Alan Jones, 1980 Formula One World Champion and First Williams Title Winner, Dies at 80

Alan Jones, the 1980 Formula One world champion, has died. He was 80.

Fox Sports Australia reported that Jones died after a brief illness. Auto Action reported that he died overnight, days after his 80th birthday, and V8 Sleuth also reported his passing. No report carried a statement from his family or from Williams.

Jones was the second Australian to win the world championship, after Jack Brabham, and remains the most recent. He was the first driver to win the title for Williams. In 116 Formula One starts between 1975 and 1986, he won 12 grands prix and stood on the podium 24 times.

The long road to the top

Jones was born in Melbourne on November 2, 1946. His father, Stan Jones, was a leading Australian driver of the 1950s who won the Australian Grand Prix in 1959. Alan Jones moved to Britain in 1970 with little money and worked up through the lower formulas.

His Formula One debut came in 1975, in a Hesketh entered by Harry Stiller. The team collapsed after four races. Jones stood in at Graham Hill's team, raced for Surtees in 1976, then joined Shadow in 1977, replacing Tom Pryce, who had been killed earlier that season. At that year's Austrian Grand Prix he won from 14th on the grid in the wet, his first grand prix victory and the first by an Australian since Brabham's last win in 1970. Jones often told how the organisers had no recording of the Australian anthem ready, so a trumpeter played Happy Birthday instead.

The Williams years

Jones signed for Williams for 1978 as the team's only driver, convinced by Frank Williams and designer Patrick Head to join a team yet to win a race. In 1979 he won four of the final six grands prix and finished third in the championship. A year later the title was his: five wins, starting with the opener in Argentina, and Nelson Piquet beaten. The title was sealed in Canada, and he closed the season with a win at Watkins Glen. Williams took its first drivers and constructors titles in the same year.

His 1981 defence started with a win at Long Beach, but the season turned on a team orders row with teammate Carlos Reutemann in Brazil, and Piquet took the title. Jones retired at the end of that season, signing off with a win at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Life after Formula One

Retirement did not hold. Jones returned once with Arrows in 1983, came back with Haas in 1985, and raced a full season in 1986 before retiring from Formula One for good. He had also won the North American Can-Am title in 1978.

At home, his second career ran two more decades. Jones remains the last Australian to win the Australian Grand Prix, at Calder Park in 1980, matching his father's 1959 victory. He started the Bathurst 1000 nineteen times, finished second in 1995 and third in 1988, and won the Bathurst 12 Hour in 1993. His last professional start came at the 2002 Bathurst 1000, at 55, finishing seventh. He was a television pundit on Channel Nine's Formula One coverage and later Network Ten, and an FIA steward in the 2010s. He entered the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1985 and was given Legend status in the Australian Motorsport Hall of Fame in 2019.

Jones lived on the Gold Coast with his partner Amanda and their twins, Zara and Jack. Matt Bishop, writing in Motor Sport Magazine, described him as a champion who "remains grossly underappreciated." The next days will test that judgment.