It was driven by Italian veteran Piercarlo Ghinzani and West German rookie Bernd Schneider.

The 881 was also unreliable, often blowing either the engine or the turbo many times over a race weekend.

Neither Zakspeed driver scored a point in 1988, which meant the team was forced to pre-qualify in 1989.

The 881 was the last F1 car in which Zakspeed used their own engines which were rated at about 640 bhp (477 kW; 649 PS) for the season.

There at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in the high altitude of Mexico City where the thinner air gave the turbos a massive power advantage over their atmospheric rivals (the 'atmos' lost a reported 25% of their power at altitude while the turbos lost around 5%), Schneider qualified in an encouraging 15th place and ran well early on the edge of the top 10 until retiring with engine failure on lap 16.