1988 Brazilian Grand Prix
Pre-Race Report
Entrants
The 1988 season opens with its most dramatic grid reshuffle in years. Ayrton Senna makes his debut for McLaren, while Nelson Piquet — the reigning world champion — drives for Lotus for the first time having departed Williams. Riccardo Patrese takes Piquet’s seat at Williams. Five drivers make their Formula One debuts this weekend: Maurício Gugelmin, Luis Pérez-Sala, Oscar Larrauri, Julian Bailey, and Bernd Schneider.
Three teams are competing in Formula One as constructors for the first time: BMS Scuderia Italia with a Dallara chassis, Rial Racing, and EuroBrun. Alex Caffi’s Dallara runs a converted Formula 3000 chassis equipped with an old Cosworth DFY engine — the last time a motor derived from the 3.0-litre DFV that debuted in Formula One in 1967 will be used in a grand prix.
Williams and McLaren both debut new cars: the FW12 with its naturally-aspirated Judd V8, and the MP4/4, which had limited testing time before arriving at Rio.
Milestones
This is the first race of the 1988 Formula One World Championship — the 42nd season of the FIA Formula One World Championship.
Weather
Conditions are cloudy and hot.
Adapted by AI summarisation from “1988 Brazilian Grand Prix” on Wikipedia . This adapted text is licensed under CC-BY-SA-4.0 . Modifications: summarised and spoiler-trimmed.
Drivers' Championship
Full standings →First race of the season — championship not yet started.
Constructors' Championship
Full standings →First race of the season — championship not yet started.