1979 United States Grand Prix

The 1979 United States Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on October 7, 1979 at the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Race Course in Watkins Glen, New York.[2] It was the fifteenth and final race of the 1979 World Championship of F1 Drivers and the 1979 International Cup for F1 Constructors. This event was also referred to as the United States Grand Prix East in order to distinguish it from the United States Grand Prix West held on April 8, 1979 in Long Beach, California.

1979 United States Grand Prix
Race 15 of 15 in the 1979 Formula One season
Race details
Date October 7, 1979
Official name XXII Toyota United States Grand Prix
Location Watkins Glen Grand Prix Race Course
Watkins Glen, New York
Course Permanent road course
Course length 5.435 km (3.377 miles)
Distance 59 laps, 320.67 km (199.24 miles)
Weather Rain with temperatures reaching a maximum of 15 °C (59 °F);
Wind speeds up to 27.78 km/h (17.26 mph)[1]
Pole position
Driver Williams-Ford
Time 1:35.615
Fastest lap
Driver Brazil Nelson Piquet Brabham-Ford
Time 1:40.054 on lap 51
Podium
First Ferrari
Second Renault
Third Tyrrell-Ford
Lap leaders

The 59-lap race took place in wet conditions, and was won by Gilles Villeneuve, driving a Ferrari. René Arnoux finished second in a Renault, with Didier Pironi third in a Tyrrell-Ford. The win, Villeneuve's third of the season, enabled him to secure second place in the Drivers' Championship behind team-mate Jody Scheckter.

This was the final Formula One race for the 1969 and 1970 championship runner-up Jacky Ickx, Alex Ribeiro, Arturo Merzario and former Brabham driver Hans-Joachim Stuck, as well as the final race for the Wolf team. Villeneuve's win was also to be the final one for a car with a flat-12 engine and the three points scored by Elio de Angelis would be the last points scored by the Shadow team.

Summary

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By the time the teams got to Watkins Glen for the last race of the 1979 season, Jody Scheckter had already clinched the Drivers' Championship, while his Ferrari team had secured the Constructors' Championship.

On Friday, the rain was heavy enough all day that only a few cars made any serious attempt at a lap time. Of the six that did actually record a time, Gilles Villeneuve was fastest by over nine seconds.

Saturday started bright and sunny, and Alan Jones topped the charts in his Williams for the entire session. He ended up 1.3 seconds quicker than the Brabham of Brazilian Nelson Piquet, who gained the front row in his first drive at Watkins Glen. Scheckter had trouble with the engine in his race car and traffic with his spare, and ended up 16th, one spot ahead of the previous season's champion, Mario Andretti.

The forecast for Sunday was a 50% chance of rain. About twenty minutes before the start, the rain came, and all but two of the cars started with rain tires. The two that did not were Piquet and Andretti, who, in 17th spot on the grid, had nothing to lose by the gamble.

At the start, Piquet suffered with wheelspin on his slicks and was left behind. Scheckter took an outside line through turn one, but he got pushed onto the grass and had to wait for the entire field to go by before re-entering. Keke Rosberg spun and recovered, but he forced Bruno Giacomelli off behind him and into retirement with a bent steering arm. After one lap, the order was Villeneuve, Jones, Carlos Reutemann, Jacques Laffite, Jean-Pierre Jabouille, Clay Regazzoni, René Arnoux, Didier Pironi, John Watson and Jean-Pierre Jarier. After two laps, Villeneuve had extended his lead to five seconds.

By lap three, Jacky Ickx, in his last Grand Prix, had moved his Ligier from 24th to twelfth. As he closed on Derek Daly's Tyrrell approaching the turn before the pit entrance, however, he bumped Daly from behind and went off. His teammate, Jacques Laffite, running in fifth place, spun off on the next lap at the same place. Reutemann crashed out on lap seven from third place when his fire extinguisher sensing unit came loose and interfered with his pedals. The other Lotus, driven by Andretti, decided his gamble to start on slicks had not worked and pitted for wets, since it was still raining. He returned in 20th, but retired soon after when his gearbox became permanently lodged in fourth.

