Founded in the year nineteen twenty-four February 1980

go that there was no need for major changes. Two brand
new cars ready for this season. BT49/4 for Ricardo
Zunino and BT49/5 for Nelson Piquet, with BT49 2 as
the spare car The cars are now a tasteful blue and white.
McLaren: The M29 cars had revised rear suspension and
“outboard” rear brakes and various detail improvements
changed them into M29B models. John Watson used a
new car M29/4B and Alain Prost used M29/2B, with
M29/3B as the team spare.
ATS: The Williams-inspired D3 car (or D4 model
depending on whether you count in English or German)
that appeared mid-way through last season began
to show promise, so it is retained for this year and a
second car was made as the team are running two cars
this season. Marc Surer was in D3/02, the brand new
car, and Jan Lammers was in D3/01, the car that Stuck
raced last year.
Lotus: After the disastrous season last year when the
Lotus 80 failed to come up to expectation and the Lotus
79 got left behind, Team Lotus experimented with the
best bits from both designs and did a lot of winter testing
with a car that was a cross between the 79 and 80 and
was referred to as 79”X”. When this was finally proven
two new cars were built which became Lotus 81/1 and
Lotus 81/2. Elio de Angelis had the former and Mario
Andretti the latter, while 79”X” was the spare car. The
new cars were more like the Louis 79 than the Lotus
80, using the Lotus version of the Hewland gearbox,
rather than their own gearbox, and having straightsided
skirts rather than curved ones, and conventional
nose fins. The new cars took on an entirely new colour
scheme that can only be described as multi-coloured.
Nigel Bennett’s place has been taken by Malcolm Jones
from the Wolverhampton Goodyear racing department.
It is interesting that Chapman took Bennett when he
left Firestone, and has now taken Jones when he left
Goodyear. Nothing like having a tyre technician on
your own staff!
Ensign: The reconstituted Ensign team, with financial
backing from Unipart, allowed Nunn to expand his
workforce and they completed a brand new design in
a matter of weeks. Ralph Bellamy and Nigel Bennett
were asked to “produce a Williams copy ... as time is
short”, but they did better than that and produced their
own version of a “ground-effect” car. It ran briefly just
before being flown to South America, so that it arrived
virtually untried and untested. This design is N180 and
the car is MN10 in the Ensign Formula One scries.
Renault: As already announced the Renault team
dismantled their 1979 cars until all that was left was the
floor pan of the monocoque and the rear bulkhead of
the fuel bag container, and reconstituted cars were built
up from there. The basic design was not changed, but
detail design was totally different, aimed principally
at greater ease of manufacture and maintenance. Last
year the cars carried the denomination RS, standing
for Renault-Sport, the official name of the competition
department of the Regie-Renault. year the cars
are denominated RE, standing for Renault-ELF, in
appreciation of the great support given by the ELF
petroleum company. Jabouille drove RE22, Arnoux
drove RE21 and the spare car was RF20
Shadow: The Shadow team arrived in South America
with everything new, except the owner Don Nicholls.
The DN9 models used last year were already a year
behind in current Formula One thinking, even though
they were uprated during the season. During the brief
winter break the team built three new cars to the DN11
design, which brings them more up to Williams FW07
thinking. Apart from new cars the team had two new
drivers making their debut in Formula One World
Championship racing, with no one to lead the way.
Irishman David Kennedy had DNll/2 and Swedish
F3 driver Stefan Johansson had DN 11/3 while the
prototype car DN 11/1 was the team spare.
Fittipaldi: As already ft reported Fittipaldi Automotive,
the firm owned by the Brazilian brothers Emerson and
Wilson Fittipaldi. bought all the tangible assets of Walter
Wolf racing and to start the season they built new cars
from the bones of the WR series of Wolf cars and the F6
series of Fittipaldi cars. Last year, in Canada. Rosberg
crashed Wolf WR9 pretty comprehensively and for the
USA Grand Prix a car was built up using the monocoquetub
of WR8 with the salvageable hits from the wrecked
WR9, the resultant car being WR8/9. During the winter
the crashed monocoque of WR9 was totally rebuilt and
formed the basis on which the first of the new Fittipaldi
F7 cars was constructed. WR7 was similarly used to
construct F7/2 while F7/3 was built new from scratch,
to the same design Emerson Fittipaldi used the first car.
Keijo Rosberg the second car, and the totally new car was
the team spare.
Alfa Romeo: Having only introduced their new V12
car at the Italian GP last year it was natural that the
Alfa Romeo team should start the season with the same
design. Two new cars were built in the winter, 179/003
for Patrick Depailler and 179/004 for Bruno Giacomelli,
the only major change being to move the rear brakes
“outboard”. Car number number 179/002 that was
brand new in Canada last year was the team spare. The
nationalistic red of Alfa Romeo has been changed to
white and bright red in deference to Marlboro cigarettes
who have put money into the team to appease those
Alfa Romeo factory workers who feel their hard-earned
money should not be squandered on motor racing!
Ligier: This is another team who took their 1979 cars to
pieces, looked at all the points that could be improved,
and rebuilt them to become virtually new cars. The main
alteration was to the rear suspension and the mounting
of the rear brakes “outboard” and the reconstituted cars
were JS11/15/04 for Laffite and JS11/15/01 for Pironi,
while JS11/15/02 was the team spare. In case anyone has
forgotten JS stands for Jo Schlesser, who was killed in
a crash at Rouen some years ago; he was a great friend
of Guy Ligier the team owner. They were planning to
build racing and road cars so odd numbers were used
for racing projects, i.e. JS7, JS9, JS11. Superstition (as in
the Renault team) has caused JS13 to be missed out.
Williams: The two new team cars were FW07B 5 and
FW07B/6, both being of 1980 B-series specification as
regards aerodynamics, suspension layout and geometry
and general construction of the monocoque and various
components. Jones had number 6. which was constructed
totally new during the winter and Reutemann had
number 5 which had been built up around the basis of
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