Grand Prix Gold: Japan 1990

The press conference, anyway, was pleasurable and full of good humour. It is doubtful that anyone predicted a Benetton one-two for Nelson Piquet and Roberto Moreno, nor third place for Aguri Suzuki's Larrousse. Mr Honda's personal interest in one of the most tedious grands prix on record ended within two minutes, when Gerhard Berger's McLaren flew off the road. Already parked at the same point was what remained of Ayrton Senna's car, together with Alain Prost's Ferrari. The two title contenders had repeated their celebrated Japanese two-step.

Qualifying

"Where are we?" someone asked as we were trying to find the Suzuka circuit. "Eighty-seven kilometres from a stick man with a television aerial," came the reply. Well, that was what the sign looked like. Being a European in Japan is very frustrating, but there is always lots of laughter to offset the pain.

It is not a country geared to foreigners. They used to call visitors 'aliens' but now we have been downgraded. Being an alien was rather more exclusive.

The land of the sinking Yen is not a favourite among grand prix folk. It is hard work.

Still the locals are welcoming. They have taken F1 to their hearts and they turn up in their squillions to see anything to do with the grand prix.

The marketing men, of course, love it. You can sell anything to a Japanese race fan - even the FIA has a designer line of clothing. The spectators are so dedicated that hundreds will sit in the grandstands in the dark.

Actually seeing a driver results in near-hysteria. The trouble is that the 'round eyes' tend to look the same to the Japanese - so people who bear a passing resemblance to an F1 driver can get mobbed.

The crowds pack the gates, cine cameras to attention, filming anyone with an F1 pass. Driving through this mob is like a scene from the Portuguese rally.

Even inside the paddock - the inner sanctum - the VIP guests fall over each other to get close to a driver. It is not an easy place to relax but Ayrton Senna was surprisingly at ease. Given the situation 12 months ago when Alain Prost and Senna collided in the Casio Triangle during the race, many wanted to know if the same might happen again. The ghosts of 1989 have not gone away.

Could he imagine a similar situation to last year? "Huh," he said thoughtfully. "I don't need to imagine. I'll be doing my race, doing my best to win the race. The championship is a different situation. I don't really need to win the race if Prost doesn't finish. We have to wait and see."

If the championship situation was similar - if reversed - from last year, there were plenty of changes in the field. EuroBrun and Life had disappeared and thus we had no worries about pre-qualifying. There were four cars for four places. There was no need to rise with the dawn on Friday - well, no reason apart from the traffic to get into the track.

The action, therefore, began with the full field - and a full house - on Friday morning. The track was dusty and there was drama aplenty. People were spinning all over the place: Jean Alesi, Mauricio Gugelmin, David Brabham, Satoru Nakajima and Pierluigi Martini all had a go and then we saw Senna doing the same.

"I made a mistake on the slippery track and spun off," he reported. The McLaren lodged itself in the sandtrap and Ayrton set off to get back to the pits. Senna had gone off at the furthest point from the pits and at Suzuka, that was a long walk. He had lost a lot of time.

Ayrton had been quickest at that point, but it didn't last. Nigel Mansell was the first to beat him and then came Alain Prost. The men at Ferrari were making a big effort to win pole position. It would be vital for the race, or so went the theory. Not only did the team have a new 'Phase Six' version of the V12 engine, featuring a H-butterfly induction system tried briefly in qualifying at the Spanish GP, there would also be qualifying bodywork.

As Senna trudged in the Ferraris were having all the fun, with Mansell taking the mark down into the 1m41s. There was still a long way to go before the 1989 pole position was under threat.

Following Ayrton's nature ramble theme was Johnny Herbert, his Lotus having died under him. Johnny was making a welcome return to F1, standing in for Martin Donnelly and was one of three 'new' faces. Down at Minardi, Gianni Morbidelli had replaced Paolo Barilla but, most significantly, at Benetton, Roberto Moreno was in place of Alessandro Nannini. Right through the paddock there was great sadness that Sandro could not be racing, for he is a popular man. And yet this sadness was tinged, around the paddock, with a contradictory feeling of pleasure that, at last, Roberto was getting a chance to prove himself in a competitive car.

