Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna claimed his fifth race victory for the season in his McLaren MP4/5B taking a four-second win over the Ferrari 641 driven the reigning world champion, Frenchman Alain Prost.

Off-track, Nigel Mansell was rumoured to be reconsidering his prior announcement to retire, and he was strongly linked with Williams.

He had demanded undisputed number one status as a driver, and various assurances from engine supplier Renault, which Frank Williams had told him were impossible.

[3] The Onyx team pulled out of Formula One before the weekend of the race, for financial reasons, having competed at this level for a season and a half.

[4] With the withdrawal of the Onyx team, Ligier were relieved of the requirement to pre-qualify, and returned to the main qualifying pool.

He also announced that work was restarting on the chassis to allow a Judd CV V8 engine to be fitted by round 13 in Portugal, in place of the disastrous in-house W12.

In the second of the incidents, the Tyrrell of Satoru Nakajima collided with the Brabham of Stefano Modena, which caused the race to be stopped.

However, there was another first lap accident when the Minardi of Paolo Barilla crashed heavily at Eau Rouge, leaving debris all over the track in that area and causing the race to be stopped again.