The McLaren domination continued with Ayrton Senna on pole by 1.4secs with his team mate Alain Prost second and then a gap of 1.2secs back to the best of the rest: Gerhard Berger in his Ferrari. Michele Alboreto was fourth in his Ferrari with Nigel Mansell fifth in his Williams-Judd ahead of Sandro Nannini's Benetton-Ford ahead of Gerhard Berger's Ferrari, Derek Warwick's Arrows-Megatron, Riccardo Patrese's Williams, Eddie Cheever's Arrows and Jonathan Palmer's Tyrrell. The Lotuses were off the pace with Nelson Piquet 11th and Satoru Nakajima failing to qualify.

Senna got to the first corner ahead and Prost missed a gear and so he dropped to third place behind Berger. With Prost stuck behind Berger the race was effectively over as the gap grew rapidly. Prost would remain stuck behind the Ferrari until lap 54 when he finally managed to get by. He was nearly 50 seconds behind Senna by then but immediately dropped his lap times by two seconds. Senna responded to show Prost that it was useless to even try an attack. On lap 67 Senna suddenly disappeared. He had crashed at Portier. He did not return to the pits but went straight to his apartment. Prost thus won the race with Berger second, Alboreto third, Warwick fourth, Palmer fifth and Patrese sixth.