In Friday practice, championship contender
Nelson Piquet was eliminated from the race after an accident at the Tamburello corner. A tyre of his
Williams FW11B failed, which resulted in a violent impact against the wall (when the car was returned to the pits, Williams designer
Patrick Head could not confirm if the crash was a fault with the FW11B as half the rear end had been torn off by the impact, while both Head and
Nigel Mansell were seen taking a good look at Piquet's wreck). Whilst in his opinion he had only sustained a sore ankle, he was taken to the nearby
Bellaria-Igea Marina hospital, and after medical checks he was forbidden to start by FIA Medical Delegate
Sid Watkins. For the remainder of the weekend Piquet worked as a guest commentator on Italian television. Years later he revealed that he was "never quite right" after the accident, suffering headaches and sometimes double vision. For the rest of the 1987 season, he visited the hospital for treatment, but did so in secret for fear that he would not be allowed to race either by Williams or Watkins. Alarmed by reports from other drivers of excessive tyre blistering and the suggestion that Piquet's accident may have been caused by a tyre deflation,
Goodyear withdrew all the tyres issued to teams (the original compounds taken to Imola were actually different to those supplied for a scheduled test at the circuit the week prior to the race). A replacement selection of the tyres used in the Imola test were flown in from
England (with some also brought in from the nearby
Ferrari factory in
Maranello) and despite the lack of Customs officials due to
International Workers' holiday, the new rubber was available for all teams by the Saturday morning practice session. Saturday's qualifying went on smoothly, with
Ayrton Senna claiming pole position on his
Lotus 99T, the first ever pole position for an
active suspension car and also the last pole position for the original Lotus team, with Mansell alongside him in the front row. The second row was occupied by
Teo Fabi in the
Benetton B187 and
Alain Prost's
McLaren MP4/3; "home" team
Ferrari took the whole third row with
Michele Alboreto ahead of
Gerhard Berger. The race required two starts as
Martin Brundle (
Zakspeed 871),
Thierry Boutsen (Benetton B187) and
Eddie Cheever (
Arrows A10) stalled on the original grid.
Satoru Nakajima started from the pit lane owing to a faulty battery in his Lotus, and
René Arnoux failed to take the second start after the suspension of his
Ligier JS29B failed. At the second start, Senna led off the line, but Mansell overtook him on lap two, at the Tosa corner, and went on to dominate the race. Prost took second place by overtaking Senna on lap 6; the Brazilian was then engaged in a battle with the two Ferraris, and took back second when Prost surprisingly retired with an
alternator failure on lap 15. Berger retired with turbo boost failure on lap 17, and by that time Alboreto passed Senna to take second place. On lap 22, Mansell pitted early due to a loose wheel balance weight and for three laps Alboreto led the race to the delight of the
Tifosi. Senna retook first position with Alboreto's pit stop, then before Mansell returned to the front when the Brazilian stopped.
Riccardo Patrese in his
Brabham BT56 was now holding second place, but in the closing stages of the race his alternator developed trouble and he slowed right down, eventually finishing two laps down in ninth. The closing stages also saw both Benetton drivers retire, Boutsen on lap 49 with an engine failure and Fabi three laps later with a turbo failure. Fabi's race had been wrecked by front wing damage sustained on the first lap when he collided with Cheever, although his attempted fightback did produce the fastest lap. Mansell took a comfortable win with Senna holding second after Alboreto's turbo experienced problems. Alboreto salvaged a 3rd place finish, which would end up being the last podium
Enzo Ferrari personally saw his Formula One team score, as he only attended Grand Prix races in Italy, and would die 15 months later.
Stefan Johansson (McLaren MP4/3) was in fourth place whilst
Derek Warwick's late race retirement after his Arrows A10 ran out of fuel, handed fifth to Brundle for what would the only time in 5 seasons (1985-1989) that a
Zakspeed would finish a race in the points. Nakajima rounded off the points in sixth place, which meant he was the first
Japanese driver to score a world championship point, and the first
Asian driver to score since the fourth place of
Thai Birabongse Bhanudej in the
1954 French Grand Prix. ==Classification==