the Swede and Johansson finished sixth in the Drivers' Championship. Stefan Johansson's position at McLaren was considered by many as just a stop gap signing by team boss Ron Dennis who had failed to lure Ayrton Senna from Lotus due to him being under contract until the end of 1987 and always intended signing the Brazilian for . Johansson famously finished the 1987 German Grand Prix on three wheels having had a puncture on the last lap. He also finished second behind Prost in Belgium and added further podium finishes in Brazil, Spain and Japan. Despite 11 podiums in three seasons, Johansson was still winless and was not wanted by a top team (he had hoped to join Williams in 1988 as a replacement for the departing 1987 World Champion Nelson Piquet but Williams signed Riccardo Patrese instead). He did return to McLaren in a test-driver capacity in 1991, testing the Honda V12 engine at Suzuka in Japan. 1988–1991 He joined Ligier for 1988, ironically alongside the man he replaced at Ferrari, René Arnoux, but the team's first non-turbo powered car since , the Michel Beaujon-designed JS31 powered by a naturally aspirated Judd V8 engine, was totally uncompetitive, scoring no points and often failed to qualify, even against teams with much smaller budgets such as AGS and Rial (the French team's low point of the year was when both Johansson and Arnoux failed to qualify for the French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard in the first weekend of July). Unfortunately for Johansson, he failed to come to grips with the JS31, recording six non-qualifications during the season (compared to Arnoux who only failed to qualify twice). He did record the car's two best finishes of the year though, ninth placings in the opening race of the season in Brazil and the last race in Australia. Better was to follow in as he was signed to lead the new Onyx team. The car was temperamental and didn't always qualify, but Johansson finished a surprise and popular third in Portugal for his last (and the team's only) podium finish. He fell out with new team owner Peter Monteverdi in early 1990 and was duly sacked, making further appearances for AGS and Footwork in . Johansson's record of podium finishes without a win was equalled by Nick Heidfeld at the 2009 Malaysian Grand Prix, who then took the record outright at the 2011