Former F1 champion Jones dies aged 80 — SkimNews
Get the Sports newsletter
Daily sports — scores, transfers, the storylines from the leagues you actually follow. Free.
- Alan Jones died on 5 November following a short illness at age 80; Motorsport Australia released a statement on behalf of his wife, Amanda Butler-Davis, saying he had dedicated his life to motorsport.
- Williams counted Jones as its first of seven world champions when he took the 1980 title with five wins, finishing ahead of Nelson Piquet and on the podium in all but one completed Grand Prix.
- Shadow delivered Jones’s first Formula 1 race victory in Austria in 1977, and he joined Williams the following year.
- Jack Brabham was the only Australian champion before Jones, winning the world title in 1959, 1960 and 1966.
- Calder Park Raceway was where Jones won the 1980 Australian Grand Prix, a non-world-championship meeting that made him the most recent Australian winner of the race.
- Las Vegas hosted Jones’s final Formula 1 race victory in 1981, when he finished third in the drivers’ standings and retired at the end of the season.
- Haas marked Jones’s full-time comeback in 1985; after racing largely unsuccessfully in 1986, he continued in touring-car and endurance events until 2002 and became a popular Australian television pundit.
Why it matters: Williams loses the driver who delivered its first of seven Formula 1 world titles, while Australian motorsport loses its most recent home Grand Prix winner and a popular television pundit. Jones’s death at 80 leaves a career spanning 116 F1 starts in 1975-86 and other competition through 2002 as an enduring part of Australian motorsport history.
Ask SkimNews
