A wet, stop-start race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve ended with Williams on top after the McLaren-Honda pair fell out of contention.
Thierry Boutsen won the 1989 Canadian Grand Prix at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on 18 June 1989, taking his first Formula One victory for Williams-Renault. Riccardo Patrese finished second, just over 30 seconds behind, and Andrea de Cesaris was third for Dallara-Ford. Ayrton Senna's McLaren-Honda failed late in the race.
The 1989 Canadian Grand Prix was the sixth race of the 1989 Formula One World Championship, held at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on 18 June. Heavy rain made the morning difficult, the first start was aborted after Gerhard Berger stalled, and the race was reduced to 69 laps. Thierry Boutsen won for Williams-Renault after Ayrton Senna's McLaren-Honda failed late on.
Who won the 1989 Canadian Grand Prix?
Thierry Boutsen won the 1989 Canadian Grand Prix for Williams-Renault, the first Grand Prix win of his career. He inherited the lead when Senna retired with an engine failure on lap 67, and he led the final three laps to beat his team-mate Riccardo Patrese by just over thirty seconds.
Boutsen later said he could hardly believe the P1 board he had been shown, and that he drove very carefully for the rest of the race.
The win was the first for Williams with Renault engines, and it was the first by a Belgian driver since Jacky Ickx won the 1972 German Grand Prix. It also came almost exactly a year after Frank Williams announced in Canada that Renault would return to Formula One for 1989.
A wet race, a stalled start and a McLaren-Honda that failed late: Boutsen's first win came from the back of a race that nobody expected to finish that way.
Who had to pre-qualify, and who missed out?
Pre-qualifying on the Friday morning decided the back of the grid. Stefano Modena was fastest in his Brabham, more than a second quicker than Nicola Larini in the Osella, and eighteen of the twenty participating teams went on to qualify for the race, a record number.
Stefan Johansson was third fastest in the Onyx and Alex Caffi was fourth in the Dallara, the last of the pre-qualifiers. Martin Brundle, Modena's team-mate, was fifth but failed after car-related issues. It was the first time a Brabham had failed to pre-qualify that season.
Piercarlo Ghinzani, Larini's team-mate, finished eighth and failed for the sixth straight time, while Bertrand Gachot was sixth, also on his sixth successive failure. Gregor Foitek, seventh in the sole EuroBrun, had failed to pre-qualify on his previous four attempts. Bernd Schneider was ninth and Aguri Suzuki twelfth in the underpowered Zakspeeds, while Joachim Winkelhock was tenth for AGS and Volker Weidler eleventh for Rial, both on their sixth successive failures. Pierre-Henri Raphanel was bottom of the times and did not record a representative lap.
Four drivers failed to qualify for the race itself: Satoru Nakajima, Yannick Dalmas, Johnny Herbert and Olivier Grouillard. Herbert was dropped by Benetton for three months and replaced by McLaren test driver Emanuele Pirro for the next race, because he still needed time to recover from injuries sustained in a 1988 Formula 3000 race at Brands Hatch.
How did qualifying set the grid?
Alain Prost took pole for McLaren, just under eight hundredths of a second ahead of Ayrton Senna, which denied Senna a ninth consecutive pole. Riccardo Patrese and Gerhard Berger filled the second row, and Nigel Mansell and Thierry Boutsen made up the third row, with Mansell a tenth or two faster.
Most of the thirty drivers set their best times on the Friday afternoon, since Saturday was cold, windy, overcast and sometimes wet. Of the front runners, only Senna came close to matching his Friday time.
Modena qualified seventh, the top V8 and the highest-placed Pirelli-shod runner. Caffi was eighth and the Dallara team-mate Andrea de Cesaris shared the fifth row with Philippe Alliot. Pierluigi Martini was eleventh, Derek Warwick twelfth and Alessandro Nannini thirteenth, with Jonathan Palmer alongside him. Piquet was 19th in his Lotus. Danner qualified the last Rial 23rd, one of the few drivers to go faster on Saturday, while Perez-Sala was 24th.
How did the race unfold?
The first start was aborted when Berger stalled on the grid, and the distance was cut from 70 laps to 69. Mansell and Nannini left the pit lane before the green lights, having changed to slick tyres, and both were black-flagged for starting too early.
At the restart Prost led from Senna, Patrese, Berger, Boutsen, de Cesaris and Alliot. Modena and Martini collided at the start and both retired, and Alboreto pitted with electrical trouble. Prost pitted again on lap two and retired with front suspension failure, leaving Senna in the lead.
Berger was briefly second before he retired with a broken alternator belt. Senna pitted on lap four and dropped to fifth, which left Patrese in the lead from Boutsen, Berger and Alliot. Cheever had already retired from eighth with an electrical fault, and Tarquini spun out after passing Arnoux.
Designer John Barnard later said the trouble lay in the electrical ancillaries rather than the gearbox itself, because they kept packing up.
On lap 11 Boutsen and Capelli pitted, and Gugelmin retired with electrical problems the following lap. Johansson's Onyx was disqualified after he drove on with a tyre gun, an air line and part of the pit gantry dragging on the track. He had been shown the black flag but said he had not seen it.
Warwick led for four laps after Patrese pitted, before Senna passed him on lap 39. Warwick then retired from second on the next lap with engine failure. Palmer crashed out from seventh place, having set the fastest lap of the race, which was the only fastest lap of his career.
Danner and Caffi spun repeatedly and were lapped more than once. Moreno lost a front wheel and limped back to the pits on three wheels. Caffi passed Danner for seventh on lap 50, and Moreno retired with differential failure after completing 57 laps.
Patrese stayed on wet tyres from the start until lap 35, when he finally changed them. That left Warwick, also still on wets, to take the lead in the Arrows for a time.
Patrese had been losing downforce and grip because of a loose diffuser. On lap 63 Boutsen passed his team-mate for second place, and by then only Senna and the two Williams cars were on the lead lap. On lap 67 Senna's V10 Honda failed and he pulled onto the infield just past the start-finish line.
Final classification
| Finish | Driver | Team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thierry Boutsen | Williams-Renault | First Grand Prix win |
| 2 | Riccardo Patrese | Williams-Renault | Third successive second place |
| 3 | Andrea de Cesaris | Dallara-Ford | Last podium finish |
| 4 | Nelson Piquet | Lotus | Unlapped after Senna retired |
| 5 | Rene Arnoux | Ligier | Last points finish |
| 6 | Alex Caffi | Dallara | A lap down |
| 7 | Ayrton Senna | McLaren-Honda | Retired on lap 67 but classified |
| 8 | Christian Danner | Rial | Last surviving runner, three laps adrift |
Piquet and de Cesaris unlapped themselves after Senna's retirement. Arnoux was fifth in his Ligier, and Caffi finished a lap down, with both Dallaras in the points. Senna was classified seventh despite retiring, and Danner was eighth, the last surviving runner.
What did the result mean for the teams?
It was the first win for Boutsen and the first Williams victory with Renault engines. Dallara took its first podium, and it was the only time both of its cars finished in the points. Patrese's second place was his third straight runner-up finish.
The race was also the last podium of de Cesaris's career and the last points finish for Arnoux. Danner's Formula One career ended with this race, since he failed to qualify for any later Grand Prix before Rial withdrew at the season's end.
