The months between the end of the 1989 season and the first race of 1990 were marked by an ongoing political battle between FISA President Jean-Marie Balestre and McLaren's Ayrton Senna over the events surrounding the 1989 Japanese Grand Prix. There was also a lot of movement amid the F1 teams with both Rial and Zakspeed withdrawing and AGS, Osella, Brabham, Coloni, Arrows and Onyx all coming under new ownership.

On the driver front Alain Prost moved from McLaren to join Nigel Mansell at Ferrari and Gerhard Berger went in the opposite direction to join Ayrton Senna at McLaren. Thierry Boutsen and Riccardo Patrese stayed at Williams for another season while Sandro Nannini was joined at Benetton by Nelson Piquet. Arrows (which had become Footwork and had announced plans to run with Porsche engines in 1991) hired Michele Alboreto and paid for Alex Caffi to be released by Scuderia Italia. The young Italian was missing in Phoenix, however, having injured himself in a cycling accident. His place was taken by Bernd Schneider.

The Larrousse team had Éric Bernard and Aguri Suzuki in its Lola-Lamborghinis while Lotus had also signed up for the Italian engines and hired Derek Warwick and Martin Donnelly to drive. Ligier was running Cosworths and had hired Nicola Larini to partner Philippe Alliot, while Leyton House Racing retained Judd V8 engines and re-signed Ivan Capelli and Maurício Gugelmin. The Onyx team had been sold to eccentric Swiss Peter Monteverdi but continued with Stefan Johansson and J.J. Lehto while AGS (under the ownership of Cyril de Rouvre) retained Gabriele Tarquini and Yannick Dalmas.

Of the Pirelli tyre runners, Tyrrell had Jean Alési partnering Satoru Nakajima (the team having agreed a deal for Honda engines in 1991). Brabham had been sold to the Middlebridge organization amid much legal wrangling but ran Stefano Modena and Gregor Foitek. The Osella team had been acquired by Gabriele Rumi of Fondmetal and he hired Olivier Grouillard. Scuderia Italia planned to run Andrea de Cesaris and Emanuele Pirro but Pirro was out of action with hepitatis and so his seat was taken in Phoenix by youngster Gianni Morbidelli. Minardi ran Pierluigi Martini and F1 newcomer pasta heir Paolo Barilla while EuroBrun had hired Roberto Moreno and Claudio Langes and the new Life Racing Engines had signed up Gary Brabham, son of Sir Jack and brother of David. Enzo Coloni had sold his Coloni team to Subaru and Bertrand Gachot had been hired to drive.

Qualifying resulted in pole position for Berger but the Pirelli qualifiers were impressive and so Martini was second with de Cesaris third ahead of Alési, Senna, Piquet, Prost and Grouillard. The top 10 was completed by Boutsen and Modena. Ligier had a bad time, Alliot being excluded for receiving outside assistance during one of the practice sessions.

At the start Alési took the lead and led Berger, de Cesaris and Senna. The Brazilian moved up through the order (being helped when Berger spun) and on lap 33 Senna was ready to attack Alési for the lead. Alési refused to back down and fought back after Senna passed him. On lap 35 Senna got ahead and pulled away while Alési followed him home with Thierry Boutsen getting ahead of Piquet to grab third place. Piquet was fourth with Modena fifth and Nakajima sixth.