New Motorsport Week article: Carlos Reutemann and F1’s most mysterious championship showdown

By Dijk, Hans van / Anefo /
neg. stroken, 1945-1989,
2.24.01.05, item number
931-6476 - http://proxy.
handle.net/10648/ad025
b24-d0b4-102d-bcf8-
003048976d84, CC BY
-SA 3.0 nl, https://commons.
wikimedia.org/w/index.
php?curid=25071869

This weekend at Austin the latest Formula 1 world drivers' championship may be decided. But whatever happens it'll have to go some to beat the title showdown that happened in the same country  37 years ago today.

If it wasn't necessarily the most thrilling finale it almost certainly was F1's strangest. And if you want an enigma, then you can hardly have a more fitting driver in the central role than Carlos Reutemann.

In my latest feature for Motorsport Week I look back to 1981, Las Vegas and the unresolved mystery of Reutemann's (non) showing.

You can check the story out here.

New Order

'All I care about is the team, and the points we earn. I don't care who scores them - why should I? Drivers are only employees, after all.'

Whose words are these? They belong to Frank Williams, said some years ago. And partly due to this Felipe Massa wasn't the only one surprised that he received a team order from the Williams pit wall asking him to cede position to his stable mate Valtteri Bottas during Malaysia's race last Sunday.

Discussing team orders? Carlos Reutemann (centre)
in conference with Frank Williams (right, back to camera)
 in 1981
Credit: Dijk, Hans van / Anefo / CC

Sir Frank (or Frank as he was known then) uttered this a few months after the Brazilian Grand Prix of 1981. In the Williams Grand Prix Engineering early days its driver Alan Jones was very much the man. He rose with the team, was a crucial part of it, and therefore the contracts were set very much in his favour. If in a race the two Williams cars were placed one and two and close enough together then Jones was to win, and positions would be swapped to achieve this end if required. As it was, it was hardly enforced as Jones won his and the team's first championship in 1980 as his team mate Carlos Reutemann rarely was quicker, but for 1981 the agreement remained in place. And come round two a freshly on-form Reutemann led from Jones in the Rio rain. Out went the pit board: 'JONES-REUT'. Reutemann disregarded it, and won. The fallout was considerable, especially from the abrasive Jones, but later - and perhaps riled by Jones leaving Frank seriously in the lurch by announcing his retirement late in the 1981 season, long after most drivers to have were signed up elsewhere - Frank mollified his view somewhat and resolved that never again would he place a single driver on a pedestal. It also was around then that he said the words replicated in the opening paragraph.

Further thoughts on the Japanese Grand Prix

Massa sticks it to the man
It turned out that the Suzuka race was a good one for intra-team polemics. Red Bull we know about, as do we know about the potential changing of the Lotus guard. But there was one more in there as - you might say finally - Felipe Massa during Sunday's proceedings defied the Ferrari phone call to let his team mate Fernando Alonso pass him (appropriate, given 'polemic' is a word which many at Ferrari seem to have a particular fondness for).

At Suzuka Felipe Massa refused
to cede to Fernando Alonso
Credit: Alex Comerford / CC

Such team orders at the Scuderia aren't new as we know, given that Alonso's almost always the faster in races (and by extension is the one who makes much stronger challenges for wins and championships) but not always the faster in qualifying. Nevertheless for all that we might say 'good on Felipe' (indeed, judging by an internet trawl, that has been most fans' reaction), it's odd that the Ferrari team is making so little of it. The boss Stefano Domenicali was at pains to play it all down subsequently as well as insist that Massa retains his full support; the intended beneficiary Fernando Alonso was similarly emollient. Let's not forget that for most of us nakedly defying the instructions of our boss would likely be rewarded with the sack for gross misconduct (N.B. this is said purely for illustration; I'm not advocating Massa's instant dismissal, before anyone shouts). And Ferrari isn't necessarily the first team in the paddock you'd look for leniency from.

What is right and what is wrong on team orders?

It was possibly the most glum podium in F1 history. Red Bull had claimed a one-two finish on a day it was expected to struggle, after an exciting wheel-to-wheel battle for supremacy. Winner Sebastian Vettel in so doing put clear points over those he's expected to be in a title fight with this year. While Lewis Hamilton finished in third, his new team's car showing that it has potency on race day and is much more competitive than many had thought/feared in advance. Yet, you'd never know it. Of the three drivers' faces two were sheepish and the other angry.

Sebastian Vettel won today, but that
was only the beginning of the story
Credit: Alex Comerford / CC

It was team orders what did it. Both Red Bull and Mercedes, whose cars had ran in close formation at the front for most of the Malaysian Grand Prix's duration, chose to enact a 'hold station' order from the pitwall after their final stops. This should have meant that Mark Webber finished ahead of Vettel to win and that Hamilton finished ahead of Nico Rosberg in third and fourth. Rosberg chose (however reluctantly) to obey the order; Seb didn't and won the race.

So, Vettel did wrong? It seems so. He confirmed after the race that he heard the instruction as well as apologised for making a 'mistake' in taking the lead to win. But it's hard to believe that Seb didn't know what he was doing. It appears most likely that his competitive instincts took over and he couldn't resist seizing the extra seven points on offer, regardless of everything else.

Retro F1: Gilles Villeneuve tribute - the 1981 Monaco Grand Prix

Hey y’all. The latest Retro F1 took place today. And given that this week marks the 30th anniversary of the passing of the legend that is Gilles Villeneuve, I decided this one should double as a tribute to the great man.