"I have to say he is doing a bloody good job," said team manager Gordon Message. "More so because of all the pressure on him."

Morbidelli too was impressing, as that first session drew to a close he turned in the fifth quickest time.

In the final rush of times, Morbidelli's speed was engulfed. With six minutes to go Gerhard Berger took the best time into the 1m40s bracket. Others tried but none came close. As they were going for it, Philippe Alliott smashed up his Ligier just before the Casio Triangle - the chicane of 1989 fame - there was wreckage everywhere.

Gerhard remained top from Mansell and Thierry Boutsen. Prost was fourth and fifth belonged to local hero Aguri Suzuki, who looked mightily impressive. The top 10 was rounded off by Riccardo Patrese, Senna, Nakajima, Nelson Piquet and Alex Caffi. Morbidelli was 11th and Moreno 14th.

The afternoon session would be interesting. It would be when it got going. After 15 minutes we had seen nine cars. Then, at last, Alesi appeared. One of his fliers is always worth watching. This was a special one. It stopped the clocks at 1m40.052s, making it a Tyrrell one-two as Nakajima had led the session up to that point.

Then we had red flags. Bertrand Gachot had transformed his second-hand Coloni into a third-hand car wreck. The car was swept up and loaded onto a truck. After 13 minutes of quiet the engines fired up again. A few moments later Emanuele Pirro had a big one where Alliott had previously dented the wall. Emanuele hobbled away from the wreck, which was dragged to safety.

Now, finally, we had the big guns, led by Ayrton. It was a typical Senna lap, nice and neat, and it took provisional pole down to 1m38.851s.

Moments later Berger joined him in the 1m38s, but it wasn't exactly neat. No-one else approached the McLarens and when Alesi set off for his next run, we lost him at the first corner - in a big way. A massive head-on into the wall, the Tyrrell skipping across the sandtrap. It was a suspension breakage of some sort, but the team wasn't sure.

"I changed from sixth to fifth and turned in," said Jean. "Nothing happened, I just went straight on."

It went quiet for a while now and everyone waited for the final runs. Then we began to build up to the showdown.

With six minutes to go, we had a red flag again. Alliott had done a Gachot. The Ligier was in the middle of the track and when Mansell and Berger arrived, there were high jinks, Nigel jamming on the brakes in dramatic fashion and locking up. His qualifiers were wrecked.

As this was all cleared up, Ayrton drove his McLaren to the pit exit and waited. His lap was a 1m38.828s. Moments later Prost came through with a 1m38.684s lap. Ferrari team manager Cesare Fiorio jumped for joy. And then, just when we thought it was over Berger flashed by with a 1m38.374s and Cesare's face fell.

It was Berger-Prost-Senna-Mansell. An even split - McLaren and Ferrari.

"I had a very difficult day," said Ayrton. "I started by going off very early and that compromised my work in the morning and the afternoon. I was unable to do my best. For pole you have to do a low 37, but to be really sure you have to be on a high 36." It seemed a long way off on Friday night.

Saturday morning was warm, sunny and even more crowded and it began with Moreno setting the fastest time. He stayed there too, testing qualifiers while others pottered with race set-ups.

There was no sign of Alesi, Jean having torn a neck muscle in his accident. He would miss the rest of the day. The track didn't seem that much quicker.

In the last minute dashes Berger and Mansell pushed Moreno down the order to third. Roberto, however, was delighted.

"We have no experience together," he explained. "It is a bit of a handicap, but I am working well with my engineer Andy Le Fleming."

Indeed he was. His progress would be carefully watched in the afternoon. Once again there was a slow start to the session and the improvements were only marginal.

After 20 minutes Nigel improved to third, but it was a high 1m38s lap. On the half hour out came Ayrton. The result was a lap of 1m37.541.

