1981 Formula One World Championship

The 1981 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 35th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 1981 Formula One World Championship for Drivers and the 1981 Formula One World Championship for Manufacturers , which were contested over a fifteen-race series that commenced on 15 March and ended on 17 October. The 1981 South African Grand Prix , as a non-championship race due to difficulties from the ongoing FISA–FOCA war , was open to Formula One entrants but was not part of the Wo...

The 1981 championship was the first to be run under the FIA Formula One World Championship name, [ 2 ] replacing both the original World Championship of Drivers and International Cup for Constructors . Under the influence of Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone and the FOCA organisation, teams were asked to sign the first Concorde Agreement , which would set Formula One on course to become a profitable business. [ 3 ] The agreement required teams to lodge entries for the entire championship rath...

Nelson Piquet won the Drivers' Championship, claiming the first of his three drivers' titles, while Williams won the Constructors' Championship for the second consecutive year.

Avon and Pirelli entered the sport as tyre manufacturers.

The following teams and drivers contested the 1981 FIA Formula One World Championship:

There had been a lot of change over the winter:

The championship was contested over the following fifteen races:

The South African Grand Prix, held on 7 February at the Kyalami Circuit near Johannesburg, was originally supposed to be the first round of the 1981 Formula One World Championship – but it was eventually stripped of its championship status. The ongoing FISA–FOCA war resulted in Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA) insisting on a date change which was not acceptable to the race organisers. Approval was ultimately given for the race to go ahead on its original date but as a Formula...

In qualifying, it was once again a major battle between the major players of 1980. The Brabham of Nelson Piquet battled the two Williams cars of Alan Jones and Carlos Reutemann for pole position. Piquet took pole, with Reutemann in second. Reutemann had a close call when in the closing minutes of the session, his Williams spun off and went into the catch fencing. The fencing had wrapped around his windpipe and had begun to strangle Reutemann, and the hapless Argentine was unable to remove the ca...

The race was held in quite wet conditions, however the rain had abated shortly before the start of the grand prix. Notably, only Carlos Reutemann from second on the grid and Keke Rosberg in fourth on the grid who went for slicks, everyone else would choose wet weather tyres. Unsurprisingly, Reutemann and Rosberg made poor starts in the still wet conditions. Piquet maintained his lead as Reutemann dropped behind Elio de Angelis and the fast starting Jan Lammers who had come up from tenth on the g...

The first of two rounds in the United States of America started a trilogy of F1 races in the Americas on March 15 at the Long Beach street circuit in southern California, just outside the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles. Goodyear had decided to withdraw from F1 leaving everyone on Michelin tyres, and the cars were now running in new 1981-specification cars, with the sliding skirts now banned and cars required to have a 6 cm ground clearance in order to reduce downforce. Qualifying resulted i...

Raceday had typically perfect Long Beach weather, and at the start Villeneuve made an amazing start and charged down to the first corner, Queen's Hairpin, so quickly that he overshot, with Patrese going into the lead with Jones and Reutemann chasing. In the middle of the pack, Prost and de Cesaris collided and both went out. Pironi made a remarkable start to go from 11th on the grid to fourth, ahead of Piquet, the recovering Villeneuve, Cheever and Andretti. On the second lap Reutemann overtook ...

The Formula One circus moved from North to South America to start a two-stop tour there. The first round was at the Jacarepagua Autodrome in Rio de Janeiro – only the second time F1 had been there. F1 had previously visited the 5-mile Interlagos circuit in São Paulo from 1972 to 1980; this circuit was effectively dropped after 1980 because of safety issues with the circuit and the growing slums around the circuit being at odds with Formula One's glamorous image. Tyrrell rented its second car to ...

It was wet on race morning and the start took place with the track damp but the rain holding off. Piquet decided to go on slick tyres (but everyone else except Didier Pironi and Siegfried Stohr decided to use wets). Prost made a bad start and this caused the fast-starting Villeneuve to have to lift off. Andretti hit the rear of Villeneuve and went over the Ferrari. Behind them Arnoux, Eddie Cheever, Stohr and Chico Serra were all involved. At the front Reutemann went into the lead with Jones, Pa...

In the closing laps the two Talbot Ligiers switched positions again (Jarier being told to drop back by the team), while Jones waited for Reutemann to move aside as the World Champion was the team's number one. Reutemann did not budge. The team showed pitboards indicating that Reutemann should move over but he did not. Everyone thought he would be waiting for the last lap but Reutemann took the flag first. Jones was furious and did not take part in the podium ceremony. Patrese finished third with...

