In the second wet race in a row, Senna took the win from Prost, with Berger taking the bottom step of the rostrum. Alessandro Nannini set his first career fastest lap in his Benetton-Ford V8. The Italian had been in 4th place before having to pit to fix a broken throttle bracket which cost him 4 laps and almost 20 places and angrily drove the rest of the race flat out, setting a time that was 1.856 seconds faster than the next best set by Prost. Defending World Champion Nelson Piquet made the strange decision to start the race on slick tyres. It proved to be the wrong choice as his Lotus aquaplaned on the wet surface and clouted the tyre barrier going into the Ostkurve chicane on the first lap. Larrousse driver Philippe Alliot would later repeat Piquet's mistake. He changed from wets to slicks just 8 laps later and while being lapped by Senna, went offline and aquaplaned into the same tyre barrier the Lotus had hit. Like Piquet's Lotus, Alliot's Lola was out on the spot with rear suspension damage.