The gap between Villeneuve and Jones varied, with Regazzoni quite a bit back in third. When the rain became heavier, the Ferrari's Michelins performed better; when it slacked off, the intermediate surface favored the Goodyears on the Williams. On lap 20, Scheckter, now in third after fighting his way back from last place, pitted for slicks, as did Regazzoni. Scheckter later said that it was still too early, as he began sliding around down the straight, but the lap time comparison with Villeneuve helped the Ferrari crew to decide when to bring Villeneuve in.

On lap 21, Rosberg caught up with Pironi and tried to overtake on the inside. He could not hold his line, and when he slid wide, he took the Tyrrell with him. Pironi was able to continue, but Rosberg retired with a damaged gearbox. Beginning on lap 25, most of the cars came in for slicks, except the three leaders, Villeneuve, Jones and Arnoux. As the circuit continued to dry, Jones cut into Villeneuve's lead, taking off two seconds per lap. By lap 31, Jones was on his tail, and then quickly past. In two laps, he was 3.1 seconds clear. Villeneuve came in to change tires on lap 34, and returned 39.5 seconds behind Jones.

The Williams crew prepared to fit Jones' car with slicks as he came in on lap 37. After some difficulty removing the right rear, the racing manager waved the jacks away and the car out. As the mechanic on the right rear shouted and waved that he was not finished, the car sped from the pits. At the beginning of the back straight, the wheel came off and Jones retired.

Villeneuve now led Scheckter by almost a lap. Arnoux lost two positions, to fifth, when he pitted for tires, but regained third place, ahead of Daly and Pironi, in two laps. On lap 48, Scheckter felt his car floating about and thought he had a puncture. He decided to go one more lap, but never made it back. The tire shredded and he retired, leaving only nine cars still running. Daly spun off from fourth, and Piquet, after setting fastest lap of the race in pursuit of John Watson's McLaren, dropped out with a broken driveshaft five laps from the flag.

Villeneuve coasted home, allowing Elio de Angelis and Hans-Joachim Stuck to unlap themselves, but finishing with a 48-second margin over Arnoux. Later, Villeneuve revealed that he had been nursing the car with failing oil pressure for the final 25 laps. The American Shadow team celebrated de Angelis' fourth place, his only points of the year. The win by Villeneuve was his third, matching champion Scheckter's total, securing a one-two finish in the Drivers' Championship.

Classification

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Qualifying

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Pos. Driver Constructor Time
1   Alan Jones WilliamsFord 1:35.615
2   Nelson Piquet BrabhamFord +1.299
3   Gilles Villeneuve Ferrari +1.333
4   Jacques Laffite LigierFord +1.451
5   Clay Regazzoni WilliamsFord +1.513
6   Carlos Reutemann LotusFord +2.257
7   René Arnoux Renault +2.580
8   Jean-Pierre Jabouille Renault +2.603
9   Ricardo Zunino BrabhamFord +2.894
10   Didier Pironi TyrrellFord +3.208
11   Jean-Pierre Jarier TyrrellFord +3.330
12   Keke Rosberg WolfFord +3.420
13   John Watson McLarenFord +3.618
14   Hans-Joachim Stuck ATSFord +3.714
15   Derek Daly TyrrellFord +3.853
16   Jody Scheckter Ferrari +3.961
17   Mario Andretti LotusFord +4.529
18   Bruno Giacomelli Alfa Romeo +4.662
19   Riccardo Patrese ArrowsFord +4.722
20   Elio de Angelis ShadowFord +5.010
21   Marc Surer EnsignFord +5.020
22   Patrick Tambay McLarenFord +5.116
23   Emerson Fittipaldi FittipaldiFord +5.126
24   Jacky Ickx LigierFord +5.139
Cut-off
25   Vittorio Brambilla Alfa Romeo +5.174
26   Jochen Mass ArrowsFord +5.209
27   Jan Lammers ShadowFord +6.473
28   Héctor Rebaque RebaqueFord +7.445
29   Alex Ribeiro FittipaldiFord +9.568
30   Arturo Merzario MerzarioFord +13.703
Source:[3]

