With local hero Prost taking pole in all of the previous seven races, there was a massive turnout for qualifying where the Williams were usually dominant. The Williams did take 1–2 in qualifying, but it was Hill who took his first Formula One pole ahead of Prost. The Ligier team, in its home race, filled the second row with Martin Brundle ahead of Mark Blundell, and thus completed a 1-2-3-4 for Renault-powered cars. Ayrton Senna in the McLaren and Jean Alesi in the Ferrari were on the third row, Schumacher in the Benetton and Rubens Barrichello in the Jordan made up the fourth, and the Larrousse team, also contesting its home race, took up the fifth with Érik Comas ahead of Philippe Alliot.
Race
At the start, the top 5 stayed the same while Schumacher got ahead of Alesi. Hill led from Prost, Brundle, Blundell, Senna and Schumacher. The Williams pulled away while Brundle pulled away from Blundell who was holding up Senna and Schumacher. However, this ended when Blundell was pushed off the road and into retirement on lap 21 as he attempted to lap de Cesaris. It was time for the mid-race stops during which Prost got ahead of Hill and Senna and Schumacher closed up on Brundle. During the second stops, Prost stayed ahead - just by two-tenths while Senna and Schumacher got ahead of Brundle. Schumacher passed Senna when the two were going through traffic and pulled away. Prost won with Hill right behind to make it a Williams 1-2 ahead of Schumacher, Senna, Brundle and Andretti. Thus, at the halfway stage of the season, Prost led the World Championship with 57 points. Senna was a further 12 points behind in second with 45, Hill was third with 28, Schumacher was fourth with 24, Brundle fifth with 9, Blundell sixth with 6, Herbert seventh with 6 and Lehto eighth with 5. There were no real battles in the Constructors Championship with Williams comfortably leading with 85 points with McLaren 37 points behind in second with 48. Benetton were third with 29 and Ligier were fourth with 15. Following the death of former world championJames Hunt, former British driver Jonathan Palmer moved from Pit Lane reporter and took Hunt's place in the BBC commentary booth for the race. Palmer would continue to partner Murray Walker in the booth until the end of the season. By winning the race, Prost became the first Formula One driver to reach 100 career podiums.
