by Alan Jones
Any driver must believe that given the same equipment he can beat anybody else, otherwise why do it? I had that belief, but I always tried not to mouth off, not to show that belief as arrogance – because I don’t like mouths. But deep down you know, and maybe within your family circles you’ll talk, but that’s all. These days a lot of sportsmen like to mouth off – like that tennis player Nick Kyrgios. They piss me off. I would be mortified if anyone ever thought of me like that.
Yet I was accused of arrogance. There used to be prizes given out by the French journalists – the Prix Orange and the Prix Citron. The Prix Orange was given to the driver that was the most cooperative with the press; the Prix Citron was for the one who wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t provide a headline, who left them with a sour taste. I was awarded the Prix Orange in 1979 and then the Citron in 1980. Problem was, I just didn’t have the time in 1980. My attitude didn’t change, but the amount of time I had at the track did.
I wasn’t there for fun. I was there to win. I never used to take golf clubs or lounge around by the pool (I couldn’t risk sunburn like I had in Brazil all those years ago). I was there to go motor racing.
My whole persona used to change from the minute I left the front door of my house. I turned into a racing driver – and a prick. I was in race mode until I got home Sunday or Monday. Then I’d go down to the pub and have a few beers with the boys. None of them were really into motorsport all that much, which suited me fine as it does today. They knew who I was, but I’d go down there and have a game of pool with them, have a few beers and preferably not talk about motorsport.
That was it. I used to separate my two lives, because as Alan Jones the racing driver, I really wasn’t a nice person. I was there to do a job. I’d made the conscious decision to move from Australia 12,000 miles away, and I wasn’t doing that for fun. I was there to get the job done. I was willing to do anything to anybody who got in the way.
So there I was in 1980 focusing on my racing and they fire stupid questions at me and get upset if I didn’t sit with them for four hours. ‘Look, mate, sorry, I haven’t got time. You’ll have to catch up later.’ Then you become arrogant in their eyes.
I could not tolerate anybody that didn’t know their subject either. Some journalists would ask you the most inane and stupid questions, and it was immediately obvious they knew nothing about motorsport; they were just simply given a job to come and interview you. I used to just wipe them. I was not arrogant, but I was intolerant.
We were fastest again in the warm-up, in my eyes everything was set for me to win the British GP. Even when I didn’t get a good start and dropped to third, I still had the lead back by the end of the first lap. I passed both Clay and Jabouille in the one move at Stowe, which was a pretty good feeling. Jabouille stayed with me for a bit, then I started to pull away and built up a 20-second lead. Then the bloody heat exchanger cracked and I lost all my water and had to retire.
I was filthy, not just because it was going to be a grand prix win, but it would have been Williams’ first grand prix win. That honour went to my teammate, Clay Regazzoni – and I was really happy for him, Frank and the team. But still, I jumped in my car and screamed back to London, with Beverley sitting in the passenger seat shitting herself. I didn’t even wait around. I should have at least waited there to congratulate my teammate. I wasn’t that sort of a person though; I was too competitive. They could all get fucked, I was going back to London. As far as I was concerned, the heat exchanger just shouldn’t have cracked … I was foul.
It is great when the circuit gets to Europe because you pretty much get a race every fortnight. Hockenheim was a big power track, so even with our new-found speed we were not really likely to challenge the Renaults for pole, but I did get a front-row start that I turned into first place going into the first corner of the race and then I just led the entire race.
Late in the race I was losing a bit of speed from a slow puncture, but I had more than enough to stay in front of Clay, who was second. There was talk that he was told to stay in second, but I dispute that. If I was him and I had been told not to pass, I would have finished half a second behind me. That would have spelled out to the world that I could have done it. But when you’re three seconds behind it’s very debatable whether you got those orders or not.
