McLaren secured their 12th 1–2 qualifying for the season, with Senna setting his record 13th pole for the year, again doing his last minute act by literally beating Prost's time on the last lap of qualifying. In the last turbo Formula One race until the season, Bernd Schneider failed to qualify his Zakspeed, while Nicola Larini failed to pre-qualify the Osella. A relaxed Nigel Mansell, in his last race in his first spell for Williams, qualified 3rd, though he wasn't confident going into the race as both he and Riccardo Patrese had suffered brake trouble all through practice and qualifying and the Adelaide Street Circuit had been notoriously hard on brakes in its 3 race history.