine failures on both his own and the spare Arrows. The mechanics went to work: in total they changed no fewer than nine over the weekend...

By late morning the heavy clouds were back, and it was decidedly cold. If rain were coming into the equation, the odds were even more with Senna, a fact not even Prost could deny. But everyone wished the weather would at least make up its mind: with the World Championship at stake, no one wanted a messy, wild card, affair.

Still, that was how it looked. When they went out for the last warm-up laps, at 12.30, there were spits of rain in the air, and as one o'clock approached a steady light drizzle was coming down. By no means, though, was it heavy enough for anyone to consider running wets.

Senna and Prost clearly wanted to evaluate these changing conditions, for their final parade lap - or the first part of it, anyway - they ran at close to racing speed, leaving the rest way behind. But Ayrton cooled off the pace eventually, and they all came up to the line in fairly close formation.

Now for it: the start. So many McLaren-Honda battles have been won and lost in the first few seconds this year, and now came the most crucial one of all.

And Senna blew it. At the green the pole position car hesitated, then stalled, Ayrton immediately waving both arms to warn the hordes behind. "I thought it was over for me, right then," he said afterwards. Berger fishtailed by on one side, so nearly clipping the McLaren, and Piquet went the other. Nakajima, further back, also stalled.

Luck, though, was with Satoru - and, more importantly, with Ayrton. "Stalling was partly my fault," he said. "and partly a very sharp clutch." But the startline area at Suzuka is slightly downhill, and he was able to find just enough momentum to be able to bump-start the engine, which caught, died, caught again. Senna was on his way. "I was so lucky," he said. He was. But already there seemed little chance of his becoming World Champion today. At the end of the first lap he ran eighth, and would obviously dispose of most pretty swiftly. More important, though, was that the leader was already 9secs up on him. And the leader was Prost.

Senna's race, however, was looking better than Warwick's. "I was fourth on the first lap - couldn't get over the fact that I didn't have a stream of cars of me. like normal! Then I got to the hairpin, and saw Mansell coming up on me..."

They hit. "Derek just turned in a bit too quick." was Nigel's comment. "If he hadn't done, we wouldn't have touched. I feel as sorry for him as I do for myself."

Warwick went along with none of those sentiments, as he struggled back to the pits with a punctured left rear tyre. Mansell came in, too, for a new nosecone. Not a sparkling first lap for Britain.

In the early laps Prost looked to have it made. After Berger's initial flourish had faded, Alain powered away to a substantial lead while Senna cut and thrust his way through, taking the chances that are his hallmark, and getting away with them. Although Ayrton's progress up the lap chart was predictably impressive, though, the only gap that mattered - that between Prost and himself - was stretching all the time. Nine seconds after two laps. 12 after four, 13 after five. But there it stuck for a while.

"The early part of the race was perfect for me." Alain remarked later. Already I occasionally had a gear selection problem, but nothing too serious. I was controlling the pace, taking care of the fuel." And it seemed wildly unlikely that Ayrton could make up a deficit of that dimension. In Mexico, after all, Prost had 2secs on him at the end of the opening lap, and that was all he needed for the rest of the day. Here he had six times that, surely couldn't be caught.

Unless the weather intervened, of course, and the colour of the sky must have given Senna cause for hope. It was darkening all the time, portending rain. And no race driver on earth flourishes in the wet like Ayrton. For now, though, it was just a hope. There were still spits, no more.

Lap 8 saw the useful end of Alboreto's penultimate Ferrari drive. Running sixth, with Nannini's Benetton close behind, he spun into the sand trap at the first turn, and perhaps he thought he'd been pushed. At all events, they touched, Sandro's car losing its left front wing end-plate, Michele's 19 places. These two would meet up again later in the day. On track and off...

By now there was a little disquiet in Prost's mind - not from Senna, who was still a long way back (although up to fourth), but from Mr Capelli's March, the nearest thing to a thorn in their side McLaren drivers have faced of late. Ivan passed Berger's Ferrari for second place on lap six, and immediately began to make inroads into Alain's lead.

By lap 14 he was up close to the McLaren, and now it was drizzling again. Visibly quicker through the twisty sections than Prost, he was always outpowered on the drag down from the chicane and past the pits -until lap 16, when Suzuki spun at the chicane, slowing Prost, who then missed a gear on the way out.

Capelli just made it across the line first. It didn't matter that he held the lead for only 400 yards or so, that Prost had the inside line for the first corner, that they went into it side by side, the McLaren emerging ahead again. Ivan had led a Grand Prix, and he liked it a lot.

Sadly, the March challenge didn't last much longer. On lap 20 the car was crawling, engine dead, as it came into the chicane. According to Capelli, it had simply, suddenly, cut. No, he didn't know what the problem was. Electrics, probably. And he was right. After the race the March mechanics tried to restart the engine, and it fired up first time...

As one threat disappeared, another materialised - and a more significant one, too. Senna had driven a quite inspired series of laps on the slippery track, relying on instinct and response and improvisation. Slicks were not what anyone needed for this surface, but probably the rain wasn't going to last, so there was no real question of stopping.

