During Friday practice an incident occurred that would become one of the more unusual in the sport's history. Stefan Johansson's McLaren MP4/3 struck a deer that had wandered onto the circuit, travelling at close to 140 mph. The deer was killed instantly, and the impact destroyed the McLaren's left front suspension, the four corners of the car, and its carbon fibre monocoque. Johansson escaped with minor injuries, though he was later flown by helicopter to a hospital in Klagenfurt for X-rays after complaining of headaches and neck pain. McLaren flew a replacement car overnight from its base in Woking. Nelson Piquet's Williams-Honda also suffered damage after colliding with the AGS of Pascal Fabre during practice, with the Williams impacting the wall.
The race started at 14:30 Central European Time and required two false starts before it could be run properly. The first attempt ended almost immediately when Martin Brundle's Zakspeed crashed, triggering a collision between the Tyrrells of Jonathan Palmer and Philippe Streiff and a further crash for Piercarlo Ghinzani's Ligier. The second attempt was more destructive. Mansell crawled away from the front row with clutch problems, compacting the grid on the Österreichring's narrow front straight. Eddie Cheever in an Arrows and Riccardo Patrese in a Brabham collided, triggering a pile-up that drew in Johansson, Alex Caffi in an Osella, Ivan Capelli in a March, Fabre, Philippe Alliot in a Larrousse-Lola, and both Zakspeed drivers Brundle and Christian Danner.
For the third start, Tyrrell had exhausted their usable cars and Palmer was given the sole remaining DG016, having qualified ahead of Streiff. Several drivers took the restart in repaired or spare machinery, including Ayrton Senna, whose Lotus had suffered a CV joint failure during the second start. Alain Prost's McLaren developed an electrical failure on the warm-up lap; the mechanics restarted it and Prost began from the pit lane alongside Senna and the Ferrari of Michele Alboreto. The third start ran cleanly, over two hours after the original scheduled time.
Piquet led the early laps from Thierry Boutsen's Benetton and Mansell. Boutsen retired with gear linkage problems, and Mansell overtook Piquet while negotiating backmarkers on the straight leading into the Bosch Kurve. Once ahead, Mansell built his advantage to 56 seconds at the flag. Fabi, running a lap down, finished third in the other Benetton in what was a season-best result for the team. Further back, Senna, Prost, and Johansson recovered from their start-line difficulties to finish fifth, sixth, and seventh. Ghinzani was eighth for Ligier ahead of Danner and René Arnoux in the second Ligier.
Sixteen cars finished the race, though Fabre had not completed sufficient laps to be classified, and Martin Brundle was disqualified from fourteenth place for a bodywork infringement on the spare Zakspeed 871 he had been pressed into following the startline collisions.