Founded in the year nineteen twenty-four February 1980

had been moved before Piquet arrived on the scene. The
Brabham was extensively damaged about the rear end
so in the final timed session both team drivers had to be
a bit cautious, knowing there was no spare car available.
Even so Piquet managed a courageous 1 min. 45.02 sec.,
which put him into fourth place. Zunino was content to
qualify in sixteenth place with 1 min. 47.41 sec.
In the Lotus camp there was a great deal of
optimism by the end of practice, even though de Angelis
had made a dramatic start to his career with Team Lotus
by having a major spin, followed by a high-speed trip
backwards into the catch-fencing during Thursday’s
test-session. The Lotus lads had a lot of work to do
repairing the damage, but the young Italian made up for
it by eventually turning a lap in 1 min. 45.46 sec which
gave him fifth place on the grid, one place ahead of his
team-leader. Andretti was not dismayed for the Lotus
81 was feeling very much to his liking, particularly with
a full fuel tank, and he could have gone taster than the
1 min. 45.78 sec he recorded on Friday, had trouble not
intervened in the final practice session. He was just
getting into the groove when he suffered brake failure,
and as the pedal dropped limply down to the bulkhead
his foot caught the throttle pedal and the Lotus careered
off the track, scattering marshals and photographers. He
limped round to the pits and called it a day
On the basis that “what looks right usually is right”,
the new Arrows A3 scored highly. If it hadn’t been for
some unfortunate mechanical problems there is little
doubt that both Patrese and Mass would have qualified
higher up the grid than they did. Just as Patrese looked
like getting up among the front runners a drive-shaft
broke and though the damaged corner was replaced in
double-quick time by the Arrows mechanics, the track
surface had deteriorated so badly that fast times were
out of the question. The A3 Arrows appeared to have
quite an advantage on sheer speed over some other
cars, and when Mass rocketed past Villeneuve’s Ferrari
on the fastest straight he waved cheerily, to which the
the Ferrari driver responded by clasping a hand to his
head in mock (or genuine?) frustration. The Ferraris
were proving to be quick through the twisty infield hut
slow on the fast straights, and though they had plenty of
Michelins to choose from they were having difficulty in
making a choice because the track surface was changing
from corner to corner, lap by lap. Neither driver could
get into the first half-dozen, which did not augur well for
a Ferrari victory.
The other Michelin runners, the Renaults, were
no better off, worse in fact, for they were continually
in engine trouble, both Jabouille and Arnoux getting
through two engines each during practice. Troubles
ranged from oil pump failure, through leaking water
gaskets to fuel injection trouble and a broken valve.
Altogether a despairing time for the French team. At
McLaren’s there was satisfaction with the new boy Alain
Prost, who was looking remarkably cool and confident,
lapping faster than his team leader, earning 12th place
on the grid as against Watson’s 17th place. The yellow
Fittipaldis, financed by Skol Lager, were not going as well
as all the hard work really justified. Fittipaldi was very
unhappy with the handling of his car until a loose nut in
the rear suspension was discovered which was allowing
one rear wheel to contribute to the overall steering effort!
An engine failure then lost him a lot of time and by the
time everything was sorted out the track deterioration
was against him and he only just scraped onto the grid.
Rosberg was well qualified and his car seemed generally
better than Fittipaldi’s, but even so 13th position on the
grid was not exactly a winning position. However, it
was much better than the Shadow could do, for neither
of their new recruits qualified in the top 24. With new
cars and new drivers the Shadow team had not got much
hope of success, but they had to start somewhere and
there is always the consolation that things can only get
better. The Ensign-Unipart team were in a somewhat
similar position, though Regazzoni’s experience was
obviously a great help and he qualified the new ear quite
well in spite of various troubles, among them a sticking
throttle that sent him careering over a kerb which cracked
a water pipe.
The Tyrrell 009 cars, only a year old. were already
looking dated and the drivers were having trouble
coming off the 180-degree turn at the end of the circuit
anything like flat out, as the front runners were doing.
Daly had a major engine failure on Friday morning so
had to use the spare car, and that would not run properly
with the fuel tank less than three-quarters full. He was
back in his own car for Saturday afternoon but had to
take to the rough to avoid an accident that Prost looked as
though he was going to have, but didn’t. This damaged
the nose cowl, the side pods and the skirts so he had to
go back to the spare car again. Both cars qualified, but in
the grey mish-mash in the lower part of the grid. Down
at the Alfa Romeo pits Giacomelli was doing his best in
the role of temporary team leader, for though Depailler
was driving he was far from fit. The team had brought
Vittorio Brambilla along “just in case”, but the gritty little
Frenchman was not going to give up. He has set himself
the target of being back on form by the South African GP
and said “I won’t be unless I force myself hard now.”
Both Alfa Romeo drivers qualified in spite of various
troubles, such as a big high-speed spin by Giacomelli
on Friday which damaged skirts and suspension and an
engine failure on Saturday morning which forced him to
use the spare car in the final session, and he crashed that
and damaged the suspension. Depailler missed the first
crucial SIX LAps on Saturday afternoon due to clutch
trouble, so it’s to his credit that he got into the race at
all. While Marc Surer squeezed the new ATS into the
race , Jan Lammers’ hopes disappeared with an engine
failure. The new Osella team found the pace of big time
Formula One a bit too hot for them and the car needs to
lose about 100 kg. before it can be taken really seriously,
while Cheever still has a lot to learn.
No matter what the organisers did to the new
sections of the track, and they repeated their efforts
to treat the troublesome surface on Saturday night,
the moment the warm-up session began on Sunday
it was obvious that race conditions would be almost
impossible. The tyres tore up the tarmac and scattered
it to the outside of the corners so that there was an area
of “marbles” just off the correct racing line, to catch
anyone who made a slight error. Once on the “marbles”
you might just have well been on sheet ice for all the
control you had.
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