Soichiro Honda
Soichiro Honda was extremely enthusiastic about this race, and told his racing engineers "We have to win. And we have to keep winning..." aiming for a hometown victory at Honda's home track in its native Japan. Soichiro Honda had reason for optimism as four of the entrants were powered by Honda-made engines. The Lotus 99Ts of Ayrton Senna, who had won races earlier in the season and was joined on Team Lotus with national favourite Satoru Nakajima, along with the dominating Williams FW11Bs driven by Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet, who were both vying for the overall championship. However, after Nigel Mansell was taken out of contention by a qualifying crash, the other three cars of Piquet, Senna and Nakajima could only qualify in 5th, 7th and 11th places respectively, with the best finish for Honda being Senna's 2nd place.