In the run-up to the race, Tyrrell had lost talented designer Harvey Postlethwaite to the Mercedes-Benz sportscar team, while Ayrton Senna had been injured in a jet-ski incident.

During Friday qualifying, Senna suffered a big accident at the high-speed Peraltada bend, in which his McLaren rolled and landed upside-down, but he emerged unscathed.

Berger, meanwhile, suffered his third consecutive early retirement when his engine exploded on lap 5, the resulting oil causing Pierluigi Martini to spin off in his Minardi.

Mansell fell back towards Senna, Piquet, de Cesaris, Moreno and Alesi (who had spun), but eventually the concerns faded and the Englishman pulled away again.

Piquet's race ended on lap 45 with a broken wheel bearing, and when Moreno had a pit stop go wrong, Bertrand Gachot found himself fifth in the second Jordan, before spinning off.

Moreno recovered from his botched pit stop to take fifth, while Larrousse's Éric Bernard finished sixth, the last point scored by a chassis manufactured by Lola Cars.