Monza, being another high speed circuit, would prove to be another McLaren dominated race, with both sitting on the front row, again with both Ferrari's behind. The race fell into regular routine as Senna lead from the start and Prost close behind. Prost had actually won the start, but as he changed gear from 1st to 2nd his Honda engine began to misfire allowing Senna to power past before the Retifillo chicane. At the end of the first lap with Senna holding a 2-second lead, Prost, correctly believing the misfire was bad enough that he wouldn't finish the race, turned his turbo boost up to full and gave chase. However, on lap 35 of 51, Prost's championship hopes seemed to evaporate when his Honda engine finally blew. The tifosi cheered as their drivers were shifted to second and third, albeit some 30 seconds behind Senna, and Honda were left embarrassed with one of their engines expiring on their main rivals (Ferrari) home track. Unfortunately for McLaren though, what Prost had done was force Senna to use too much fuel in his desire to stay in the lead (many in the pits, including his former Lotus team boss Peter Warr believed that Senna had effectively been suckered by Prost and should have realised that if he was using too much fuel then Prost was also, something Prost did not usually do). This forced Senna to back off over the last 16 laps in order to ensure a finish, and it allowed the Ferrari's to close the gap from 30 seconds when Prost retired, to just over 5 seconds with just two laps remaining as Senna came up to lap the Williams of Jean-Louis Schlesser, standing in for the still unwell Nigel Mansell.