Founded in the year nineteen twenty-four February 1980

During the warm-up Andretti’s Lotus had its
metering unit on the Cosworth DFV go awry and his
mechanics changed the complete engine in 1 hr. 20 min.,
something they could never have done on the Lotus
80. David Kennedy took part in the warm-up. as first
reserve, but it was to no avail as all 24 qualifiers were
ready to take to the grid. The first seven cars were on
Goodyear tyres, in spite of doing all their practice on
“race” tyres, which more than justified the Akron giant’s
decision. The start was due at 13.00 hours and as is
traditional Reutemann was greeted with overwhelming
enthusiasm by the vociferous spectators, in spite of his
lowly position on the grid. As Alan Jones led the field
away on the parade lap Arnoux was in the pits with his
Renault engine popping and banging, indicating vapour
bubbles in the injection system, no doubt aggravated by
the intense heat.
From his advantageous position at the head of the
one-by-one grid. Alan Jones was away into the lead with
a copybook start when the lights blinked green. The
whole field got through the fast right/left kink after the
start without drama, and streamed away towards the
far end of the circuit, with Piquet lining his Brabham up
for second place and Pironi’s Ligier falling away behind
Andretti’s Lotus. Into the infield loops and back down
into the hairpin before the pits it was Jones all the way,
that familiar white and green number 27. now with
LEYLAND added to its Saudi Arabian markings, passing
in front of the grandstands with a commanding lead In
second place was Piquet in the blue and white Brabham,
leading Laffite (Ligier), Andretti (Lotus), Reutemann
(Williams), Pironi (Ligier), Scheckter (Ferrari), Prost
(McLaren), Villeneuve (Ferrari), after running wide onto
the grass during the opening lap, Rosberg (Fittipaldi),
Mass (Arrows), Regazzoni (Ensign), de Angelis (Lotus),
after being punted by Patrese, Zunino (Brabham),
Watson (McLaren); Giacomelli (Alfa Romeo), Depailler
(Alfa Romeo), Fittipaldi (Fittipaldi), Patrese (Arrows),
after recovering from hitting de Angelis, and Surer
(ATS), who headed for the pits. Jarier limped in to retire
with frontal damage after stuffing his Tyrrell into the rear
end of Watson’s McLaren, cracking that car’s gearbox oil
cooler, which led to the inevitable retirement of the M29B
after a further five laps as all the oil ran out, unbeknown
to the drive:
On the second lap Pironi’s run came to an abrupt
end when his Ligier’s Cosworth engine expired, while
a lap later Arnoux’s Renault lost the right front wheel
under braking for the pits hairpin. While the wheel
hounded away into the distance the three-wheeled
Renault pirouetted at high speed and stopped without
hitting anything. Almost before the dust had settled the
other Renault was crawling into the pits to retire with
gearbox failure. It was a bad day for the French cars,
whether they were blue or yellow.
Already the track was becoming desperately
slippery. Laffite nipped past Piquet, to take second
place, on lap 6. but the young Brazilian forced his was
in front again almost immediately, and the Frenchman
had another go on lap 9. Reutemann was hanging on in
fourth place and got past Piquet on the return straight,
only to find himself badly placed for the right-hander
that followed, with the very determined Brabham driver
“sitting it out” with him wheel-to-wheel into the braking
area. The result was that Piquet scrabbled round the
corner and Reutemann went up the escape road and
spun on the grass, filling his radiator intake with earth
and grass. Another lap had the temperature gauges
rising rapidly so the Argentinian shot into the pits to
have the debris cleared away, but the engine had already
overheated and mid-way round lap 13 the engine failed
and a dejected Reutemann climbed out when the car
stopped. While this was happening Alan Jones had got
off line and onto the “marbles” on the infield section and
though he spun he kept the engine running and carried
on without losing the lead, but during his spin he had
scooped up a plastic bag in the radiator intake. His
engine was running with a higher pressure release valve
on the water system than his team-mate, and though the
temperature soared to 120°C before he made a pit stop to
have the bag snatched away by a mechanic, no damage
was done. Jones had tried to reach over the cockpit side
to release the plastic which he could see, but as he said
afterwards “That was daft; all I did was nearly have my
arm blown off ...” When he rocketed back into the race
he was in fourth place, behind Villeneuve who had come
up through the field after his first lap “off” and was in
third place. Laffite was out in front of Piquet, but the
gaps were still small and Jones could see his adversaries
and felt convinced he could catch them. The broken up
surface was so bad that lap times were down some eleven
or twelve seconds on what they should have been, and it
was significant that most drivers had made their fastest
laps within the first five or six. The cars were slipping and
sliding precariously on the “marbles” of torn up tarmac
and it called for a very sensitive right foot on the throttle
pedal and very few of the runners got away without a
spin or a sideways slide at some lime or another.
While this quartet argued over the lead, Scheckter’s
Ferrari T5 was hanging on gamely in fifth place, clearly
losing a fair amount of oil from a rear end leak. Then
came Riccardo Patrese who’d pulled up extremely well
after his early tangle with de Angelis, but on lap 14 his
engine began to sound extremely rough, with a broken
exhaust pipe. He nonetheless kept the pressure on the
Ferrari until lap 28 when he retired out on the circuit
with engine failure.
Earlier on Jochen Mass had a huge spin out on the
back of the circuit which covered his Arrows with dust
and dirt, but he plugged on gamely until lap 21 when he
was forced to retire with gearbox trouble.
Both Lotus 81s had retired. Andretti had been
running strongly with the leading bunch at the start,
holding fourth place at the end of the opening lap. But
he gradually dropped back down the field as his engine
lost its edge and he made a pit stop on lap five to see if
anything could be done. He resumed at a more gentle
pace right down near the back of the field, but the
problem was with the metering unit and with 20 laps
completed he pulled in to retire for good.
By lap 23 the tussle at the front was getting pretty
frenzied. Laffite managed to get a bit of daylight between
his Ligier and Piquet’s pursuing Brabham thanks to
some judicious squeezing through gaps when lapping
backmarkers. Villeneuve now had Picquet right in
his sights and clearly didn’t seem inclined towards
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