1980 Formula One season
The season saw a major change of guard in Formula One with the Williams team's first Drivers' and Constructors' titles, the emergence of Nelson Piquet as a championship contender and the debut of future World Champions Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell, while reigning champions Jody Scheckter and Ferrari suffered a terrible season that resulted in Scheckter retiring from the sport at the end of the year.
After Friday's practice, due to the heat and the suction these ground-effect cars were creating, the track began to break up, and the drivers found conditions difficult and even dangerous.
After going off twice and dropping back to 4th after making a pit-stop to clean grass out of his car's radiators, Australian and title favorite Alan Jones took victory in his Williams-Ford/Cosworth.
Gilles Villeneuve, competitive throughout in his Ferrari, crashed heavily at the Toboggan left-right sequence of corners after his front suspension failed after possible damage caused to it after a number of off-track excursions the Canadian had during the race.
Also, the barriers and catch-fence arrangements were not adequate enough to protect the cars from the embankments and very rough and uneven-surface of the limited run-off areas there, even though the track was very wide in most places.
But he retired with turbo failure and his teammate Rene Arnoux took the lead and won, followed by Italian new-boy Elio de Angelis in a Lotus and Jones in his Williams.
Like Interlagos before, the even higher altitude of Kyalami helped the Renaults even more so than in Brazil, and this proved to be an invaluable advantage, and the yellow French cars dominated the race.
With its tight, slow layout being lined with unforgiving concrete walls, Long Beach was known then to be the toughest and most punishing race of the season on the car and driver.
But the race itself was littered with accidents – there was a pile-up at the Le Gasomet hairpin caused by Alfa Romeo driver Bruno Giacomelli and the 40-year-old Swiss Clay Regazzoni crashed appallingly at the end of the long, flat-out Shoreline Drive when the brakes on his Ensign failed and he crashed head on at 180 mph into Ricardo Zunino's parked Brabham, then through some tires and into a concrete wall.
The F1 circus started its 4-month long European tour at Zolder, where Frenchman Didier Pironi took his first ever victory in his Ligier-Ford/Cosworth ahead of Alan Jones and his Argentine teammate Carlos Reutemann.
The classic street race in Monaco provided some excitement: there was a big pile-up at the start, where Derek Daly went flying twice over a number of cars at the first corner.
The Spanish Grand Prix at the tight and twisty Jarama circuit near Madrid ended up losing its championship status after Jean-Marie Balestre announced on morning of Friday's practice (in an attempt to put FOCA in their place after drivers driving for FOCA-aligned teams did not show up to drivers' meetings at the previous 2 Grands Prix) that the 1980 Spanish GP would not count as a championship round.
The German Grand Prix at the ultra-fast Hockenheimring was marred by the fatal pre-race testing accident of Patrick Depailler at the ultra-high speed, top gear, flat out Ost-Kurve 9 days before the race.
Alan Jones took pole from Renault driver Jabouille by mere hundredths of a second, and he led the race until he had to come in with a puncture on the straight before the stadium.
The beach-side Zandvoort circuit near Amsterdam, modified from the previous year saw Brazilian Nelson Piquet win from Frenchmen Arnoux and Laffite.
The Renaults dominated qualifying at this fast Italian circuit, although they fell out with mechanical problems; and Piquet won yet again and overtook Jones in the championship, who finished 2nd in front of his teammate Carlos Reutemann.
This race had been in doubt for almost the whole season, but on this quick, bumpy, demanding and elevated circuit located in the rolling vineyard hills above Seneca Lake, it did go ahead after a loan was given by FOCA to the organizers.
French rising star Alain Prost crashed heavily on Saturday morning practice due to suspension failure at the very fast left-handed Turn 10, the second-to-last corner on the track.
