The 1987 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 41st season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 1987 Formula One World Championship for Drivers and the 1987 Formula One World Championship for Constructors, which were contested concurrently over a sixteen-race series that commenced on 12 April and ended on 15 November. The World Championship for Drivers was won by Nelson Piquet, and the World Championship for Constructors by Williams-Honda. The season also encompassed the Jim Clark Trophy and the Colin Chapman Trophy, which were respectively contested by drivers and constructors of Formula One cars powered by naturally aspirated engines.

At first, the 1987 championship was a four-way battle between Williams drivers Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell, Lotus driver Ayrton Senna, and McLaren driver and defending two-time champion Alain Prost. Eventually, it became a straight fight between Piquet and Mansell, who between them finished with nine wins from the season's sixteen races. Mansell took six wins to Piquet's three; however, he only recorded three other points finishes while Piquet recorded nine (including seven second places). The duel was settled in Piquet's favour at the penultimate race of the season in Japan, when Mansell crashed heavily in practice and injured his back, ending his season and handing Piquet his third Drivers' Championship.

Senna finished third having won at Monaco and Detroit; the latter was the 79th and final win for the original Team Lotus. Prost finished fourth despite winning three races; his victory in Portugal took him past Jackie Stewart's record of 27 Grand Prix victories. Ferrari's Gerhard Berger won the final two races of the season, in Japan and Australia, to finish fifth.

The Constructors' Championship was comfortably won by Williams, with McLaren second, Lotus third and Ferrari fourth.

For 1987 only, there were two other championships, contested by drivers and constructors of cars powered by naturally aspirated engines: the Jim Clark Trophy for drivers, and the Colin Chapman Trophy for constructors. These championships encouraged teams to switch to such engines, ahead of the ban on turbos from 1989 onwards. Tyrrell were the only team to run two "atmo" cars for the entire season and thus easily won the Colin Chapman Trophy, while their drivers Jonathan Palmer and Philippe Streiff came first and second respectively in the Jim Clark Trophy.

With the return of the naturally aspirated engines with displacement upped to 3.5 litres, and the aforementioned turbo ban in mind, the FIA introduced new rules for 1987 in an effort to reduce costs and slow down the cars with a resultant increase in safety, as well as to increase competitiveness between the two engine types. Turbo-powered cars now had to feature a pop-off valve which restricted boost to 4.0 bar, thus limiting engine power. However, advances in engine development, aerodynamics, tyres and suspension meant that the leading teams such as Williams, McLaren and Ferrari nonetheless frequently recorded faster times than they had in 1986, when turbo boost was unrestricted. The FIA also banned super-soft (and sticky) qualifying tyres for 1987, thus eliminating the unpopular practice of having to find a clear lap on tyres which were good for two flying laps at best.

Pirelli's withdrawal from F1 at the end of 1986 meant that Goodyear was the sole tyre supplier for 1987 and thus this was the first season since 1963 that the sport featured a standard single tyre supplier.