The other half of the South American tour in Reutemann's home country of Argentina was usually held in January; this time it was in the cooler weather of April. Reutemann's decision to disobey team orders in Brazil had split the Williams team while the Lotus 88 was once again banned. Team boss Colin Chapman was so incensed by the decision that he left before practice even began. There was also a dispute over Brabham's new hydro-pneumatic suspension which was designed to overcome the regulation w...

Raceday came about, and at this varied circuit located in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, Jones took the lead at the start, but Piquet got ahead in the course of the first lap by driving around the outside of Jones in one of the corners and he then drove away from the field. He ended the race over 25 seconds ahead. In the course of the second lap Reutemann overtook Jones and the Australian would later drop behind Prost and Rebaque as well. Rebaque's Brabham was handling well and so he was...

Due to internal politics and the drivers' strike at the 1982 South African Grand Prix, the Argentine GP would not return to the calendar until 1995.

Three weeks later, the GP circus returned to Europe to start the 4 month long tour there. The first race was a new race – a second Italian race called the San Marino Grand Prix at the Autodromo Dino Ferrari near Imola, just outside Bologna and 50 miles west of the tiny principality of San Marino. Team Lotus had decided to miss the race but in England a new Lotus 87 was being tested to replace the banned twin-chassis Lotus 88. The controversy over hydro-pneumatic suspensions had also faded as all...

The track was wet at the start and everyone was on wet tyres. This race turned out to be an exciting affair as Villeneuve went into the lead while Pironi was able to use the prodigious power of the Ferrari to blast his way up to second position. At the back of the field there was a nasty accident when F1 debutante Miguel Angel Guerra had a moment in Tosa corner and was then hit by Eliseo Salazar's March. This punted the Osella into the barrier at high speed and the Argentine driver had to be cut...

In stark contrast to San Marino, the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder was a shambolic event filled with tragedies and frustration. Politics dominated this event; Gordon Murray's hydraulic suspension gave his Brabhams a considerable performance advantage, and the teams had been heavily protesting the system's legality within the revised rules for the season. The political bickering over the Concorde Agreement meant that with 32 entries, there were too many cars and pressure was applied to ATS and The...

Qualifying resulted in pole position for Reutemann with Piquet second for Brabham and Pironi third in his turbocharged Ferrari. Fourth place went to Patrese, with the top 10 being completed by Watson, Jones, Villeneuve, Cheever, Laffite, and Mansell.

The race, however, was an appalling embarrassment by top motor racing standards. At the start, there was a drivers' strike concerning mechanic and team personnel safety, they complained that their views were being ignored, which delayed the start. When the race started, an Arrows mechanic, Dave Luckett, jumped onto the grid just as the clerk of the course hit the lights to go green in an attempt to start Riccardo Patrese's stalled car. Luckett was run over by the other Arrows driver, Siegfried S...

When the race restarted neither Arrows took part. Pironi took the lead with Reutemann, Piquet, Watson, and Jones chasing him. The Australian looked very strong in the early laps as he passed Watson and Reutemann and then Jones had a brush with Piquet which left the Brabham in the catchfencing. A furious Piquet charged up to Jones in the pits and attempted to physically fight him. On lap 12 he took the lead from Pironi but eight laps later the Williams jumped out of gear at Bianchibocht and smash...

The historic Monaco Grand Prix was the scene of an ultra-exciting race. With too many cars entered there had to be a pre-qualifying session to get the field down to 26 for practice. This eliminated both Tolemans, both Marches and the single ATS of Slim Borgudd. A further six were lost in qualifying with Hector Rebaque (Brabham), Rosberg and Chico Serra (Fittipaldi), Jabouille, and the two Osellas (Piercarlo Ghinzani and Beppe Gabbiani) all going home early. At the front of the grid Piquet was on...

At the start there was the usual first corner accident as Andrea de Cesaris (McLaren) tangled with Mario Andretti's Alfa Romeo. Piquet took the lead with Villeneuve chasing and Mansell third ahead of the two Williams cars. The young Englishman disappeared early on with a suspension problem and Reutemann went out with gearbox trouble and Jones moved up ahead of Villeneuve and began to pressure Piquet for the lead. On lap 53 Piquet came up to lap some backmarkers, went offline and slid off into a ...

Three weeks after the Monaco Grand Prix, the narrow and tight Jarama circuit just outside Madrid was the location for the Spanish Grand Prix, and it produced one of the best races of the year. The field had altered somewhat with Eliseo Salazar having left March to join Ensign, displacing Marc Surer. Laffite took pole in his Ligier-Matra with the two Williams-DFVs of Jones and Reutemann second and third ahead of Watson, Prost, and the Alfa of Bruno Giacomelli. Villeneuve was seventh.

