The 1989 Australian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Adelaide on 5 November 1989. It was the sixteenth and final race of the 1989 Formula One World Championship. The race took place in wet conditions, with only 70 of the scheduled 81 laps run before the two-hour time limit was reached. It was stopped and restarted following a first-lap collision, with Frenchman Alain Prost declining to take the restart in his McLaren-Honda. Prost's Brazilian teammate, Ayrton Senna, started from pole position and led the first 13 laps before colliding with the Brabham-Judd of Briton Martin Brundle, after which Belgian Thierry Boutsen led the remainder of the race in his Williams-Renault. Boutsen won by 28 seconds from Italian Alessandro Nannini in a Benetton-Ford, with another Italian, Riccardo Patrese, third in the other Williams-Renault. This was the final Formula One race for Frenchman René Arnoux, American Eddie Cheever and Italian Piercarlo Ghinzani, and the final race entered by Briton Jonathan Palmer, who failed to qualify. It was also the final race entered by the German Zakspeed and Rial teams. Background The race weekend saw continuing fallout from the events in Japan two weeks previously, where the McLaren-Hondas of Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna had taken each other out in their battle for the race lead and the World Championship with seven laps remaining. A post-race disqualification to Senna for cutting the chicane to return to the circuit saw Prost confirmed as a triple World Champion and Senna was unhappy with the sport's governing body, the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA), and in particular its French president Jean-Marie Balestre whom he accused of rigging the championship for his countryman. Senna initially threatened to boycott the event and leave Formula One altogether. However, after lengthy talks with his family and McLaren boss Ron Dennis, he reluctantly showed up at Adelaide and immediately set the pace on Friday. Prost was determined to go out on a high note in his last Grand Prix for McLaren before joining Ferrari. McLaren were appealing Senna's Japanese Grand Prix disqualification. Ron Dennis said in a press conference that the appeal was not motivated against Prost (who was leaving the team) winning the championship, but simply that the team believed it had unjustly lost a race win, including the prize money as well as sponsorship bonuses from team backers such as Marlboro. This meant that