Regazzoni, and later Reutemann, wasn’t averse to saying that I got preferential treatment or better equipment, which was absolute crap, because Williams were in a position to give equal equipment to both drivers. When they can do that, I don’t think any team favours one driver; it is just too hard to manage and too risky. Lewis Hamilton was talking about that in 2016, almost claiming his car was being made to fail while Nico Rosberg was allowed to go on and win … it was as much crap then as it was in the 70s. You don’t spend hundreds of millions of dollars and employ thousands of people to sabotage your driver. The whole reason of running a two-car team is if one breaks down or has trouble, hopefully the other one will come through and win a grand prix for you.
Jabouille was my biggest threat that day. He had a lot of speed down the straights but he had to work hard to stay with me in the corners and into the stadium area early in the race he locked up and spun himself out of the race.
The German was my second grand prix victory, almost two years on from my first, and with a one-two I thought it was pretty clear we had a great car now and so long as it held together, we would be a contender every time we hit the track. I remember watching some of the footage after the race and hearing Murray Walker say when talking about one-two finishes that this was ‘the first for Saudia Williams, but probably not the last’. I was hoping he was right.
I got to shake the champagne after my first grand prix win, but not for the rest of them. The bottle remained at my feet this time. I can’t recall whether Frank specifically asked for us not to do it, but it was out of respect for our Muslim sponsors.
If we were lucky enough to win a grand prix it was almost compulsory viewing in Saudi Arabia that week, to show their people how technically fabulous they were. Never mind that they didn’t know one end of a wrench from the other, but just poured the money in. Anyway, spraying alcohol all over the place was very naughty, because our sponsors supposedly didn’t drink alcohol. Of course that wasn’t the case, but we did need to show respect on the podium. We did things like shake orange juice, which was a piss-take on our part, but never any alcohol. We made up for it when the doors were closed …
In Austria I qualified second, this time to René Arnoux in his Renault. I thought I got a good start and was going to lead into the first corner when Gilles blasted past me in that Ferrari. He had plenty of straight-line speed, but my car was the better handling and by the start of the third lap I had the lead back – and I held it to the end. Back-to-back grand prix wins felt real good.
That weekend I was seeing my future. The Renaults with their turbo engines would always be hard to beat in qualifying, but then they’d dial it back to try to last the distance in the race. The Ferrari and Alfa Romeo V12s were fast in a straight line, but the handling for each of Ferrari and Brabham was nowhere near ours. The FW07 was kind on its tyres and definitely had the edge in racing terms.
My win in Austria was by nearly 40 seconds over Gilles – and they had the Australian national anthem ready now. I was now fourth in the World Championship, but with the stupid points system for that year it was very unlikely that I could win the title … even if I won every race, which was my intention at that point. We could count our best four results from the first seven rounds – it was eight until Sweden pulled out – and then the best four from the final eight.
What that meant was that I had four points for my podium in Long Beach from the first half of the season and then could add only another 36 points if I won four races in the back half. I had already won two. I left Austria on 25 points chasing Jody on 38 points and the chances of him not getting another three points in the final three rounds was pretty slim.
Bloody
René Arnoux beat me to pole at Zandvoort and I was again second, though I beat him off the start and had a good battle with Gilles for the lead. René crashed into Clay off the start and knocked one of his wheels off, so I think I was lucky to be clear of him that day. Early in the race I started to get gearbox problems and Gilles was able to go around the outside of me at Tarzan on lap 11.
It was a great battle up to that point, but Gilles, as ever, was going as hard as he could and eventually spun off the track and gave me back the lead, which I turned into my third win in a row. Jody was second after dropping to last, and that was enough to mean I could not win the championship, which was now a battle between him and Jacques Laffite, who hadn’t won since the second round after we all developed better cars.
With three wins in a row, my head was at 42,000 feet now. Big-headed Alan Jones. You do start to feel bulletproof when you are on a roll like that. Firstly, you know you can do it, and secondly everyone else now knows too. Given the right car and the right opportunity, I knew I could win a lot more grands prix.
