In the Friday morning pre-qualifying session, Roberto Moreno was fastest by over three tenths of a second in the EuroBrun, despite a continued lack of testing.

[2] In fifth place, failing to pre-qualify by a hundredth of a second, was Gabriele Tarquini in the AGS, with his team-mate Yannick Dalmas in sixth.

Claudio Langes had been fired by EuroBrun prior to this event, but had been reinstated; he was eighth fastest, nearly 19 seconds slower than his team-mate Moreno.

The team were at this point talking to Brabham and Lotus, hoping to purchase some used Judd CV engines, the same type that EuroBrun were using.

As a consequence, after a round of pitstops for new tyres, Senna allowed his teammate to pass him going into the hairpin so that the Austrian could set about gaining time in relation to his competitors.

Shortly afterwards on lap 26, Jean Alesi lost control while challenging another car and spun into the same tyre barrier, ending up on top of Nannini's abandoned Benetton B190.

In the end, Berger had crossed the line first but was awarded a one-minute penalty for a jumped start, which was added to his overall race time, dropping him to fourth in the final order.