After five consecutive Nigel Mansell victories, the Formula 1 circus was beginning to worry that anyone else would get a result in 1992 but this time qualifying was very exciting, although Mansell and Riccardo Patrese again shared the front row of the grid, but the gap to Ayrton Senna's McLaren-Honda was down a little more, although the Brazilian was still 1.2secs behind Mansell. Patrese was badly held up by Bertrand Gachot and was so upset that he went to the Larrousse pit and tried to punch the Belgian. Jean Alési used his juggling skills to put his Ferrari fourth on the grid while Berger (McLaren) had several accidents (including a big one at Massanet on Thursday) but managed to qualify fifth. Michael Schumacher was sixth with his Benetton team mate Martin Brundle seventh and Ivan Capelli was eighth in the second Ferrari. The top 10 was completed by Johnny Herbert, ninth fastest in the new Lotus 107 (Mika Häkkinen in the second new car was 14th), and Andrea de Cesaris's Tyrrell-Ilmor. Pierluigi Martini was a long way down the grid in his Dallara-Ferrari after a huge crash on Saturday morning, which did so much damage that it took 40 minutes to repair the barriers in the tunnel. At the back of the grid there was much celebrating as Roberto Moreno qualified the Andrea Moda S921 for the first time in a race, edging out Eric van de Poele's Brabham by the tiniest of margins in the final seconds of qualifying.

On Sunday morning Aguri Suzuki demolished his Footwork and was sent off to hospital for check-ups. The Japanese driver was fit enough to race.

At the green light Mansell took the lead while Patrese made sure they did not collide and by doing so allowed Senna to grab third. Schumacher also made a good start to overtake Alési and Berger, although the Ferrari was fast enough to retake the place at Mirabeau.

While Mansell began to drive away at the front, Senna came under attack from Patrese although he then began to suffer handling problems and dropped back. The battle for fourth place ended in a collision between Alési and Schumacher at the Loews Hairpin on lap 12. This led to Alési's retirement soon afterwards when a damaged electronic box scrambled his gearbox programme. Brundle survived a brush with the wall while Berger went out with gearbox failure.

On lap 60 Alboreto made a mistake and spun, nearly taking Senna out with him, but the Brazilian managed to avoid impact - just. In doing so he lost nearly 10 seconds. A lap later Capelli ended his race with a shunt at Rascasse.

On lap 71 Mansell felt something was wrong at the rear of the car - a loose wheelnut - and dived into the pits. He emerged five seconds behind Senna. He caught Senna at an amazing rate and for the last four laps the two cars ran together, Mansell exploring every possible way to pass the Brazilian and Senna making sure that no gaps were left. Senna stayed ahead and they crossed the line separated by two-tenths of a second. Patrese was third with Schumacher fourth, Brundle fifth and Gachot sixth, a lap down but ahead of the other survivors.

With six races gone Mansell had exactly twice as many points as his nearest challenger, Riccardo Patrese.