Alan Jones’ time on the very peak of F1 was quick – primarily slightly below three years from mid-1979 to the tip of 1981 – however he left an enduring impression.
Jones is synonymous with the Williams group, having grow to be their first world champion in 1980, and he shaped an in depth, nearly brotherly bond with co-founders Frank Williams and Patrick Head.
Williams and Head cherished Jones’ pugnacious, no-nonsense method, and between them they had been the main power in F1 for a short while, because the group first emerged on the forefront of the game.
Future Williams drivers, whoever they had been, had been nearly all the time measured in opposition to Jones, and normally got here up wanting in Williams’ and Head’s eyes.
After making his debut, it took a short while for Jones’ talents to be appreciated. However victory for the unfancied Shadow group within the 1977 Austrian Grand Prix, beating Niki Lauda’s Ferrari truthful and sq., was an indicator of his potential.
Shifting to Williams in 1978, the group confirmed effectively with their neat FW06 design, the primary led by Head at the beginning of his iconic profession.
But it surely was 1979 when Jones and Williams actually turned it on. When the brand new FW07 automotive debuted mid-season, it and Jones quickly turned the usual setters.
Early reliability issues meant he was unable to problem Ferrari drivers Jody Scheckter and Gilles Villeneuve for the title below the season’s weird break up scoring system, however he received 4 of the ultimate six races to set the tone for the next yr.
In 1980, with the upgraded FW07B, Jones and Williams had been the group to beat. Pushed laborious to the title by Brabham’s Nelson Piquet, for whom Jones had little time, he received 5 of the 14 races and clinched the title with a race to spare.
He might and arguably ought to have received once more in 1981, however a few retirements and a few errors restricted his victory tally to the primary and final grands prix.
A dominant victory on the unloved new circuit within the Caesars Palace automotive park in Las Vegas was overshadowed by team-mate Carlos Reutemann’s weird capitulation within the championship struggle with Piquet.
After it, though on the peak of his powers, Jones retired on the age of 34, to return to his beloved Australia.
He thought it was the suitable transfer, however he quickly received the itch to return. A one-off outing for Arrows in 1983 was adopted by a full-time comeback for the brand new US-based Haas group – no relation to the present one of many identical identify.
However the mission was not a hit. The automotive didn’t debut till the twelfth race of 1985, and in 1986 was unreliable and gradual, regardless of assist from a then unknown Adrian Newey.
It collapsed on the finish of the season, and Jones left F1 for good. He continued to race intermittently into his 50s, and in addition frolicked as an F1 driver steward.