Race

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Pos No Driver Constructor Tyre Laps Time/Retired Grid Points
1 12   Gilles Villeneuve Ferrari M 59 1:52:17.734 3 9
2 16   René Arnoux Renault M 59 + 48.787 7 6
3 3   Didier Pironi Tyrrell-Ford G 59 + 53.199 10 4
4 18   Elio de Angelis Shadow-Ford G 59 + 1:30.512 20 3
5 9   Hans-Joachim Stuck ATS-Ford G 59 + 1:41.259 14 2
6 7   John Watson McLaren-Ford G 58 + 1 Lap 13 1
7 14   Emerson Fittipaldi Fittipaldi-Ford G 54 + 5 Laps 23
Ret 6   Nelson Piquet Brabham-Ford G 53 Transmission 2
Ret 33   Derek Daly Tyrrell-Ford G 52 Spun Off 15
Ret 11   Jody Scheckter Ferrari M 48 Tyre 16
Ret 29   Riccardo Patrese Arrows-Ford G 44 Suspension 19
Ret 27   Alan Jones Williams-Ford G 36 Wheel 1
Ret 22   Marc Surer Ensign-Ford G 32 Engine 21
Ret 28   Clay Regazzoni Williams-Ford G 29 Accident 5
Ret 5   Ricardo Zunino Brabham-Ford G 25 Spun Off 9
Ret 15   Jean-Pierre Jabouille Renault M 24 Engine 8
Ret 20   Keke Rosberg Wolf-Ford G 20 Accident 12
Ret 8   Patrick Tambay McLaren-Ford G 20 Engine 22
Ret 4   Jean-Pierre Jarier Tyrrell-Ford G 18 Accident 11
Ret 1   Mario Andretti Lotus-Ford G 16 Gearbox 17
Ret 2   Carlos Reutemann Lotus-Ford G 6 Spun Off 6
Ret 26   Jacques Laffite Ligier-Ford G 3 Spun Off 4
Ret 25   Jacky Ickx Ligier-Ford G 2 Spun Off 24
Ret 35   Bruno Giacomelli Alfa Romeo G 0 Spun Off 18
DNQ 36   Vittorio Brambilla Alfa Romeo G
DNQ 30   Jochen Mass Arrows-Ford G
DNQ 17   Jan Lammers Shadow-Ford G
DNQ 31   Héctor Rebaque Rebaque-Ford G
DNQ 19   Alex Ribeiro Fittipaldi-Ford G
DNQ 24   Arturo Merzario Merzario-Ford G
Source:[4][5]

Championship standings after the race

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  • Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings. Only the best 4 results from the first 7 races and the best 4 results from the last 8 races counted towards the Drivers' Championship. Numbers without parentheses are Championship points; numbers in parentheses are total points scored.

References

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  1. ^ "Weather information for the "1979 United States Grand Prix"". The Old Farmers' Almanac. Retrieved November 11, 2013.
  2. ^ "1979 United States Grand Prix Entry list".
  3. ^ "1979 Formula One United States Grand Prix – Qualifying classification". Motorsport Stats. May 25, 2021.
  4. ^ "1979 USA East Grand Prix". formula1.com. Archived from the original on February 9, 2014. Retrieved December 23, 2015.
  5. ^ "1979 United States Grand Prix - Race Results & History - GP Archive". GPArchive.com. October 7, 1979. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  6. ^ a b "United States 1979 - Championship • STATS F1". www.statsf1.com. Retrieved March 21, 2019.

Further reading

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  • Rob Walker (January, 1980). "21st United States Grand Prix: Muddier Matters". Road & Track, 104-107.


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1979 Canadian Grand Prix
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