1989 Belgian Grand Prix

This is the complete race as broadcast on LIVE TV.

Ayrton Senna takes yet another pole, with his McLaren teammate Alain Prost second, the Ferrari of
Gerhard Berger third, followed by the two Williams cars of Thierry Boutsen and Riccardo Patrese. It
was a disastrous outing for Lotus, as both Nelson Piquet and Saturo Nakajima failed to qualify. Prost
had a 14-point lead in the World Championship lead over Senna.

On race day, the Spa-Francorchamps circuit was soaked, and conditions were terrible. At the start,
the ‘rainmaster’ Ayrton Senna took the lead, and never looked back. On lap 9, Gerhard Berger spun
his Ferrari and would retire. The race order remained virtually unchanged the entire race, as Alain
Prost could not catch his teammate Ayrton Senna all afternoon. Prost drove a cautious race, not willing
to risk catching Senna with rooster tails of water coming off all the cars. But in the closing laps, third
place Nigel Mansell (Ferrari) began pressuring second place Alain Prost. As the track began to dry,
Mansell stayed on Prost’s gearbox, but whenever he strayed off the dry line to attempt to pass, he
would be forced to back off. On the last lap, both Prost and Mansell closed on Senna, and when they
crossed the finish line, only 1.8 seconds separated 1st from 3rd. It is unknown whether Senna was
having problems on the last lap, perhaps his tires simply gave out, but his 10-second lead heading into
the last lap was reduced to under 1 second as they crossed the finish line.

This is the complete race as shown on live TV, with commentary by Murray Walker. There is a
segment late in the race where Martin Brundle joins Murray in the booth for some commentary.