Date September 6, 1987 | Course length 5.800 km (3.600 mi) | |
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Official name LVIII Gran Premio d'Italia Location Autodromo Nazionale Monza, Monza Course Permanent racing facility Distance 50 laps, 290.00 km (181.00 mi) | ||
The 1987 Italian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Monza on September 6, 1987. It was the eleventh round of the 1987 Formula One season. It was the 57th Italian Grand Prix and the 52nd to be held at Monza. It was 50 laps of the six kilometre circuit for a race distance of 290 kilometres.
The race was won by Brazilian driver Nelson Piquet driving a Williams FW11B. It was Piquet's third and final victory for the year as he raced towards his third world championship. It was also the sixth consecutive victory for the Williams team, a run of wins that had begun at the French Grand Prix back in early July. Piquet, racing an active ride suspension system in his FW11B for the first time, won the race by 1.8 seconds, having taken the lead from Ayrton Senna's Lotus 99T with eight laps remaining as the younger Brazilian attempted to run the race without stopping for tyres. Piquet's British team mate Nigel Mansell finished third.
French Tyrrell DG016 driver Philippe Streiff was the first naturally aspirated Jim Clark Trophy car to finish in 12th, three laps down on Piquet.
The win strengthened Piquet's championship points lead to 14 points over Senna and 20 over Mansell.
During qualifying, Piquet's Williams-Honda recorded the highest speed trap of the season when he was timed at 218.807 mph (352.135 km/h), some 5 mph faster than Mansell could manage in the conventional suspension car. This was the fastest ever speed that a turbo powered Formula One car achieved in the first turbo era of the sport (1977-1988).
Due to the entries of AGS and Coloni, for the first time in the 1987 season, there would be drivers who would fail to qualify for the race - in this case, it was to be Nicola Larini in the Coloni and Pascal Fabre in the AGS.