"It took a lot to do the time," he explained later. It looked unbeatable. Berger couldn't do it, nor could Prost, although he moved to third on his run. Both Benettons moved up: Piquet to sixth and Moreno to ninth.

And then out came Nigel again. This was a fast one and when the Ferrari came flying past the pits the clocks stopped at 1m37.719s. It was close. Nigel had now shot his bolt, but Ayrton, Alain and Gerhard all had another run.

With five minutes to go Gerhard was winding up for his dash and then, suddenly we had Ayrton and Alain together at the end of the pit lane.

Ayrton pulled out of the pit in front of Prost. Why?

"There were two factors," he explained. "One was to be out at the right time in terms of traffic and the other was, of course, Alain. I realised that the best situation to play at that stage was just to be slightly ahead of him. When I was ready to go, waiting, I was playing with him. When I heard their engine going on, I switched mine on and went, just to be ahead of him. It was a psychological factor - nothing else."

A psychological factor? Ayrton is a very clever man. So is Alain. No other driver in F1 even understands that there is a level where these two play their games - they just think they know. In this fight both use weaponry that your average foot-to-the-floor hero cannot even spell. These are mind games, call it psychological warfare if you wish.

To see the rear of a rival's car in front of you as often as possible creates a sense of subconscious acceptance. You become used to it - less likely to break the mould. That is the theory.

As Alain accelerated out of the pits, he somehow managed to disrupt Gerhard as he began his flying lap. The Austrian aborted his run and followed Prost around the track. So we had Ayrton, Alain and Gerhard all on their final runs together. It was showtime!

Senna went first, a beautiful clean lap as only he can produce them. The result was shocking - 1m36.996s. Alain was next with a 1m37.288s lap, good enough for second. Could Gerhard bounce the Ferrari from the front row?

No. The World Championship rivals would line up side by side on the front row.

"If you'd asked me at the end of the morning session how much it was possible to do," said Ayrton, "I wouldn't have said that much - no way. But on a few occasions in the past I have experienced similar situations when I thought I was almost there and suddenly we were able to find around half a second or a second. Today was another example of that. When the time difference comes simply from your driving, it is how you use the equipment. It is experience - that counts a lot - but also a lot of instant reactions and instant decisions that you make from second to second that gives you the ability of going one tenth, two tenths, half a second quicker.

"It's a tremendous feeling as you go through it corner after corner. It is so rewarding as you feel it. You do it through the lap and, of course, when you cross the finish line and see the stopwatch, it's a beautiful feeling. Fortunately it's a feeling I have experienced lots of times."

Fifty-one times to be precise.

"It would be much better if we could have myself and Gerhard on the first row and as many people between me and Prost, but this is not the case."

"I'm sure I can be world champion for the second time in my career, but that we will know only when the race starts."

"Maybe I am world champion before the race is finished..."

Race

The morning warm-up confirmed what many had expected: McLaren-Honda may have had a slight advantage over Ferrari in qualifying, but in race trim the opposite was true. Mansell, Prost, Senna, Berger is how it was, which prompted Ron Dennis to speculate that the Ferraris weren't on full tanks.

At the drivers' meeting there was controversy over the chicane escape road; at one point the drivers were told it would be left open at the far end, so that if anyone overshot he would be allowed - with a penalty - to rejoin the race at that point. Senna, who was disqualified for doing that last year, flounced out of the meeting at that point, and the decision was later changed; the far end would be closed off after all.

Ayrton, however, was not granted his wish to have pole position moved to the left hand side of the track, which was cleaner, he said, and offered traction. Dennis described the decision as "a manipulation of the world championship."

Still, Senna was at least starting, which was not true of Alesi, whose whiplash injuries (incurred in his accident on Friday) were too painful for him to contemplate the race. Tyrrell hopes therefore rested entirely with Nakajima, still the crowd's favourite, despite the presence this year of Suzuki.

One o'clock seemed a long time coming, as it always does at Suzuka, where tension is invariably higher than normal, because traditionally so much is at stake here. Finally, though, the engines were fired into life, and Senna led Prost and the rest away on the final warm-up laps. Another pause, and the grid moved away on the parade lap, then forming up, waiting for the lights.

