Alan Jones, the 1980 world champion, has died aged 80, Formula 1 reported on 5 November. Williams had never won a world championship Grand Prix when Jones arrived for 1978. Between July 1979 and October 1981 the team won 15, and Jones won 11 of them.
His first win came at the Austrian Grand Prix of 14 August 1977, in a Shadow Ford. RaceFans' longer obituary recounts the story Jones liked to tell of that day: the organisers, believing they had no copy of the Australian anthem, marked it with a solo trumpet playing 'Happy Birthday'. The other 11 came in a Williams Ford between 29 July 1979 and 17 October 1981: four in 1979 (Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Canada), five in 1980 (Argentina, France, Britain, Canada and the USA East round), and two in 1981 (USA West at Long Beach and Caesars Palace in Las Vegas).
Patrick Head, Williams' technical chief, explained in a 2012 interview quoted by formula1.com why a driver who had already won mattered to a team that had not: "Alan was already a Grand Prix winner, and his arrival [at Williams] made us say, 'We'd better shape up here'." Jones joined for 1978 and on 1 October that year took what formula1.com calls the team's first podium, second at the USA East round at Watkins Glen, 19.739 seconds behind Reutemann's Ferrari. The official results do list an earlier second place under the Williams name, Jacques Laffite's at the 1975 German Grand Prix, but that car was entered by Frank Williams Racing Cars, the operation Frank Williams ran before the present team.
Williams' first championship win came on 14 July 1979, when Clay Regazzoni won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Jones started that race from pole: the official grid has him on 1:11.880, 0.600 seconds clear of Jean-Pierre Jabouille's Renault, and the formula1.com obituary calls it the team's first pole position. RaceFans' longer obituary says reliability problems cost Jones the chance to score Williams' first victory himself. No Williams entry wins in the season tables from 1975 to 1978.
Jones then won the team's next four races: Germany, Austria and the Netherlands in a row, then Canada on 30 September after Jody Scheckter's Ferrari had won at Monza. Of the 15 races Williams won from Silverstone 1979 to Las Vegas 1981, Jones won 11, Carlos Reutemann three (Monaco in 1980, Brazil and Belgium in 1981) and Regazzoni one. The team's 16th win did not come until Keke Rosberg's at the Swiss Grand Prix on 29 August 1982, after Jones had left.
Points and wins did not line up in 1979. Jones won four races, more than any other driver that season; Scheckter and Gilles Villeneuve won three each. The 1979 drivers' table still has Jones third on 40 points, behind Scheckter on 51 and Villeneuve on 47. Jones scored in six of the 15 rounds, and in only one of the first seven, third at Long Beach; Scheckter scored in 12. The printed totals are not straight sums either: added race by race, the official results give Jones 43, Scheckter 60 and Villeneuve 53, because that season counted only part of each driver's results.
The 1980 title followed the win count. Jones won five of the 14 rounds and Nelson Piquet three, and Jones settled it at the Canadian Grand Prix on 28 September, the 13th round. He won, Reutemann was second, and Piquet's Brabham was not classified after 23 laps. RaceFans' longer obituary says he clinched it in a controversial collision with Piquet. The final table has Jones on 67 points to Piquet's 54, with Reutemann third on 42.
Across 1979, 1980 and 1981, Jones won 11 races and no other driver won more than Piquet's six; Jacques Laffite and Villeneuve won five each. In 1981 Jones won the first round, at Long Beach on 15 March, and the last, at Caesars Palace on 17 October. RaceFans records that he announced his retirement at the end of that season. By its account he made one start for Arrows in 1983, returned with the original Haas team in 1985, and made his final start at his home race in 1986.
His career total is 12 world championship wins, the figure formula1.com's obituary gives and the one the official season results produce when read race by race for every year from his debut in 1975 to his last season in 1986. RaceFans' report on 5 November calls his 1981 win his "11th and final grand prix victory", which matches his Williams tally rather than his career total. Races outside the championship are not in the count: the 1980 championship table goes straight from Monaco on 18 May to France on 29 June, leaving out the Spanish Grand Prix that Motor Sport's database lists at Jarama on 1 June 1980, and RaceFans notes that Jones won the 1980 Australian Grand Prix at Calder Park, then a non-championship event contested mainly by Formula 5000 cars.
Williams said in a statement that Jones "was instrumental in making Williams what it is today", becoming "our first Drivers' World Champion in just our fourth season in Formula 1." Stefano Domenicali, Formula 1's president and chief executive, said: "His place in Formula 1 history is assured, not least for bringing Williams their first Drivers' and Constructors' World Championships in 1980, a defining moment for the team and our sport."
Born in Melbourne on 2 November 1946, Jones became Australia's second world champion after Jack Brabham. His first Grand Prix was the 1975 Spanish race with Hesketh, and he also drove for Surtees, Hill, Shadow and Beatrice Lola, according to formula1.com. Williams race next at Interlagos on Sunday 8 November, the first Grand Prix since his death was announced.