One of F1’s most iconic figures of the 1970s and 1980s, Alan Jones, has passed away aged 80.
Jones won the 1980 Formula One World Championship for Williams, becoming the team’s first world champion, starting a legacy which continues to this day.
Born in Melbourne, Australia, Jones grew up in a racing family. His father Stan won the Australian and New Zealand Grand Prix, competing against the likes of Lex Davison, Frank Gardner, Roy Salvadori, Stirling Moss and Jack Brabham, the latter of whom would become a World Champion.
The Melbourne native began competing in Formula 3 in 1971, scoring a podium and a pole position in his rookie campaign. In 1973 he finished runner-up in British F3 to Tony Brise. He lost his father that year, who was just 49 when he passed away. In 1974, Jones finished runner-up in British Formula Atlantic to Jim Crawford.
A Formula One debut beckoned for the Australian in 1975, competing with a privateer Hesketh and later Graham Hill’s Embassy Hill outfit, filling in for an injured Rolf Stommelen. He scored two points that campaign, with a fifth place in the German Grand Prix.
Moving to Surtees in 1976, Jones became a reliable midfield runner, finishing 12 of the 16 races that year, including three points finishes. He ended the season on seven points, just four shy of a top ten place in the standings.
After initially leaving F1, Jones got a call up from Shadow following the untimely death of Tom Pryce in South Africa. Jones would fill in at the team for the rest of the 1977 season, scoring a podium in Monza and Shadow’s sole victory in F1 at the Austrian Grand Prix. Two further points finishes in Canada and Japan wrapped up a very successful season for Jones, finishing seventh in the drivers’ standings.
Jones was so highly rated that Enzo Ferrari considered him, among a list of names such as Elio de Angelis, Gilles Villeneuve, Patrick Tambay, Mario Andretti, Jody Scheckter and Eddie Cheever, to replace the outgoing Niki Lauda.
While Jones wasn’t preferred over Villeneuve, he moved to the Williams team in 1978.
There he would have four extremely successful seasons. He scored the team’s first podium in the 1978 US Grand Prix, and would win 11 times for the Grove outfit, including winning the 1980 World Drivers Championship for them. Jones became just the third driver from Oceania and the second from Australia to win a World Drivers Championship, and remains the most recent to this day.
At the end of 1981, Jones left Williams and took a sabbatical from F1, not returning full-time until 1986. He did the odd race from 1983-85, but never a full-time campaign.
During his break in 1982, he was once again offered a seat at Ferrari. Due to the death of Villeneuve and Didier Pironi’s career ending crash, Jones was called by Enzo Ferrari. Jones gave him the blow around though, and never got the seat. In the end, Tambay got it and spent the next year and a half with Ferrari, winning twice for them and finishing fourth in the standings in 1983.
Jones retired from F1 at the end of 1986, having competed a season with the Haas Lola outfit where he scored points on two occasions for the team.
After permanently leaving F1, Jones raced in CART, touring car, GT and sports-car racing before permanently retiring in 2002. He worked as a broadcaster in Australia covering Formula One for many years.
Jones passed away on November 5th, aged 80. Over his career in F1, Jones scored 12 wins, 24 podiums, six pole positions and 12 fastest laps, as well as a championship win in 1980, becoming one of just 18 men to achieve such a feat. Now that number has increased to 36, but is still an incredible feat.
Jones’ talent was undoubted, and yet he never shied away from his opinion. He was a personality that will be missed by many throughout the paddock.