At the green both Senna and Prost got away well, but, as Ayrton had feared, the greater traction on Alain's side of the road took the Ferrari into the lead. Into the first right-hand corner, Prost was on the outside, Senna to his right. The McLaren went up the kerb, and then hit the back of the Ferrari. Hard.

"I was going through the corner as fast as I could, believe me," Prost said. "And still the impact was hard enough to break off my rear wing."

"Somebody who could not afford to take a chance did so," commented Senna, referring to the fact that while he could afford not to finish today, Prost could not. In terms of the almighty World Championship.

It is a racing cliche that in any two-car accident, you will always have two totally different accounts of its cause from the drivers involved. But those on the spot were not in two minds; it was Prost's corner and Senna simply drove into the back of him.

Whatever, the World Championship, this titanic multi-race battle on which people like Soichiro Honda and Gianni Agnelli spend countless millions each year, was over, decided within 10 seconds of the start of the race. Senna is the 1990 world champion and he further salted Prost's wound by saying he'd like to dedicate it to "the man who took it from me last year."

"It was what the organisers wanted," Senna went on, "by refusing to change pole position to the other side." Indeed, Dennis fatuously suggested that the accident would never had happened if the organisers had given way. What had happened to Prost, he said, was "rough justice."

"I couldn't believe he would do something like this," Alain said. "I started well, and for sure he could see himself losing the race. I saw him in the mirror, and thought there was no way he could try to overtake at that point - it's a fifth gear corner. I lifted a little bit, but didn't brake, and then turned in - and he hit me in the back. If he'd been alongside, okay, that's something different, but he wasn't - he was behind me. And if this is okay, then what next? Each team with one driver who pushes the other people off, leaving the other to win?"

Did Prost speak to Senna after the accident? "No," he replied. "This man has no value." Senna said he did not care whatever Prost said.

The Ferrari was badly damaged in the accident, the McLaren completely wrecked. It was decided not to stop the race, so already the Japanese Grand Prix was effectively dead. Berger led from Mansell, with the Benettons of Piquet and Moreno next up, then the Williams pair, then Derek Warwick's Lotus.

At precisely the point where Prost and Senna had crashed, Berger went off on lap two. With all Honda interest in the race now done, a lot of the fans began heading for the exit.

So, too, did Gerhard. At least he went back to his room in the circuit hotel. "There was oil and dirt all over the road, from the Senna-Prost thing," he said. "Heading down to the corner, I thought maybe I should back off a bit, but then I decided, no, the track will be clean because the whole field had been through it. There were no oil flags...

"I didn't go back to the pits afterwards, because I was so angry with myself. It was the worst thing that could have happened to me - I need a win, desperately, and I had this one on a plate."

Both McLarens out, therefore, and one of the Ferraris. The other,

though, now took up an easy lead. Mansell had been passed by Berger on the run down to the opening turn, but kept himself out of trouble, and now looked to have the thing made. "I took it quite easy," he said, "running at my own pace." Even so, he pulled away easily enough from the Benettons, the Williams and the rest, but it seemed suddenly like a non-championship race, which, in effect, it was.

Maybe tyres would play a part, though. All the front-runners had gone to the grid on Goodyear Cs - apart from the Benettons and Patrese's Williams, which were on Bs, intending to go the distance without a stop. These three cars were in the first five, so later in the day Mansell, who would be stopping, would have to work.

It was good for the spectators, they had two Japanese drivers on whom to concentrate. With the main interest in the race evaporated, they might otherwise have wondered - all 145,000 of them - why their mania for this thing was so strong. But their men, especially Suzuki, were doing them proud. By lap seven, Aguri had passed Warwick's Lotus for sixth place, and they went mad, which is to say they applauded vigorously. Further back, Nakajima was threatening Herbert's Lotus, and they clapped his efforts every time around.