Some things still rankled though. Every time I out-qualified the Ferrari I’d drive down pit lane and give them a little wave, just so they knew. ‘I’m the bloke you didn’t sign, you dickheads.’ Even though I was still shitty, it worked out much better for me that Ferrari didn’t sign me.
In that era you would have cars more suited to one track than another – and on a power track we were not so good.
Enter Monza. I remember that race quite clearly because Frank was ropeable with me after I had a little incident that left me injured for the race.
I was driving down Chiswick High Road back in London and had a bit of an altercation with a van driver. We both got out of our vehicles. Turns out the other driver was a big black gentleman. When he uncoiled himself, he stood before me a man mountain and proceeded to bounce me up and down Chiswick High Road for about three minutes.
The bloke who was in the car with me locked the doors. Thanks a lot. Anyway, he broke my finger. So the next race was Monza and I had to race with two fingers bandaged up. When Frank asked what happened, stupidly, I told him. I had to have some injections in the finger to stop the pain, as I did in Canada too.
The funny thing was Beverley and I were looking at adopting a second child and I was on my way home to meet the lady from the adoption centre when this incident happened. She was there with Beverley when I opened the door with blood all over my ripped shirt.
Beverley looked at me with one of those looks, and dragged me upstairs. I thought I was about to get another hiding. We had a three-storey house and the main lounge room was on the middle and the bedrooms and bathrooms up top, so I had to go past the lounge to clean myself up. I was spotted, and the adoption lady asked what happened. Jones, king of bullshit, rolled out a good one. ‘I’ve been hit by a motor scooter on a pedestrian crossing.’
She said, ‘Oh my god, they’re so irresponsible.’
I couldn’t think of anything else. ‘I won’t be a moment,’ I added. ‘I’ll just go clean myself up.’ I went back down after I cleaned myself up. She thought I was very brave for continuing on with the meeting considering my injuries. Beverley was giving me dirty looks and threatening to kill me.
We never did adopt that second child.
Monza was a shit weekend, the bulletproof feeling had well and truly gone. At one stage I was wobbling around down the back of the field with ignition problems and I finished one lap down on Jody who won, and secured the championship. I was the fastest on the track though and without that niggle I could have beaten the Ferraris that day. Clay was much more competitive than me and finished third, which moved Williams into second on the Constructors’ Championship.
Thankfully, Canada was better for me. This was the second race on the Circuit Île Notre-Dame, which is a great track on a man-made island in the middle of a river. It has places you can overtake, especially at the hairpin and other parts of it that are just great to race on. I grabbed pole from Gilles, who had massive support given he was a local and had won the previous year, and that set up a great race.
Before the start, Frank said to me, ‘Don’t do anything silly. Don’t try and race too much too early, because you’ll screw your tyres. Wait until your fuel load gets down and then have a go.’ And to Gilles’ credit, it wasn’t me just sort of hanging back, I just couldn’t pass the little bugger. I was trying since I’d forgotten most of what Frank said as soon as the race started, although I was trying to limit the wheelspin coming out of the hairpin.
We were nose to tail for about three-quarters of the race. Of course all the grandstand were on their feet cheering for him. Lap after lap I looked, but he was so hard to pass even when he didn’t have much of a power advantage. On lap 51 I got a great run on him coming out of the chicane down the back of the track. He left the door open just a little and I went for it. I screamed down the inside and was completely beside him, which meant I had the corner, but we banged wheels, which was a bit silly on his part. He was on the outside and he could have had both of us off and neither of us would have won.
He didn’t need to hit me. I had him well beaten in that corner. James Hunt, who had slipped into doing commentary for the BBC, was quite critical of him, but I didn’t really care too much. I had the lead and was able to pull a small gap. James had driven for Wolf that year until he quit. From the commentary box he watched Jody Scheckter win the title for Ferrari – the drive that he had been offered, but knocked back. James’ commentary was great – he didn’t hold back. Just as well we were friends.
