Drivers' Championship leader Nigel Mansell took pole position in his Williams-Renault and led until lap 71, when he suspected he had a puncture and made a pit stop for new tyres.

Mansell's teammate Riccardo Patrese was third, half a minute behind, with the top six completed by the Benettons of Michael Schumacher and Martin Brundle and the Larrousse of Bertrand Gachot.

The Williams team was leading the Constructors Championship with 74 points; second-placed Benetton had 20, with their driver Michael Schumacher in third place.

There were no changes to the driver line-up from the previous race, however before the race Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo had to publicly announce Ivan Capelli's position within the Ferrari team was "safe" in response to criticism from the Italian Autosprint magazine about Capelli's recent performances.

[3] Team Lotus also brought a second new 107 chassis for Mika Häkkinen at Monaco as only one 107 had been available for Herbert at San Marino.

[4] The car had been "shaken down" at Hethel in Norfolk by Olivier Beretta before being taken to Monaco[5] The team still hadn't made a proper seat for me, so I had taken a beating inside the cockpit, but I kept my foot down and desperately tried to remember where the next corner was.

I knew the tunnel was taken flat out on my first lap but as I came back into daylight at 170mph, I was being bounced around so badly, I had double vision and I vividly remember speeding toward the tyre barrier wondering if I should turn left or right.

The pre-qualifying session on the Thursday morning lasted for one hour and started at 8:00 local time, in warm and sunny weather conditions.

[7] Brazilian Roberto Moreno finished third fastest despite a slight gearbox leak, promoting the Andrea Moda team into the main qualifying sessions for the first time.

[10] Michele Alboreto took advantage of his extra running in the earlier pre-qualifying session by finishing sixth fastest, with Andrea de Cesaris's Tyrrell in seventh and Karl Wendlinger's March eighth.

[10] Ferrari tried out a new traction control device and electronic differential on Jean Alesi's F92A car and he finished the session ninth fastest.

Berger was fourth fastest with a time of 1:22.359, but halfway through the session his McLaren's front suspension broke at Massenet causing him to crash heavily into the barriers.

[17] Modena suffered a drive shaft failure early in the session and ran back to his pit to use the spare Jordan.

Eric van de Poele set his fastest time in the final minutes of qualifying but just failed to make 26th place as he was +0.036 seconds slower than Moreno.

[15] Formula 1 journalist Joe Saward reported there was "rejoicing" in the Andrea Moda pit upon Moreno's qualification for the race.

[7] Alboreto performed strongly in his Footwork to finish the session second, but his team-mate Aguri Suzuki was sent to hospital for checks after crashing his FA13 at Tabac.

Martin Brundle was chasing Berger, but he made an error in Nouvelle Chicane and not only suffered a puncture but also damaged the Benetton's front wing and had to pit for repairs, giving sixth place to Ivan Capelli.

When he reached the swimming pool complex the damage caused him to spin and slide backwards wedging his Ferrari into barrier before Rascasse at a 45-degree angle.

His retirement reminded the BBC F1 commentary team of the speculation regarding his future with Ferrari, which had been prominent before the race weekend.

[19] Mansell led the race in his Williams FW14B-Renault up until lap 70, but then suffered a loose wheel nut and was forced into the pits, emerging behind Senna's McLaren.

The pair duelled around the circuit for the final three laps but Mansell could find no way past, finishing just two-tenths of a second behind the Brazilian.

[21] In the subsequent press conference with Tony Jardine asking the questions,[22] Senna admitted he knew the Williams car was "several seconds faster" than him in the last few laps and his tyres were like "driving on ice" due to having completed the whole race on the same set.

We then had a longer pitstop than normal and as I came out of the pit I saw Ayrton go by, and I knew then that the race was probably lost, but as you can see from the last 10 laps we gave it everything we could and more and his car was just too wide to get past.

[23] The 1992 Monaco Grand Prix turned out to be the only time the Andrea Moda team qualified for a Formula One race with Roberto Moreno retiring after 11 laps with engine problems.