he raced in 1988, replacing Swiss driver Gregor Foitek, but with no improvement down in eleventh. Twelfth was the other AGS of Yannick Dalmas, ahead only of the second Coloni of Enrico Bertaggia. Pre-qualifying classification Qualifying report Predictably, the McLaren-Honda of Ayrton Senna was the fastest in qualifying for his 38th career pole position. Second was a surprise as Ferrari's Gerhard Berger joined Senna on the front row, whilst his teammate Nigel Mansell was third. Prost was only 4th, some 1.79 seconds slower than his Brazilian teammate, publicly complaining all weekend of a down on power engine compared to Senna's. Prost's claims that Honda were favouring Senna were refuted by both Honda and McLaren boss Ron Dennis. However Prost's assertion was supported by former Honda drivers Mansell and World Champion Keke Rosberg who also told the press that when it became known they would not be driving Honda powered cars any more that their engines did not work as well or have as much power as was previous. BBC commentator Murray Walker also reported during the race itself that Prost was over slower than Senna through the speed trap in the race morning warm-up session despite the two cars running similar wing settings. Senna's time of 1:23.720 in his V10 McLaren-Honda was 2.254 seconds faster than he had been a year earlier in the turbocharged McLaren MP4/4. His time was only 0.26 seconds shy of the fastest ever lap of the Monza circuit set by Nelson Piquet in a Williams-Honda in qualifying for the 1987 race when the turbo engines were developing some more than the naturally aspirated engines of 1989. Eddie Cheever, who had finished 3rd in the 1988 race, failed to qualify his Arrows-Ford. It was the second time in 1989 that the American had failed to qualify for a race. His teammate Derek Warwick qualified 16th. The Brabham-Judd of Stefano Modena was excluded from the meeting when his car was found to be underweight. This promoted the Minardi of Luis Pérez-Sala onto the grid. Qualifying classification Race Race report As the grid was in the process of forming up before the start, the McLaren team transferred the settings from Senna's car to Prost's in the hope of curing its handling problem (Prost had actually been more than 2 seconds slower in the race morning warm up than Senna). Prost would later say that while handling and grip