Alan Jones : The Formula One DataBase

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Birthdate:	November 2nd 1946

Country:	Australia

Gender:	M

History:

Alan Jones

Born on November 2nd 1946 this down-to-earth Australian became in 1980 the second World Champion from Down Under, a worthy successor of triple World Champion Jack Brabham (1959, 1960, 1966). He was the son of Australian racing driver Stan Jones, who participated in the fifties in some non-championship F1-races on the fifth continent and winning the 1959 Australian GP.

Alan Jones had a career in F1 from 1975-1986. His career in F1 can be divided in three parts of this 12-year long career:
1975-1977   fighting to get and stay there
1978-1981   four glory years at Williams
1983-1986   comeback embarrassment

1975-1977 fighting to get and stay there
In 1971 after years of racing in Australia Jones went to Great Britain to try his luck there, racing in Formula 3 from 1971-1973. A first trip in 1967/1968 was not fortunate. In 1974 he raced in a Formula Atlantic car backed by racing mecenas Harry Stiller who bought a Hesketh F1 car for Jones in 1975. In the non-championship race International Trophy Jones had his debut and finished seventh and made his official debut in the ill-fated 1975 Spanish Grand Prix at Montjuïch. Rolf Stommelen crashed his Lola whilst in the lead badly, 4 spectators were killed and Stommelen was serious injured. After 4 races with the Hesketh Stiller withdraw and Jones took over the Stommelen-seat at Lola-Hill. He drove 4 GP's for them, scoring 2 points for 5th place in the German GP at the Nürburgring.
When Stommelen made a comeback Jones was out and did some F 5000 racing, winning two races. In 1976 he raced for Surtees (from the 3th GP of the season in Long Beach on), famous for its Durex-logo on the car, scoring 7 points with a car than can hardly be called mid-field. He became second in the non-championship Race of Champions. He also did some F5000 races, winning two races again.
He left Surtees at the end of 1976 because he didn't want to stay there after some quarrels with team-boss John Surtees. With no prospect of a 1977 drive he went to America to do F5000 and USAC. But he never started there, because like was the fact with Stommelen in 1975 a tragic fact turned into Jones' favour. He replaced Tom Pryce at Shadow, who was killed in a tragic accident at the Kyalami-GP. In his 14 races he performed well. At Austria his Shadow was perfectly balanced to the changing weather conditions and a formidable drive gave Jones a very surprising win after leader James Hunt had a blown engine. At the end of the season Jones was 7th in the World Championship with 22 points.

1978-1981 four glory years at Williams
At the end of 1977 Jones had some options for 1978. His contract with Ferrari turned out to be worthless and in the end he took the gamble to go to Williams. Williams was for 10 years a mere outsider and always at the wrong end of the grid. But one thing was in Williams' favour in 1977. He got a good team of engineers and constructors, lead by Patrick Head. And he had found major sponsoring-source from Saudi-Arabia with Air Saudia and Albilad and others. After a difficult start with the FW06 (a non-ground effect car) of the season Jones and Williams were showing first potential when they were suddenly fighting for the lead with Reutemann in his Ferrari at Long Beach 1978. During the whole season Jones had good qualifications and good races, but was hampered by a lot of retirements. At Watkins Glen came the reward with a second place (reaction of the Williams-mechanics: 'we finished, in second place, what did we do wrong?'). Jones ended the season as 11th with 11 points. The FW06 was regarded with the Ferrari T3 as the best non wing-car behind the invincible Lotus 79. In that year Jones won the CanAm Series championship driving for Carl Haas in a Lola T333CS in North-America.
In 1979 Jones got a team-mate in the ever popular Clay Regazzoni and the prospect of a real wing-car coming. After a low profile debut in Jarama the FW07 showed prospect with Jones in the lead at Zolder and Jones and Regazzoni doing well at Monaco. From Silverstone on the season went well for Williams. In the hands of Jones the FW07 was almost unbeatable that year with his career really blossoming now. With one victory for Regazzoni at Silverstone and four for Jones (Hockenheim, Zeltweg, Zandvoort, Montréal) they dominated the second half of the season. Jones was prevented from doing even better after mechanical problems in Monza and Watkins Glen. He ended the season as 3rd behind the Ferrari's with 40 points.
1980 became his glory year. After dominating the first race of the season in Buenos Aires it came as a surprise that it took Alan until Paul Ricard and Brands Hatch to win again. Some misfortunes and a mistake at Zandvoort made that the young Nelson Piquet in his Brabham came close to Jones. But two wins at Montréal and Watkins Glen sealed a good season and he was World Champion with 67 points. He also won the Jarama Grand Prix that year, but that race was boycotted by the FISA-teams and no points were rewarded.
Like many champs Jones had troubles defending his title in 1981 and fighting the bad luck of a champion. But insiders considered his driving as better than in 1980! He had a lot of technical problems and made only one real drivers mistake at Jarama. Problems with his car in Buenos Aires, Zolder, Monaco and Hockenheim and tyre-problems in Montréal (all whilst in the lead) prevented him from possible wins. Especially Monaco was pretty anoying, because fuel-pump problems blew away a 30 second lead 10 laps from the end, handing the victory to Villeneuve. Also in Hockenheim he encountered the same problem. The internal team troubles with team-mate Carlos Reutemann didn't help the matter either. Jones managed to win the first and the last GP of the season in Long Beach and Las Vegas. After Monza he announced his retirement, thus leaving F1 with his victory at Las Vegas.
From Silverstone 1979-Las Vegas 1981 Jones had a pretty impressive record. Leading in 23 of 37 races (62%!), 6 poles and 12 fastest laps he was the force to be reckoned with in those days. In those days there were a lot of cars capable of winning races like Ferrari, Ligier, Renault and Brabham, while also Lotus and McLaren were dangerous. His opponents included Jody Scheckter, Nelson Piquet, Alain Prost, Carlos Reutemann, Jacques Laffite, Gilles Villeneuve, Clay Regazzoni, Didier Pironi, René Arnoux and John Watson with the likes of former champions Lauda, Andretti, Hunt and Fittipaldi also present.