We therefore watched the 1981 Monaco Grand Prix, one of Villeneuve’s best ever drives, using the YouTube link below. The only drawback was that the commentary is in German, but we managed to work around that.



Retro F1 is when we watch a classic F1 race in full online, and chat about it on Twitter as we go, using the #RetroF1 hashtag. All are welcome!

Highlights of the Twitter chat are below.

Welcome all to the latest Retro F1, which is a Gilles Villeneuve tribute special, watching the 1981 Monaco GP. Here’s the link to the Monaco GP '81 race footage, I’m clicking play now :)

@CamillaKristel Should be interesting.
@kanemelegatti Ready guys?
@mario_eb Fuel in for Retro F1 :)
Hi Mario. Glad you could join us. Should be a good one :)
@mario_eb Hi Graham. Surely it'll be fun. Although my server's a little slow now I'll be following Retro F1 maybe I'll need my KERS ;)
Or your DRS.

@mario_eb Haha :D Ok, let me activate it :D

The Phoenix: Williams rises from the ashes

There was a time when Frank Williams was a joke figure in F1. Yes, seven world drivers' titles, nine constructors' titles and 113 Grand Prix victories later it seems an odd assertion. But for years Frank Williams was perceived as a forever struggling, stumbling presence in the paddock with cars invariably near the back of the pack.

He had success in his first year in the sport in 1969, claiming two second places running a privately-entered Brabham with Piers Courage driving, but after that point it appeared that Frank, year after year, was condemned to salvaging what he could from the latest failed project.

Piers Courage in a Brabham entered by Williams in 1969
Credit: Lothar Spurzem / CC

As everyone prepared for the start of the 1978 season there seemed little reason to re-evaluate that judgment. Recent form wasn't encouraging: in 1976 even with access to Canadian oil millionaire Walter Wolf's cash success for Frank's team was meagre, with no points scored. Further, after Frank was sidelined the Wolf team went on to claim three victories and finish in second place in the constructors' table the following season. And while this was going on Williams, starting again with his own operation, again scored no points competing with a private (and what turned out to be a long in the tooth) March.

His designer for the new season, Patrick Head, concurs: 'You've got to remember that Frank's reputation from his early efforts was not great. He was known as "W*nker" Williams...everybody thought his cars were just there to fill up the grid'.

Looking back: 1981 - F1's strangest season

The recently ended 2010 season is commonly accepted as a great one. When thinking of great F1 seasons some readily spring to mind, such as the dramatic championship finishes of 1964, 1986 and 2008, or the competitiveness of 1974, 1997 and 2003, or even the drama and controversy of 1976 and 1989. The season of 1982 however tends to rise above others in such debates. It after all can boast no fewer than 11 different winners (for seven different constructors) in 16 races, no individual winning more than two of them. This all was alongside multiple acts of drama on and off the track, conducted in an atmosphere of extreme acrimony. Such is the myth that surrounds 1982 that it even had a specialist book about it written and published a quarter of a century later, by the sadly recently-departed Christopher Hilton.

However I feel that the season which preceded 1982, 1981, is somewhat forgotten about, and has a strong claim as a memorable and dramatic season. It can certainly match 1982 for controversy and acidity. Indeed, much of the 1982 politics were simply a continuation of those in 1981! The 1981 championship battle was tighter and went to the wire to a much greater extent than 1982's did. Plus the on track racing action (easy to forget in all of this) was generally much more diverting in 1981. It seems to have been lost in time somewhat that most of the races in 1982, i.e. the hour and a half on a Sunday, were soporific spectacles. And 1981 isn't far off 1982 in terms of variation of winners, no driver won more more than three races, the world champion totalled but 50 points, and in the final drivers' table no fewer than five drivers were within seven points of the top of the table. Eat your heart out 2010.

Even if one maintains that 1981 was not among the sport's greatest seasons, it certainly has a claim to being one the sport's strangest. It started with a race that never was in South Africa, attended by only 19 cars, the races were participated in by a field of cars, for the most part, in flagrant breach of the rule makers' flagship regulations, and it ended in a car park in Las Vegas, wherein the three contenders stumbled disastrously over the line, and Nelson Piquet claimed his first World Championship by a point, almost in spite of himself.

Looking back: F1's first visit to Suzuka

Next weekend the F1 circus visits Suzuka for this season's Japanese Grand Prix - a track that all true fans of F1 eagerly anticipate seeing the cars on.

Such is the classic and challenging nature of Suzuka's fast sweeps, and its lack of modern sterility, it's easy to assume that the likes of Moss, Clark and Lauda pounded round the circuit in years past. In fact, the track was only used as a World Championship venue for the first time in 1987.

Indeed, the date of the track's opening stretches even further back - to 1962 (no gleaming new Tilke facility being brought onto the calendar here). It was designed by John Hugenholtz, who also gave Zandvoort to the world (he designed Jarama, Nivelles and Zolder as well - but for the sake of the point I'll ignore those!). But despite the staging of a couple of 'Japanese GPs' in its early years, Suzuka remained criminally undiscovered by much of international motor racing for the first quarter century of its existence.

The history of bringing an F1 race to Japan was equally haphazard. The track at Fuji, who were always more proactive than Suzuka in bringing international motorsport to Japan, held the first two F1 World Championship events in the country in 1976 and 1977. The first visit has gone down in folklore as the scene of James Hunt and Niki Lauda's championship showdown, held initially in monsoon conditions that resulted in Lauda quitting a couple of laps in on safety (or sanity) grounds. This left Hunt to dramatically claim the crown by taking third, having to pass cars frantically in the late laps, after a pit stop to replace a blown tyre.