Race day was incredibly hot. The temperature would be around 38-degrees Celsius when the race began, with Jones and Reutemann blasting into the lead as Laffite made a poor start with Villeneuve diving into third place at the first corner, snagging Prost's front wing as he took the place. At the end of the first lap Villeneuve pulled out of Reutemann's slipstream and took second place. Jones quickly built a lead but on lap 14 - when he was around 10 seconds ahead - he went off at Nuvolari. This l...

The small crowd, the inappropriate time of year this race was held in and the waning interest of the organizers caused this race to be the last Spanish Grand Prix until 1986, when it was moved south to the new Jerez circuit near Seville.

Two weeks after Gilles Villeneuve's extraordinary victory in Spain, the alternating French Grand Prix moved from the Paul Ricard circuit near Marseille to the fast, sweeping Prenois circuit near Dijon, located in the Burgundy countryside where the F1 gathered with Carlos Reutemann well ahead of Nelson Piquet in the World Championship.

Marc Surer (displaced from Ensign by Eliseo Salazar) had taken over the Theodore drive, leaving Patrick Tambay out of work. However, Jabouille had decided to retire as he was no longer competitive as a result of the leg injuries he had suffered in Canada in 1980 and so Tambay became the second Talbot Ligier driver. This was perfect as it reduced the field to 30 cars and meant that there was no need for pre-qualifying. The other news was that Goodyear had returned to F1 and so Williams and Brabha...

On the first lap Piquet took the lead from Watson, Prost, de Cesaris and Villeneuve (who had been 11th on the grid in his Ferrari) while Arnoux dropped back to ninth. Prost soon moved ahead of Watson while further back de Cesaris was pushed behind Villeneuve, although both men were then overtaken by Reutemann. Arnoux recovered to run fifth and he moved up to fourth ahead of Reutemann on lap 33 only to run into trouble and drop back behind the Argentine driver.

On lap 58 there was a torrential downpour and the race was stopped. The weather cleared up quickly and so it was decided that the second part of the race would be run with the grid based on the finishing order of the first part. This time Piquet was engulfed by Prost's Renault and he was followed ahead by Watson and Arnoux. Piquet faded quickly behind Pironi and any advantage he had had in the first part of the race disappeared. Prost stayed ahead all the way to the flag to win his first of 51 F...

The British Grand Prix was held at the flat Silverstone circuit this year, which was the fastest Grand Prix circuit in the world at the time. The field was almost the same as at Dijon two weeks earlier except that Jean-Pierre Jarier had been hired to drive for Osella in place of Miguel Angel Guerra. Team Lotus appeared with the Lotus 88B but once again the team ran into trouble with FISA over the legality of the car and eventually the cars were disqualified. As they had been built by cannibalizi...

Raceday was on a Saturday, and at the start Prost walked away from the field. At the start of lap 5, near the Woodcote chicane, Villeneuve lost control, taking out Alan Jones (Williams) and Andrea de Cesaris (McLaren) who were both unable to avoid the Canadian, while Briton John Watson, in the other McLaren, narrowly missed the wreckage. Villeneuve managed to get the Ferrari going again but only got as far as Stowe Corner before parking. On lap 12, Nelson Piquet, who was 3rd at that point, crash...

The German Grand Prix at the very fast, straight dominated Hockenheimring saw the field being unchanged apart from the fact that Team Lotus was back in action with a pair of Lotus 87s, both sporting new JPS sponsorship. There were some changes of tyres with Tyrrell running on Avons, Lotus on Goodyear and Arrows on Pirellis. It was no surprise to see the two Renault turbo cars on the front row with Prost nearly half a second quicker than Arnoux. World Championship leader Reutemann was third with ...

The race turned out to be a classic, and at the start Prost took the lead but Reutemann managed to get ahead of Arnoux. On the run down to the first chicane Pironi also went past Arnoux and Piquet tried the same at the Ostkurve. The Renault and the Brabham touched. This meant that Arnoux had to pit at the end of the lap with a deflated right rear. While this was going on Jones went past Piquet. Halfway around the second lap Pironi disappeared with a blown engine, with Prost leading over Reuteman...

When F1 descended upon the fast and sweeping Österreichring, the entry was as normal except that the Fittipaldi team, which was struggling for money, was not present because it did not have enough engines. Tyrrell had switched from Avon tyres to Goodyear. Eddie Cheever would fail to make the grid in the new Tyrrell 011. With Austria's extra altitude the turbocharged cars were at an advantage, so Arnoux and Prost put their Renaults on the front row with Villeneuve's Ferrari third. Laffite was nex...

