Race Summary
The rain continued until Sunday morning, when it finally stopped, but there was concern on which type of tyre would have been the most suitable for the race; in the end, everyone started on wet tyres, with the exception of Nelson Piquet. Ayrton Senna led off the start line from Berger and Alessandro Nannini. Piquet suffered a first-lap retirement, aquaplaning off the track at the Ostkurve due to his slick tyres. Alain Prost fought back from a bad start where he dropped to 4th to recover to 2nd behind Senna, but failed to catch him: traffic problems and many spins meant the gap increased lap by lap.
On lap 9, Philippe Alliot went off at the Sudkurve chicane after going offline to allow Senna to lap him. Alliot had changed to slicks to exploit the developing dry line and would have been in a promising position had the track continued to dry. In an almost identical spin to Piquet's, Alliot's Lola was out on the spot.
Senna and Prost maintained their 1-2 until the chequered flag, despite a late spin by the Frenchman coming out of the Sudkurve chicane. It was the sixth 1-2 of the year for McLaren.
Nannini had been in 3rd and then 4th place consistently until he had to pit on lap 38 to repair the broken throttle bracket of his Benetton. He rejoined 4 laps down and despite finishing only 18th, he set the fastest lap of the race. It was the second, and last, 'atmo' fastest lap of the season after Mansell's fastest lap at Silverstone. Ironically the two fastest laps set by the atmo cars had been set at two of the three fastest circuits on the 1988 calender.
Ferrari finished in 3rd and 4th place with concerns for fuel consumption, whilst Ivan Capelli, with a broken clutch for 30 laps, took 5th place. Thierry Boutsen gained a point for 6th place, in a car set up for the dry.
Nigel Mansell retired from 7th with a spin after a broken bolt had jammed his gearbox. Bernd Schneider earned his first Grand Prix finish in 12th in his home race.
Read more about this topic: 1988 German Grand Prix
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