It was a chaotic start to the championship at Misano in March: oil spills, unpredictable weather and general misfortune caused crashes for many of the early favourites and allowed Davide Tardozzi and Fabrizio Pirovano a clear gap over the rest of the field after two races. As a front-runner in the World Championship Pirovano had the edge over most of the domestic competition, in terms of ability and machinery; his rivals all year were Davide Tardozzi, whose efforts to make his underpowered Ducati competitive often ended in crashes, and 1989 champion Baldassare Monti who also was a regular at the front of the world championship grid. Their three-way fight ended in disaster at Monza when a blocking maneouvre went wrong on the run to the finish and Pirovano sent Tardozzi crashing into the barriers at over 200 km/h - fortunately with no injury to Tardozzi who readily accepted that "these things happen in racing". By the final round at Vallelunga Pirovano had the title wrapped up, having scored 9 podium finishes from 10 races while Tardozzi and Monti suffered several non-finishes each.