There were three new teams on the grid this year – BMS Scuderia Italia (using a Dallara chassis), Rial and EuroBrun – while Coloni was embarking on its first full season after entering two races towards the end of 1987. Between them, these four teams entered five cars (EuroBrun were the only new team to run 2 cars), thus increasing the number of participants at each race to 31. It was decided that only 30 cars should be allowed to participate in the qualifying sessions, and so pre-qualifying, which had been used in several races during the late 1970s and early 1980s, was re-introduced. For 1988, this consisted of the aforementioned five cars taking part in an extra session on Friday morning before the first session of qualifying proper (the session was run concurrently with the first un-timed practice session on the three street circuits on the calendar, though it took place on Thursday at Monaco), with the slowest car to miss out on the rest of the weekend. Dallara were late in producing their first Formula One car, forcing the BMS team into using a modified Formula 3000 chassis in the first race in Brazil (the Dallara 3087). Their new car, the F188, appeared in Round 2 in San Marino.