Before the previous race in Portugal it was revealed that René Arnoux had been fired by Ferrari, with no explanation ever given for his sudden departure by either the team or Arnoux. In his place was Swedish driver Stefan Johansson. Arnoux was in the pits at Imola, but was seen with the Brabham team, starting a false rumor he would soon join the team alongside Nelson Piquet. As it turned out, Arnoux would not drive in F1 again until joining Ligier in. Ayrton Senna took pole position in his Lotus-Renault with a time of 1:27.327, with Keke Rosberg alongside him on the front row in the Williams-Honda. For Senna it would be the first of seven consecutive pole positions at Imola, a run which ended in 1992. Filling the second row were Elio de Angelis in the second Lotus and Michele Alboreto in the Ferrari. Belgian Thierry Boutsen was a surprise 5th fastest in the Arrows-BMW, ahead of the McLaren-TAG of Alain Prost. In his second race for Ferrari, Johansson qualified 15th.
Race
Limited fuel allowances played a big part in the race, as a succession of drivers ran out of fuel in the last few laps. Prost took the chequered flag before stopping on the slowing-down lap; his car was then found to be two kilograms underweight in post-race scrutineering, resulting in his disqualification. Summing up the general feeling that FISA's fuel limit rules had seen Formula One races reduced to mere economy runs, Williams driver Nigel Mansell noted that "it wasn't really racing". Stefan Johansson ran a good race in his second drive for Ferrari. After starting 15th he steadily made his way through the field and by late in the race had moved to second and was poised to benefit from Senna also running dry 3 laps from home. Johansson took the lead from the Lotus to a thunderous applause from the Italian fans, only to run out of fuel himself half a lap later coming out of the Acque Minerali chicane. A post race examination of his car revealed the Ferrari had an electrical malfunction that caused the engine to use more fuel than the readout was telling the team or Johansson. The Ferrari's readout had told Johansson that he still had enough fuel to finish the race. Prost's disqualification promoted de Angelis to the win, his second in F1, with second place awarded to Boutsen - who ran out of fuel as he reached the start-finish straight on his final lap and pushed his Arrows across the finish line - and third to Frenchman Patrick Tambay who also ran out of fuel just before the finish line and pushed his Renault across the line to secure his finishing position, in what would turn out to be the last podium finish for both Tambay and the original factory Renault team.
