The usual Friday morning pre-qualifying session was cancelled when the Andrea Moda Formula team failed to arrive at the circuit.

[3] Again the Williams-Renaults filled the front row of the grid, Nigel Mansell taking pole position by nearly half a second from Riccardo Patrese.

In the Ligier team's home race, Thierry Boutsen and Érik Comas filled the fifth row, and on the sixth were the Lotuses of Mika Häkkinen and Johnny Herbert.

Christian Fittipaldi failed to qualify after he crashed his Minardi heavily at the Imola chicane, fracturing his fifth vertebra.

[4] He was joined in non-qualification by Paul Belmondo in the March and the two Brabhams of Eric van de Poele and Damon Hill.

Further back, Schumacher again tried too hard, hitting Stefano Modena in the Jordan, dropping out of the race with a broken front suspension.

In the constructors championship, Williams had 100 points and were well ahead of the field: McLaren were second with 36, Benetton were third with 35 and Ferrari were fourth with 13.