guidance from pit lane marshals or lights, Mansell and Nannini changed their tyres and left the pit lane to rejoin the circuit 17 seconds before the starting procedure had been completed and the green lights were shown to the rest of the field. Both cars circulated ahead of the pack for a few laps until they were caught by the leaders and then black-flagged, i.e. disqualified, for starting the race too early. At the start the rest of the field got away cleanly, except for Modena and Martini, who collided and both retired. Alboreto pitted his Tyrrell to retire with electrical problems. Prost led from Senna, Patrese, Berger, Boutsen, de Cesaris and Alliot, who had made a strong start. At the end of the lap Prost and Caffi pitted for slick tyres. On the following lap Prost entered the pits again, and retired there with front suspension failure. This left Senna leading as Boutsen passed Berger for third, and the order changed several times over the next few laps as drivers pitted for dry tyres, although the rain soon returned. Cheever retired from eighth position with an electrical fault. Senna was one of those to pit on lap four, and dropped to fifth, leaving Patrese in the lead from Boutsen, Berger and Alliot. Berger repassed Boutsen for second place, but immediately retired with a broken alternator belt. Designer John Barnard later said, "It isn't the actual gearbox that gives trouble. It's the electrical ancillaries which keep packing up." Further back, Tarquini spun out of the race, having just passed Arnoux for eighth place. Senna passed Alliot for third, behind the two Williams cars of Patrese and Boutsen. This order continued until lap 11, with Warwick fifth, ahead of Larini, Arnoux, Danner, Capelli and Sala. Next were the two Dallaras of Caffi and de Cesaris, followed by Palmer, Piquet and Gugelmin. The last two runners, Moreno and Johansson, had already been lapped. On lap 11, Boutsen and Capelli pitted, and on the next lap Gugelmin dropped out with electrical problems, while Sala crashed his Minardi into the barriers having inherited eighth place. At the back, Johansson pitted his Onyx for a second time, but emerged dragging a tyre gun, air line and part of the metal pit gantry on to the track. He was shown the black flag, but later claimed not to have seen it, and was disqualified for ignoring