Motorsports Mondial
And now a Moment in History as we look at the 80s from the 60th Anniversary edition of Autosport magazine – courtesy of Dr M Farrington who recently celebrated his 30th birthday. Happy Birthday Doc. See you soon.
Alan Jones is the first world champion for Williams and Lone Star JR, Johnny Rutherford win the Indy 500 in a Chapparal – this was the highlight of the 1980 season.
1981 saw first world championship for Nelson Piquet and first victory for Audi Qauttro in Sweden. It also saw the seventh and final win for the King, Richard Petty, in the Daytona 500.
1982 Nico Rosberg’s dad Keke wins the world championship with only 1 grand prix win for Williams. Sixth and final Le Mans win for Jacky Ickx. Tragedy of the season was at Zolder in practice for the Belgian GP when Gilles Villeneuve was killed. Later in the Canadian GP Italian Riccardo Paletti was killed when his Osella crashed and caught fire after hitting the stationary car of pole sitter Didier Pironi. And I think we all know what happened to Pironi at Hockenheim.
Mario Andretti started the 1982 Italian GP from pole position in his Ferrari 126C2 and moi was there to see him finish on the podium in third.
1983 Yellow helmet wins Macau Grand Prix. Piquet is the first turbo charged world champion with Brabham BMW.
1984 Mike Thackwel from New Zealand, one of the mysteries of Formula 1, wins the final Formula 2 championship.
1985 Alain Prost becomes the first French world champion. And our Nige takes his first F1 victory in the European GP at Brands Hatch.
1986 Tar fire for Mansell in season finale gives back to back title to Prost. Austrian Jo Gartner killed at Le Mans and Finnish Rally start Henri Toivonen and his co-driver from New York Sergio Cresto were killed in the crash of their Lancia Delta in the Corsica Rally. Earlier in the year they had won the Monte Carlo Rally.
1987 Nelson Piquet, that man from Rio, wins his third and final world championship in a Williams Honda.
1988 Ayrton Senna from Sao Paulo wins the first of his three championships in a McLaren Honda. Jaguar wins at Le Mans and future BBC and ITV commentator Martin Brundle wins the world sportscar championship.
1989 Prost is F1 Champion. No more turbos in F1. Peter Sauber and his Mercedes team were the big winners at Le mans. And David Coulthard wins the inaugural McLaren Autosport BRDC Award.
Nasir Hameed