A glance at the lap chart reveals the overriding problem at Suzuka: passing. Changes in order were few and far between, although Andrea de Cesaris obliged by spinning off on lap 14, thereby causing a brief flurry of interest and sand, and five laps later Morbidelli spoiled a good weekend's work by doing the same.

Boutsen began the tyre stops, on lap 20, and over the next five laps most of the leading runners came in, save Piquet, Moreno and Patrese. On the 26th it was Mansell's turn.

The tyre change itself was exceptionally swift, accomplished in under 6s, but a loud murmur from the stands indicated that something had gone awry. Away from his pit in a huge welter of tyre smoke, Mansell suddenly slowed, then parked, transmission broken. Nigel, not surprisingly, was immensely disappointed; so too were the Ferrari mechanics.

Not so the McLaren lads, though. Mansell's retirement meant that the team's constructors' title was assured, and this, it has to be said, seems to have elated them rather more than their drivers' crown. Perhaps they felt a little jaundiced that all that hard work had been tossed away in the first lap and a bit.

Anyway, now the Benetton-Fords were in first and second places, followed by Patrese, Suzuki and Warwick - whose cranky Lotus was being reeled in by Nakajima's fleet Tyrrell. There were, however, but 12 cars now running in this most wonderful showcase for grand prix racing.

It was 11 on lap 32 when the Lamborghini in Herbert's Lotus expired, and 10 not long afterwards, when it was the turn of Warwick to pull off, again with a broken gearbox.

The closing laps were a drone, Piquet and Moreno circulating without problem, and Suzuki delighting the local populace by moving up to third, when Patrese found his set of Bs would not, after all, be taking him to the finish. Riccardo stopped on lap 36, rejoining in fourth, but too far behind Suzuki to have any hope of catching him before the finish. At the line, it was Piquet, Moreno, Suzuki, Patrese, Boutsen and Nakajima.

The press conference brought some welcome levity to the afternoon. "Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. My name is Nelson Piquet!" After more than three years away from the winners' circle, the Brazilian - a laughing Brazilian no less - was in celebratory mood.

"I was lucky today," Nelson said. "There was no way we could have run with the McLarens or Ferraris, not really. Maybe we could have raced a bit with Mansell at around the time of his tyre stop, but it would have been difficult. My car was very slow in a straight line, because we set it up to have as much downforce as the quickest cars - and as we have 50 horsepower less than them, of course we lost out on the straights."

Piquet made a good start, he said, and was past Boutsen before the first corner. Had he seen the accident? At the conference, he smiled and said no, drawing a finger across his mouth as if zipping it. But later he gave his opinion: "Senna just drove straight into the back of Prost, and that was it."

It was a delight in these often jaundiced days to see a winner enjoying his triumph, but Piquet said the victory was doubly enjoyable because Moreno was second. The two men have been close friends since their teens.

Moreno's performance was exceptional. It was his first drive in a competitive car, and he knew he had to make the most of it. It was also his first drive of any length in a long time, but any worries about his stamina were soon tossed aside. After the race he looked at least as fresh as Nelson.

"After driving the EuroBrun for most of the season," Roberto began, "I have got to get used to a lot more downforce and a lot more acceleration with the Benetton. And I think I surprised myself, actually, with the speed I could maintain. The biggest pressure I've had this weekend has come from myself. Of course I hated the circumstances in which I got the drive, but once I heard that Alessandro was progressing well, and his spirits high, I just got on with the job.

"I'd really like to dedicate this race to two people, and one is Alessandro, I'm not by any means taking his place, but just replacing him temporarily. And the other man is Nelson, who convinced me to go to race in Europe at the end of 1979. He treated me like a brother, found me a sponsor, and showed me the road. So I want to thank you Nelson, and let you know that I finally got on the road."

Suzuki's mood, of course, was similarly high, and thus it was we had a press conference which seemed to have no place in contemporary Formula 1. Outside, in their respective team enclosures, the men who had fought out the World Championship - winner and loser - were less content. And rightly so.

1990 Japanese Grand Prix results

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