After the amazing showing of Leyton House Racing at the French GP, there were high expectations at Silverstone but there was to be disappointment for the team as Nigel Mansell took pole position in his Ferrari, beating Ayrton Senna and Gerhard Berger (both in McLaren-Hondas) to pole. Thierry Boutsen was fourth for Williams ahead of World Championship leader Alain Prost (Ferrari). Jean Alési was next in his Tyrrell with Riccardo Patrese (Williams), Éric Bernard and Aguri Suzuki in their Lola-Lamborghinis eighth and ninth and Leyton House's Ivan Capelli only 10th.

There was a huge crowd to support Mansell and he made a better start than Senna and tried to intimidate the Brazilian as they went down to the first corner. It did not work. Senna took the lead with Mansell second, Berger third and Boutsen fourth. Senna pulled away to start with but Mansell fought back and on lap 12 he took the lead. Two laps later Senna spun and dropped to fifth behind Mansell, Berger, Boutsen and Prost. He went into the pits shortly afterwards and dropped to 10th. Mansell stayed in the lead until the 22nd lap by which time he was in trouble with the electronic gearbox. Six laps later, however, Mansell went ahead again while both he and Berger (who was struggling with the handling of the McLaren) were coming under increasing threat from Prost. On lap 31 Prost overtook Berger to run second to Mansell. On lap 43 Prost overtook the troubled Mansell and at the same time Berger then fell back behind the charging Capelli but he went out a few laps later with a broken fuel pipe. Mansell's race lasted only until the 56th lap when he stopped with a total gearbox failure. He then walked back to the pits and announced to a small group of pressmen that he had decided to retire from Formula 1 at the end of the year.

Prost went on to win his third consecutive win and move ahead of Senna in the World Championship. Boutsen was second with Senna third, Bernard fourth, Nelson Piquet (Benetton) fifth and Suzuki sixth.