On the way to the Spanish GP the Brabham team was impounded by the French customs for failing to pay bills. The team managed to salvage a couple of cars and appeared with Eric van de Poele partnered by Damon Hill, Giovanna Amati having failed to come up with the necessary sponsorship money to continue, not to mention failing to qualify in the first three races of the season. Andrea Moda Formula continued its mad F1 career with Perry McCarthy (now with a superlicence, which he did not have in Brazil) completing 10 yards and Roberto Moreno just a couple of laps.

Qualifying was restricted to one day by dreadful weather on Saturday and so the grid was rather unusual with Nigel Mansell on pole for Williams-Renault and Michael Schumacher's Benetton alongside him, despite having had a huge accident which broke the Benetton chassis. Ayrton Senna was third in the troublesome McLaren MP4/7 while Riccardo Patrese was not very happy to be fourth in his Williams. Ivan Capelli did better than in the early races in his Ferrari and was fifth on the grid ahead of Martin Brundle (Benetton), Gerhard Berger (McLaren) and his team mate Jean Alési. Karl Wendlinger was ninth in the March-Ilmor with Érik Comas 10th for Ligier.

At the start all the major runners were on wet tyres and Jean Alési made an extraordinary start, thanks to having had the rear of his car on a piece of track which was sheltered from the rain by a bridge. He arrived at the first corner in third place behind the two Williams-Renaults. In the early laps Schumacher and Senna tried to pass Alési, while Brundle quickly dropped back with a pair of spins as a result of a broken clutch. It took Schumacher until the seventh lap to pass Alési but Jean then dropped quickly behind Senna and Berger as well. He repassed Berger but then spun off.

Mansell was away and clear with an eight second lead on Patrese. He was 15 seconds ahead of Schumacher. The rain intensified and on lap 20 Patrese spun into a wall. Mansell was left ahead of Schumacher, Senna, Berger, Capelli and the fast-closing Alési. Alési pitted again and then charged back and by the end of the race was behind Senna. The pressure was such that Ayrton spun on lap 63. At the same time Capelli also spun and so both men dropped from the points.

Mansell thus won his fourth victory in four races with Schumacher second and Alési third. Berger was fourth ahead of Michele Alboreto's Footwork-Mugen and Pierluigi Martini's Dallara-Ferrari.