Senna continued to fight to be among the first on the grid and the race, but he knew it would be hard to keep up with Williams and started to focus on the developments of other teams like McLaren and Ferrari.
He secured the third fastest time through determination and stubbornness. He would have to work hard to achieve a good placement in the race. At the French Grand Prix, Lotus performed well on the straights, like the half-mile (980 m) long Mistral, but on the numerous low speed corners on the Paul Ricard Circuit, it didn’t have the same re-acceleration as the other top cars.
In the race, Ayrton Senna set the fastest lap (1:27.685), but it was impossible to maintain that pace on all 80 laps of the race.
He tried to secure the third position, opposing Alain Prost. On the second to last lap, however, his car lost hydraulic pressure and Senna had to ease up in order to maintain the fourth position behind Nigel Mansell, Nelson Piquet (Williams) and Alain Prost (McLaren), one lap behind the winner.
After the race, Senna and half the Lotus team remained at Paul Ricard to test the new active suspension that would debut at the Italian Grand Prix. They were hopeful that they would once again be able to keep up with the competition.
FRENCH GP
1º
N. Mansell
2º
A. Prost
3º
Ayrton Senna
4º
N. Piquet
5º
T. Boutsen
6º
G. Berger
7º
T. Fabi
8º
M. Alboreto
9º
S. Johansson
10º
D. Warwick
11º
A. de Cesaris
12º
R. Patrese
13º
R. Arnoux
14º
E. Cheever
15º
A. Nannini
16º
S. Nakajima
17º
P. Ghinzani
18º
M. Brundle
19º
C. Danner
20º
A. Caffi
21º
A. Campos
22º
I. Capelli
23º
P. Alliot
24º
J. Palmer
25º
P. Streiff
26º
P. Fabre
80
laps
26
cars
17
Retirements
1’09”548
Fastest lap
1º
Cloudy Weather
Podium
1º
N. Mansell
2º
N. Piquet
3º
A. Prost
4
final position
1
position in championship following the race
3
starting place
3
championship points accumulated
1’12”231
best lap
I had to drive the best I could, but even so I was slow because the car hadn’t been set up as well as it could have been.