1983-1986 comeback embarrassment
After racing touring cars in 1982 in Australia (and winning the title) and having turned down an offer from Ferrari to replace to injured Pironi for the last races of 1982 Jones was lured into comeback by Arrows in 1983. Hampered by a broken leg from a horse-riding accident Jones raced at Long Beach and at the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch were he came third. Lack of sponsorship stopped this first comeback and he continued racing in Australia. He did some Group C races for Porsche and Jaguar and a one-off Cart race in 1985 at Elkhart Lake. A new American Team with a lot of names surrounding it (Beatrice-Lola-Ford-Cosworth-Haas-Hayes-Mayer) asked him to comeback again, but the Lola-Ford with Turbo-engine wasn't a success at all for Jones or his teammate from 1986 Patrick Tambay. The whole project was seen as a fiasco. There were some highlights like the race in Hungary and finishing fourth at Zeltweg, but Jones definitively quit after 20 unimpressive races for Beatrice after Adelaide 1986. The supremacy of the Williams years was long gone.

After 1986 Jones kept racing touring cars in Australia and commentating on races. In 2005 he is one of the forces behind Australia's A1-car and following closely the career of his son Christian.

Some personal remarks
Jones is somewhat underrated in the history in F1. That has a lot to do with his two comebacks which ruined his good name. Had he stayed away from F1 after 1981 his name would have been a lot better. He would have been the driver who had been champion in 1980, but with a little luck could also have been champ in 1979 and 1981. But the 1983-1986 years clearly showed he was out of touch and lost his pace, a few exceptions on the side. Jones rose with Williams to the top, they did that together. Until this day a driver at Williams is still being compared to Jones by team-manager Frank Williams and designer Patrick Head.
Jones was a good driver. In the wingcar days he was one of the best, if not the best. It would have been interesting to see how he had done in 1982, the last wingcar season.
During his active days Jones was known for his reputation to speak out bluntly about things. Sometimes his team couldn't appreciate that. An example from 1986. Most of the turbo-engines of that year reach almost 1000 bhp. There were talks of reducing that to 600 bhp. Commentary Jones: "reducing to 600 bhp? Oh, that means that we don’t have anything to do! We are ready! Because we can hardly get up the hill after start-finish in Zeltweg." The people from Beatrice-Lola and Ford were not amused.
Or also in his Beatrice-days. Reporter: "can I get an interview?" Jones: "what time start the race?" Reporter: at 2.30. Jones: "then meet me at 2.40 in the pit."
Being one of the last drivers of the old school, F1 turned into a more commercial ways in the mid-eighties. Jones didn't fit in there. He didn't have the extravert and flamboyant character to be loved by the huge crowd but insiders knew he was one of the best of his time.

The editor of these lines will always remember him for the following. Being a huge Jones-fan I asked after practice for the Zandvoort Dutch Grand Prix in 1981 for an autograph. He gave it to me. Whilst doing it suddenly around a corner came Alain Prost walking and he bumped into me. Prost mumbled something like 'sorry' and walked on. I looked at Jones and he had a huge grin on his face, he liked what he just saw!. He smiled at me, tapped me on the shoulder and walked on.
Whilst writing this article I suddenly realised that the first F1-race I can remember I've seen on TV was the 1975 Montjuïch Spanish GP, which happened to be Jones' first GP too. Coincidence or not?

Literature
Alan Jones, Keith Botsford - Driving Ambition (a bitingly honest look inside the world champion of grand prix motor racing by the 1980 formula one world champion Alan Jones). 1981, Atheneum, ISBN 0 689 11308 0
Doug Nye - Racers (the inside story of Williams Grand Prix Engineering). 1982, Arthur Barker Ltc, ISBN 0 213 16815 4
Heinz Prüller - Grand Prix Story editions 1975 till 1986
Autosport - File Williams. 1987, Temple Press. ISBN 0 600 55663 8
Magazines: Autosport (GB), Autosprint (I), l'Automobile (F), Motor Sport Aktuell Powerslide (A), Auto Motor und Sport (D), Rally Racing (D), Autorensport (NL), Grand Prix International 1979-1986.
sources on the Internet (summary):
- www.f1db.com
- 8w.forix.com
- www.grandprix.com
- www.research-racing.de/AlanJones1.htm
- http://www.f1.sk/spravy/?clanok=7991,
- http://www.autocoursegpa.com/driver.asp?driver_id=11836

Statistics

Statistic	#	Percentage	First	Last
Number of Grand Prix	117	100%	1975	1986
Number of starts	116	99.15%	1975	1986
Number of finishes	69	58.97%	1975	1986
Number of finishes on podium	24	20.51%	1977	1981
Number of finishes in points	39	33.33%	1975	1986
Number of retirements	47	40.17%	1975	1986
Number of wins	12	10.26%	1977	1981
Number of pole positions	6	5.13%	1979	1980
Number of fastest laps	13	11.11%	1978	1981
Number of doubles (pole position & win)	2	1.71%	1979	1980
Number of triples (pole position, win & fastest lap)	2	1.71%	1979	1980