After I got into the lead I thought I’d be able to pull away, but I couldn’t. Gilles stuck right on my gearbox until the end of the race. It didn’t help when I had to lap his teammate, but that was all part of it. It was just a bloody good race. It was just two cars. You could have thrown a blanket over us for virtually the whole grand prix.
I finished one second in front of Gilles – and we were more than a minute clear of Clay in third. You can still watch the race on the internet – and it still looks good. The fans got their money’s worth that day, even if they were pissed off that their man didn’t win.
So there I was, I had four wins in the second half of the season, so no matter what happened at Watkins Glen for the final round, the silly scoring system meant no more points for me. I had pole position again, this time by more than a second from Nelson Piquet, and again I was beaten off the line by Gilles. That Ferrari was such a good starter. It was a wet race to start with and Gilles opened up a gap on me, but as it started to dry I was pulling him in at up to two seconds a lap – he was never good at looking after his tyres.
On lap 31 I went into the lead and then had that out to nearly four seconds when Gilles pitted for slicks. A couple of laps later when I had finally knocked the edges off the wet-weather tyres, I pitted. They had trouble with my right rear tyre, and while I was being waved away the mechanic back there was still trying to get it on. At the start of the back straight, it fell off and I was out of the race while leading.
Even with that I finished the season in third. If only we’d got the new car earlier, and if only we’d got on top of our reliability quicker, who knows what could have happened. As it turned out, the year was a battle of new ground-effects cars, of when they arrived and who mastered them quickest. Ligier was on top of the game for the first two races, with Jackie the Foot winning the first two races. Then Ferrari introduced its wing car and Gilles won two races from Jody, who then won two of the next three.
Patrick Depailler took a win in the Ligier and then broke his legs, Jean-Pierre Jabouille won for Renault in France and then it was us. The FW07 came for round 5, Patrick found a demon tweak for Britain three races later and then we were easily the best car on the track. I won four races from that point and Clay won in Britain, giving us five from seven and that could easily have been all seven.
Heading back to Australia for Christmas, I felt good, and not just because we flew home first class. We now h
ad Christian and we had bought a modern house in Kew overlooking the old Skipping Girl Vinegar factory, so we had great views of Melbourne.
We had also bought a farm just outside Yea, but I quickly worked out I wasn’t a farmer and put in a manager for that. I did buy the pub up there too though. I was much better at going to the pub after a day on the farm than I was on the farm itself. In hindsight, I was better on the customer side of the bar too.
I thought I’d remodel the pub. Influenced by being in Europe for so long, I started with black, red and white checked tablecloths. I put a veranda on it, painted it and put shutters on … I thought it was great. I was hoping to get the passing snow traffic in winter, let people come in and cook their own steaks.
Anyway the locals weren’t happy. ‘Are you turning this into a poofta’s pub?’
‘Fuck no,’ I said, ‘I’m just trying to turn it into a nice place everyone can enjoy.’ I caught a bloke one night in a ute with a rope around one of the veranda stays trying to pull the bloody thing down. He was banned for life.
Then I started seeing dust that I never saw before I owned it, and that wasn’t a good sign. I had a succession of idiots through there as managers – it was just a bloody nightmare. I couldn’t wait to get out of it after a while.
On the farm I decided to breed Simmentals, which are cows from the Simme Valley in Switzerland. They’re half a milking cow and half a beef cow. They’re beautiful. They’re really good cattle and I was breeding polls without horns. They were good because when you take them to the market in trucks, there were no horns to bruise each other with.
I bought a new Mercedes truck and had it all done up with Meraleste Pastoral Company on the side of it. I thought I was going to be the big pastoralist, pretty much as I had told people when scamming in my early days in England. I had a guy from Switzerland as my herd master, Fritz, who was a bit of a Simmental expert. He lived in one of the houses on the property, which was nearly 2500 acres, 80 kilometres northeast of Melbourne. The setting was great. I put in a tennis court and trees lining the driveway.
