Pre-qualifying report
The field was one fewer in Monaco as Ferrari had elected not to run a second car to replace Gerhard Berger, who had been injured in an accident during the last race at Imola (the Austrian was present in the pits at Monaco, but even with the Ferrari's revolutionary semi-automatic gearbox meaning he didn't have to take his hands off the steering wheel, the burns on his hands were not sufficiently recovered to be able to take on the Circuit de Monaco). However, unlike the similar situation at the first race in Brazil, no extra pre-qualifier would be allowed through to the main qualifying sessions, and due to the much tighter confines of both the circuit and the pits, Monaco would only run with 29 cars.
Brabham again topped the time sheets during the Thursday morning pre-qualifying session, with Stefano Modena fastest, but the Dallara of Alex Caffi was only 0.141 seconds behind. Third was Pierre-Henri Raphanel, who put in a fine performance in his Coloni, pre-qualifying for the first, and ultimately, only time. The fourth pre-qualifier was the other Brabham, driven by Martin Brundle, who edged out the Osella of Piercarlo Ghinzani by just two-hundredths of a second.
Joining Ghinzani on the sidelines were Stefan Johansson in the Onyx, then Nicola Larini in the other Osella, followed by Bernd Schneider in the Zakspeed. Ninth was the other Onyx of Bertrand Gachot, ahead of the sole EuroBrun driven by Gregor Foitek. The Rial of Volker Weidler was eleventh, followed by Aguri Suzuki in the other Zakspeed. Slowest on this occasion was Joachim Winkelhock in the AGS. [2]
Qualifying report
Tyrrell had a new car that looked sleek and promising, but only Jonathan Palmer hit the track with it on the first day of practice and qualifying. Michele Alboreto's car wasn't finished yet (it would be by Saturday practice and qualifying) and he point blank refused to drive the older car. Ayrton Senna was on pole by a full second over teammate Alain Prost with Thierry Boutsen sharing row two with the surprisingly competitive Brabham of Martin Brundle. Nigel Mansell was fifth followed by Derek Warwick (who's all-out driving in the under-powered Arrows-Ford had found a new fan in the spectating Gerhard Berger), Riccardo Patrese, Stefano Modena, Alex Caffi, and Andrea de Cesaris.
It was at this race that many in the paddock started noticing that the Pirelli qualifying tyres were superior to Goodyear's (the Brabhams and Caffi's Dallara ran on Pirelli rubber).
For the second Monaco in a row, Team Lotus, previous winners in the Principality on 7 different occasions (1960, 1961, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1974 and 1987), would start the Monaco Grand Prix with only one car in the field. As he had done in 1988, Japanese driver Satoru Nakajima failed to qualify. Triple World Champion Nelson Piquet, never at ease on the Monaco streets, qualified 19th, 4.738 seconds behind his reigning World Champion countryman.
Alain Prost 
