Race report Ayrton Senna qualified on pole but was unhappy with the dirty side of the track it was situated on, arguing that pole should always be on the racing line. He and
Gerhard Berger then went to the Japanese stewards to request a change of position of pole to the cleaner left side of the track. The stewards initially agreed but a last minute injunction by FISA president
Jean Marie Balestre rejected the decision and the original pole position remained on the dirtier right side of the track. In addition, the FIA had warned that crossing the yellow line of the pit exit on the right to better position oneself at the first corner would not be permitted, further infuriating Senna. At the start, Prost took the lead but Senna attempted to take the inside line into the first corner. The two drivers made contact, sending both off the track and into instant retirement. The crash meant that Senna had clinched the Drivers' Championship for a second time, as with one race left in the season, Prost could not overtake his points tally. Benetton-Ford's dominance of the podium prevented Ferrari from scoring enough points to stop McLaren clinching its sixth constructors' title. After the collision, the race proceeded with Gerhard Berger's
McLaren MP4/5B leading and Nigel Mansell's
Ferrari 641 second. On lap 2, Berger spun off at the first corner on sand thrown onto the track by the Senna/Prost collision, leaving Mansell to lead the race from the two Benettons of Nelson Piquet and Roberto Moreno. Anticipating that Benetton would follow their usual strategy of not making a pit stop, Mansell built up a gap until he pitted for tyres at the end of lap 26. After a quick stop, he left his box with heavy wheelspin, and a
driveshaft failed. The Ferrari pulled over at the end of the pit lane and retired. Piquet inherited the lead and retained it until the chequered flag, with his teammate Moreno following closely, achieving Benetton's first one-two finish. Aguri Suzuki also drove a non-stop race, finishing third, the first Japanese driver to do so. The two
Williams FW13B-Renaults of
Riccardo Patrese and
Thierry Boutsen finished fourth and fifth, while Satoru Nakajima finished sixth in a
Tyrrell 019, the second Japanese driver in the points. Prost was infuriated by this, and described the move as "disgusting" and Senna as "a man without value". He later said that he almost retired from the sport instantly after the incident. After winning his third and final World Championship in 1991, Senna admitted that his move was deliberate, and that it was a payback for 1989. The pair went on to win one more championship each (Senna in 1991 and Prost in 1993) and eventually reconciled their differences on the podium in their final race together at the
1993 Australian Grand Prix. In a discussion with his fellow
Grand Prix commentator
Murray Walker at the
BBC in 1991, 1976 World Champion
James Hunt defended Senna, stating that Senna had been improprerly blamed for not only last year's collision, but also this collision, and that Prost was at fault for not letting Senna have any room in both incidents: "Oh no, I think he Senna took an awful lot of vilification from Balestre over a period of a couple of years. He feels with great justification in my opinion that Balestre single handedly robbed him of the world championship which Senna is the be all and end or and when he finally won this year with Balestre out of the way, he snapped at a moment of adrenaline and I think to my opinion that humanised him. No he didn't, he did not. He neither said that he pushed Prost off, nor did he push him off and that is what a lot of the idiot press picked up, they all said that. He said that he had decided before the race that he would not gonna give way right, in fact he never stuck to that if you look at the replay, he did give way on the kerb on the inside trying to avoid Prost who was driving into him right and once more the year before Prost drove into him without any doubt at all at the hairpin in Japan. Absolute if you look at the replays of both Prost turned into the corner on both occasions way before the turning in point right and the other thing is in the second incident at the first corner right, it was a testimony that Prost previously excellent brain had collapsed totally right because the only person that did not need to be pushed off without a doubt that race was Prost and he pushed himself off. The evidence is there to see, this one is not a question of views, this one is a question of looking at the evidence."
Race classification == Championship standings after the race ==