Alan Jones, the Australian who became the first driver to win a Formula 1 title with Williams, has died, his family said Thursday.
Jones, the 1980 Formula 1 world champion, died after a brief illness. He was 80.
“We are extremely saddened to announce the passing of our beloved Alan,” his wife, Amanda, said in a statement. “He will be dearly missed and fondly remembered by those closest to him, as well as the many fans whose support he was always grateful for.”
Jones, an Australian Motorsport Hall of Fame and Sport Australia Hall of Fame inductee born in Melbourne in 1946, was the second and so far last Australian to win the Formula 1 world title, the highlight of an F1 career that featured 12 victories and 24 podium finishes.
He followed Jack Brabham, won three F1 world drivers’ titles for Australia.
Tough as tough on the race track
Jones was known for his aggressive driving style and abrasive personality. “If someone passed me, I took it personally,” he said on a 2019 podcast.
In an era when deaths and serious injuries weren’t uncommon in F1, Jones started each year by checking his life insurance and making travel plans for his wife to return to Australia if he was killed, but said he never personally feared death in a race.
“I never worried about the dangers,” he said. “I worried about the money.”
Jones found the right team with Williams, whose founder Frank Williams was adept at defusing his temper and keeping him focused. His driving style and physical strength were a good fit for the team’s FW07 car.
Jones didn’t seek to make friends with other F1 drivers.
“They were just things that had to be passed,” was how he described his rivals in the 2019 podcast “Beyond The Grid.” After one public feud with his Argentinian teammate Carlos Reutemann, Jones needed a police escort for his next race in Argentina.
A wave?
Disappointed that Ferrari had gone back on what Jones later claimed was a signed contract for him to drive for the Italian team in 1977, he bore a grudge.
“When I used to drive down pit lane and they were working on their cars, I’d give them a little wave,” he said later. “Now, I might have only used one finger, but it was a wave!”
Jones grew up in Australia as the son of a successful amateur racing driver and moved to Britain in the late 1960s, funding his journey toward F1 by buying and selling old vans.
Jones drove for a series of small teams when he arrived in F1. His first win for Shadow in 1977 from 14th on the grid came as such a surprise to organizers of the Austrian Grand Prix that they hadn’t prepared a recording of the Australian national anthem for the podium ceremony. Jones later recalled that “a drunk played ‘Happy Birthday’ on a trumpet” instead.
After an unsuccessful title defense in 1981 — Jones believed he’d driven better than before but the car let him down — he headed back to Australia and bought a farm. Homesickness and a dislike for the British weather played a part.
Still, Jones was soon bored of his new life as a cattle breeder and made a one-off F1 comeback in 1983 with Arrows before returning with Haas — no relation to the current F1 team of the same name. The car wasn’t competitive and Jones had a best finish of fourth before leaving F1 again in 1986.
Criticism of current drivers
Away from F1, Jones won the 1978 Can-Am sportscar title and was third in his only IndyCar race in 1983. Jones kept racing in Australia’s V8 Supercars series until 2002, when he was 55.
Jones stayed around the paddock as a TV commentator and race steward but was critical of modern drivers, who he called “prima donnas” and “too corporate.”
Original team owner Frank Williams, who died in November 2021, was fond of Jones and once described him as “a man’s man” who was “great fun to be with.”
“He never needed propping up mentally, because he was a very determined and bullish character,” Williams said. “He didn’t need any babysitting or hand-holding and that’s the way it should be. It shouldn’t be necessary for me to ask a driver if he is happy, or if he needs his underwear changed.”