new twin-chassis Lotus 88, designed by Colin Chapman and Martin Ogilvie. A protest was lodged by a majority of the teams, although they did not specify what rules it was breaking. The car was initially approved by the FISA technical staff and passed by the scrutineers, allowing it to take part in Friday practice. Ultimately, however, the teams' appeal was allowed, the car was banned from the rest of the weekend and Lotus had to qualify and race the more conventional Lotus 81. On the track, in final qualifying, Riccardo Patrese and Alan Jones traded the top spot back and forth several times during the session. Patrese finally managed to take the pole, clinching his first ever and the first (and only) for his Arrows team, by .01 seconds. Jones's Williams teammate Reutemann was third, followed by Nelson Piquet's Brabham, the Ferrari of Gilles Villeneuve and Mario Andretti in his first race for Alfa Romeo. The all-American Tyrrell driver team had Eddie Cheever in eighth place, but Kevin Cogan missed the final qualifying spot by .07 seconds. It was the first time a Tyrrell had ever failed to make the grid. Sunday's weather, typical of Long Beach was perfect, but the first lap was not. Villeneuve made a wild charge down the outside off the grid and briefly took the lead, but he left his braking for the Queens Hairpin far too late. As he went wide, Patrese and the Williams pair of Reutemann and Jones all went through. Villeneuve was able to gather it in and rejoin in fourth, but Andrea de Cesaris did not, as he ran his McLaren into the back of both Alain Prost and Héctor Rebaque approaching the hairpin. After being hit, Prost's Renault slid across the track and shoved the Brabham of Rebaque into the wall. Prost and de Cesaris were out on the spot, but Rebaque was able to continue after pitting for four new tires. After one lap, the order was Patrese, Reutemann, Jones, Villeneuve, Piquet, Didier Pironi, Cheever and Andretti. For the first part of the race, Patrese led Reutemann by around one second with Jones another three seconds behind. Then, almost the length of the pit straight back, was Pironi, who had traded places with Villeneuve (fifth and third) but was now holding up a line of cars as Piquet desperately tried to get by. Lap 17 was a bad