At the start Villeneuve blasted his Ferrari into the lead ahead of Prost, Arnoux and Pironi (who had made a fast start in his Ferrari). Villeneuve pushed too hard on the second lap and went off at the chicane, rejoining in sixth place. This left Prost and Arnoux to pull away while Pironi's Ferrari provided a road block for those chasing. The cork stayed in the bottle until the ninth lap, by which time 7 cars were stuck behind the Renaults, which had a lead of nearly 20 seconds. Pironi's Ferrari ...

The Fittipaldi team was back in action for the Dutch GP at the Zandvoort circuit near Amsterdam after missing the Austrian GP but had switched to Pirelli tyres. Otherwise the field was the same as usual and it was an all-Renault front row with Alain Prost outqualifying Rene Arnoux. Third place went to World Championship challenger Piquet with his rival Reutemann fifth, behind his Williams teammate Jones. Laffite was sixth in his Talbot Ligier just ahead of Andretti, Watson, de Angelis, and Patre...

At the start Prost and Arnoux went into Tarzan ahead but behind them Gilles Villeneuve tried to make up for his poor qualifying and charged through a gap between Patrese and Bruno Giacomelli's Alfa Romeo. Giacomelli was unaware that Villeneuve was there and the result was that Villeneuve ran into the Alfa, vaulted over it and landed, spinning. At the next corner Andretti and Reutemann collided and the American ended up with a bent front wing. Also in trouble were Pironi and Tambay, the pair havi...

The second Italian and last European race of the year, the Italian Grand Prix, returned to the historic Monza circuit just outside Milan after a year's stay at Imola. Nelson Piquet and Carlos Reutemann arrived on equal points in the World Championship, and the summer had been seen the emergence as a major force of Alain Prost in the Renault and he too was becoming the threat to the World Championship leaders. The switching around of tyres continued with Tyrrell deciding to go back to Goodyear at...

There was then a huge accident at the Lesmo when Watson lost control of his MP4/1. It spun into the barriers and the engine was ripped from the tub. Watson emerged unhurt but the engine went across the road, causing Michele Alboreto to crash his Tyrrell. The next to arrive was Reutemann and he had to take to the grass and so he dropped behind Giacomelli. The Alfa driver was not in luck however and on lap 26 his Alfa went into the pits with his gearbox jammed. this put Piquet into third place beh...

The season concluded with two races in North America, the first of these being in Montreal, Canada. Alan Jones announced that he was retiring for Formula 1 and there were rumors that Mario Andretti would do the same. At the same time, Niki Lauda was spotted testing one of the new McLaren MP4/1s at Donington Park and it looked like he would be making a comeback. Siegfried Stohr, after his trauma in Belgium and the uncompetitiveness of the Arrows, then decided that he no longer wanted to be an F1 ...

The weather had turned cold and wet by race day and at the start Jones took the lead after banging wheels with Reutemann. The Argentine driver had to lift off and he was overtaken by rival Piquet, Prost and de Angelis. Further back, Villeneuve tipped Arnoux into a spin, the Renault bashing into Pironi's Ferrari as it went off. In the laps that followed Villeneuve moved up to take third on lap 7 when Jones spun and Piquet dropped back as he tried to avoid the Williams. This let Prost take the lea...

World Championship leader Carlos Reutemann qualified on pole ahead of his teammate Alan Jones. The Australian had no intent to do anything to help the Argentine to the title because of their clash over team orders at the start of the year. He was retiring from F1 after the race and had nothing to lose whilst prioritizing a victory. [ 13 ] Third on the grid was Gilles Villeneuve in the Ferrari, with Reutemann's title rival Nelson Piquet fourth, Alain Prost fifth in his Renault and John Watson six...

In dry, 24 °C (75 °F) conditions, Jones took the lead at the start with Reutemann dropping behind Villeneuve, Prost and Giacomelli before the first corner, while Piquet was eighth. With Villeneuve holding up those behind, Jones drove to an unchallenged victory. Prost overtook Villeneuve on lap three but his Renault was not as fast as Jones' Williams. On the next lap Laffite overtook Watson and the order then stabilized with Piquet running behind Reutemann, both men out of the points. On lap 17 P...

With Reutemann out of the points, Piquet's fifth place was enough to win his first of 3 World Championship titles.

Points were awarded to the top six classified finishers. For the Drivers' Championship, the best eleven results were counted, while, for the Constructors' Championship, all rounds were counted.

No driver classified in more than eleven points-scoring positions, so no drop-rounds applied for this season. Points were awarded in the following system:

A single non-championship Formula One race was also held in 1981. It was technically a Formula Libre race, since the cars did not conform to the current Formula One regulations. Although not a part of the World Championship, the 1981 South African Grand Prix attracted high-calibre drivers and cars and was won by Carlos Reutemann in a Williams .