Despite the B188 being seen by the team as obsolete being a previous years model and with other teams now running customer DFR's, Nannini and Herbert scored 13 points in the first six races of the season with the best being Nannini's 3rd at San Marino. Herbert, who was also recovering from a horrific Formula 3000 crash at Brands Hatch in 1988, scored points on debut in Brazil, finishing 4th (only 1.123 seconds behind 3rd placed Maurício Gugelmin's March-Judd and only 10.493 behind the Ferrari of race winner Nigel Mansell), and two places and 8 seconds ahead of Nannini. Despite a 5th-place finish in the desert heat in Phoenix where the race ran its full two hours, it became obvious in the opening rounds that he needed more time to recover from injuries that included both legs being badly broken (he was actually still in laid up hospital when the team announced him as their new 1989 driver at the 1988 Spanish Grand Prix). Herbert was replaced after the Canadian Grand Prix by McLaren test driver Emanuele Pirro. Pirro was chosen as even though he was an F1 rookie, he had experience driving F1 cars with McLaren, and as an Italian he satisfied the team owners want for an Italian driver. Despite driving for Benetton for from the French Grand Prix until the end of the season, Pirro was mostly based in Japan where he continued working with Honda as McLaren's test driver at the Suzuka Circuit.