This, as it turned out, was the crucial portion of the race, the part to which Cheever later referred. In five laps Senna reduced Prost's lead from llsecs to a little under two. If the drizzle had persisted another 5mins, Ayrton would assuredly have gone by, but now it stopped again. At one stage, indeed, the sun poked through the murky sky, and Prost lost no more ground.

The damage was done, however. From a seemingly hopeless position in the early laps. Senna was right up with the game again. As half-distance approached, the McLarens were in formation at the head of the field, but it hadn't happened quite as we had expected.

At 25 laps the picture was this: Prost. Senna, Boutsen (keeping up well indeed), Berger (weather eye on the fuel read-out more than the elements). Nannini and Patrese. Then we had the crowd's hero. Nakajima, who had passed Cheever's Arrows to polite clapping from the grandstands. By this time Eddie's team mate had spun off at turn 1, packed it in for the day, still angry about what happened on lap 1.

Mansell was involved in another incident soon afterwards, this time with bosom buddy Piquet, whom he was trying to lap. At the chicane Nigel tried to go by Nelson on the inside.

"He braked so early it was incredible," he said, "and I thought he'd given me enough room." He hadn't. The gap was considerably narrower than the Williams, and the cars touched, Mansell's taking an impressive flight path, and looking, momentarily, as if it might go over. Nigel was out on the spot, and Nelson, still feeling sick, abandoned a few laps later.

Senna had his first touch of the World Championship at the beginning of lap 28. As Prost came up to the chicane towards the end of his 27th, de Cesaris helpfully decided against letting him through, which let Senna close right up. Alain came out of the corner untidily, then missed another gearchange - a problem which worsened through the race. Down to the startline area Ayrton had momentum on him, and into the first turn he took the lead.

De Cesaris wasn't yet through for the day. He had been engaged in a scrap with Gugelmin for a while, and had lost time when Suzuki spun his Lola in front of him. All the signs were that the Japanese novice hadn't done it specifically to delay him, but Andrea took it personally. And when, on lap 32, he caught Aguri again he quite deliberately drove him off the road and into the sand trap at the hairpin. It was a typically asinine piece of behaviour from a man who, let's say it again, has no place in Formula 1, whatever Marlboro powers-that-be may think.

Fun and games were now resumed by Alboreto and Nannini. Sandro for a long time tried to lap the Ferrari, but Michele wasn't having any of that, thank you, which maddened his compatriot because he had caught and passed Berger for fourth place, pulled out 10secs on him, and now saw it all going to waste. Before the end of the race Gerhard would claim the place back, and the two Italians would touch more than once. After the race they resumed the dispute with their fists. A bad-tempered race, this one, all in all.

Others had troubles, too. Apart from those who felt ill, there were others like Gugelmin, whose Japanese Grand Prix was taking the form of an assault course. "As I braked for the hairpin on the first lap," Mauricio related, "my drink bottle fell onto the pedals, and I spun. I got going again, but I just couldn't drive the car properly - that thing is heavy, you know, with a litre of water in it... I couldn't reach it, so I started kicking at it until eventually it punctured! That at least made it lighter, but it stayed on my feet for the rest of the race. And I also lost my clutch early on. A difficult day." Yes, I said, I could see that.

For Gugelmin's pal, though, the day was going from bad to good to wonderful. Once into the lead, Senna had not drawn away from Prost, but he did make time on him, as usual, whenever they were in traffic. With 15 laps to go, the matter looked settled, for Alain was more than 5secs adrift, no thanks to the likes of Streiff and Alliot, who were lost in their own dispute, and cost him time. Nakajima, too, held him up for almost a full lap.

"The gearbox problem got worse." Prost said afterwards, "which was frustrating because I'd make up time on Ayrton, then lose it again with a single missed change. But the worst problem today was definitely the traffic." And Senna went along with that, too, as did unobtrusive, impressive, Boutsen, who still ran third.

As the race went into its last 10 laps there seemed the distinct possibility, however, of a barnstorming finish, for now it was Prost's turn to take chunks out of Senna's lead: 5.4, 4.1, 3.4, 2.9, 1.5...it came down like that. And then the rain started again, which put the issue beyond doubt. Ayrton pulled away once more, and had only to stay on the road to become World Champion.

Which he duly did. Out of the chicane he came for the last time, punching the air in acknowledgement of the crowd's applause. At the finish his team mate was more than 13secs behind.

"How do I feel?" Senna said. "At the moment I can't take in that I'm World Champion, but I feel as if I've lost a great weight off my shoulders. The race was amazingly hard, because of the circumstances right from the start: through the traffic, through the slippery conditions. It was a fantastic race, really. Until today, you know, I always said my best drive was at Estoril in '85-my first win. But not any more: this was my best."

"I'm quite happy for Ayrton." commented Prost (perhaps forgetting to add 'it says here'). "I'm disappointed with the way the race turned out, of course, but he's had a very good season, and deserves to be World Champion."

Had Senna been obsessed with winning the title? No more than anyone else, he reckoned, and perhaps some believed him. "We all want to win it," he insisted. "We are racing because we believe we can win, can be successful, can win the championship. None of us is racing for the sake of racing..."

Bet you didn't know that, Stirling