 the 1988 san marino grand prix was a formula one race held at imola on may 1, 1988. it was the second round of the 1988 formula one season. ayrton senna scored his first victory since joining mclaren at the start of the season. turbocharged honda powered cars swept the top three positions. ==qualifying== the mclaren-hondas totally dominated qualifying for the san marino grand prix. ayrton senna and alain prost occupied the front row of the grid with times of 1:27.148 and 1:27.919 respectively. their nearest challenger was the lotus of reigning world champion nelson piquet with a time of 1:30.500. all the more interesting was that piquet's lotus was powered by the same specification turbocharged honda engine that powered the mclarens and he was as fast as them through the speed trap on the run to tosa, yet he was over 3 seconds slower than senna. the difference was that the lowline mclaren mp4/4's were untouchable under acceleration and they had superior grip to any other car on the grid. amazingly, considering the team's success in its formula one history dating back to , this was only the third time that there was an all-mclaren front row for a grand prix. the other two times had been at the 1972 canadian grand prix (peter revson and denny hulme) and the 1986 german grand prix (keke rosberg and alain prost). nigel mansell missed qualifying on the front row of the grid for the first time since the 1986 mexican grand prix. he qualified his williams-judd in 11th place, five places behind team mate riccardo patrese in 6th. the fastest atmo car in qualifying was the benetton-[[cosworth dfr|ford]
1988_Formula_One_races 1988_in_Italian_motorsport San_Marino_Grand_Prix