After qualifying only 12th, Mansell charged through the field and took the lead with an opportunistic overtaking manoeuvre on Ayrton Senna in the McLaren-Honda as the two were lapping Stefan Johansson in the Onyx-Ford.

In the Friday morning pre-qualifying session, an Onyx topped the time sheets for the fourth Grand Prix in succession.

[2] The AGS cars of Yannick Dalmas and Gabriele Tarquini were seventh and ninth respectively, while Zakspeed drivers Bernd Schneider and Aguri Suzuki, still hampered by their underpowered Yamaha engines, were eighth and twelfth.

The top ten was completed by Alessandro Nannini in the Benetton, Stefano Modena in the Brabham, Derek Warwick in the Arrows and Pierluigi Martini in the Minardi.

At the start of the race, Patrese, Senna and Caffi maintained their grid order into turn 1, while Boutsen lost out to Prost as Berger passed both of them.

Mansell now began to pressure Senna, clearly faster but unable to pass due to the extra power of the McLaren's Honda engine.

Meanwhile, Prost pitted for tyres and rejoined 6th, while Berger only inherited 3rd briefly before he retired with gearbox problems, leaving Senna and Mansell on their own.

Prost overtook Eddie Cheever's Arrows for 4th on the final lap, while Nelson Piquet's Lotus rounded off the points scorers.