1980 rFactor Alternate Formula One season

The 1980 Formula One season will be the 31st in the history of the championship, and the second under the FIA presidency of Jean-Luc Knighte. Jacques Laffite and Ligier started the season reigning champions, looking to improve after an up-and-down 1979.

Teams and Drivers

Team	Constructor	Chassis	Engine	Type	#	Race Drivers	Rounds	Test Drivers
Equipe Ligier Gitanes Talbot	Ligier	JS15	Talbot	Turbo	1	Jacques Laffite	1-	None
					2	Edward Kevin	1-
Team Tyrrell	Tyrrell	010	Cosworth DFV	N-A	3	Hiroshi Takagi	1-	Thomas Nurmester
					4	Didier Pironi	1-
Parmalat Racing Team	Brabham	BT56	Renault	Turbo	5	Nelson Piquet	1-	None
					6	Larry Perkins	1-
Essex Team Lotus	Lotus	79c	Renault	Turbo	7	Harvey Jones	1-	None
					8	Alan Jones	1-
RAM March Racing Lotus FIAT Hart	RAM	80	FIAT	N-A	9	Jan Lammers	1-	None
					10	Nigel Mansell	1-
			Hart	Turbo	9	Jan Lammers	TBC
					10	Nigel Mansell	TBC
Scuderia Ferrari SpA SEFAC	Ferrari	312T5	Ferrari	Turbo	11	Gilles Villeneuve	1-	Keke Rosberg
					12	Rene Aroux	1-
Equipe Renault Elf	Renault	RE20	Renault	Turbo	14	Jean-Pierre Jabouille	1-	None
					15	Carlos Reutemann	1-
Shadow Ford Racing	Shadow	DN10b	Ford	Turbo	16	Stefan Bellof	1-	None
					17	Brian Henton	1-
Olympus Cameras Walter Wolf Racing	Wolf	WR10	Renault	Turbo	18	Davey Clarke	1-	None
					19	Bruno Giacomelli	1-
Team Ensign	Ensign	N180	Honda	Turbo	20	Martin Rossler	1-	Ladislav Sedlak
					21	Deyan Rangelov	1-
					TBA	Ladislav Sedlak 4	1-
Saras Team Merzario SpA	Merzario	80	Lamborghini	Turbo	22	Mario Andretti	1-	Simone Guidetti
					23	Emerson Fittipaldi	1-
Marlboro Team McLaren	McLaren	M29b	Ford	Turbo	24	Guillaume Gauthier	1-	Chico Serra Derek Warwick
					25	Derek Daly	1-
Albilad Williams Racing	Williams	FW07b	Honda	Turbo	26	Jody Scheckter	1-	None
					27	Callum McAllister	1-
Warsteiner Arrows	Arrows	A10b	Cosworth DFV	N-A	28	Keiran Sutherland	1-	None
					29	Riccardo Patrese	1-
Penske Team Rebaque	Rebaque	PR02	Cosworth DFV	N-A	30	Piercarlo Ghinzani	1-	None
					31	Padraig O'Connell	1-
JLD TAG ATS Racing	JLD	JLD4	TAG-Porsche	Turbo	32	Pierre Depault	1-	Michael Bleekemolen
					33	Rupert Keegan	1-
Marlboro Team Alfa Romeo	Alfa Romeo	179	Alfa Romeo	N-A	34	Alain Prost	1-	Andrea de Cesaris
					35	Roberto Horford	1-
Gazprom Restov Racing	Restov	RS11	Lada	Turbo	36	Elio de Angelis	1-2	Valentino Nicchi
						Gianfranco Brancatelli 2	3-
					37	Beppe Gabbiani 1	1-2
						Valentino Nicchi 1	3
Audi Sport	Audi	48	Audi	Turbo	38	Niki Lauda	1-	Jochen Mass
					39	Marc Surer	1-
Osella Squadra Corse	Osella	A1	Alfa Romeo	N-A	40	Thomas Nurmester	1-	Teo Fabi Siegfried Stohr
					41	Eddie Cheever	1-2
						Siegfried Stohr

Key

Key
Icon	Type
N-A	Normally Aspirated
Turbo	Turbocharged

• 1 Beppe Gabbiani was banned for one race after his antics during the 1980 South African Grand Prix. Restov Racing's test and reserve driver Valentino Nicchi stepped in to replace him.
• 2 After holding a test session at Silverstone after the 1980 South African Grand Prix, Restov Racing decided to replace the under performing Elio de Angelis with Gianfranco Brancatelli, who drove for RAM in 1979.
• 3 After poor performance at the South African GP, Eddie Cheever's Osella seat was under threat. The team organized a private test to see if the team's reserve driver Siegfried Stohr was any better, which he was and so he replaced Cheever.
• 4 Ladislav Sedlak was injured in the 1979 Australian Grand Prix. He missed the start of the season due to this injury.

Team Changes

• Fittipaldi Automotive and Jenkins Industries F1 Team did not return to start 1980, with Jenkins going bust with 3 races to go in 1979 and Fittipaldi pulling out of Formula One.
• Osella Squadre Corse were the first of the new teams to be granted an entry to the sport, mid way through 1979. The Italian squad secured the old Williams FW06 chassis used by Jenkins after the team went bust, and signed a deal with Alfa Romeo to receive engines from the Italian manufacturer in exchange for a choice over one of their drivers starting from 1981 onwards.
• Audi Sport were the second of the new teams to be announced for 1980. The squad, after having their entry confirmed before the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix, spent most of 1979 testing their car in secret, but when the car did break cover it emerged that someone had found the blueprints to the Brabham BT48 in a skip and copied them. To power their chassis, the German manufacturer developed their own in-line 6 turbocharged engine.
• Restov Racing were the next squad to be announced. The Anglo-Russian squad founded by businessman Edward Restov quickly secured a deal with Renault to run their old RS11 chassis and engines, to be re badged as Ladas. Restov also showed his business acumen by signing Russian company Gazprom into a lucrative title sponsorship deal.
• Renault offered a supply of engines to all teams, with Brabham, Lotus, Renault, Restov, and Wolf taking delivery of Renault engines.
• ATS Racing was renamed to JLD Racing following the latter's take over of the former.
• Ensign signed a deal with Honda for a supply of engines.
• RAM Racing rebadged their normally aspirated Ferrari engines to FIATs after a request from Ferrari.

Driver Changes

Changed Teams

• Thomas Nurmester, who drove in place of an ill Geoff Lees for Tyrrell at the 1979 Monaco Grand Prix, moved to Osella, where he would receive a full-time drive. However, he was also retained by Tyrrell as a test and reserve driver.
• Mario Andretti moved to Merzario after ebing sacked by the McLaren team, along with Emerson Fittipaldi after his family team left the sport.
• After being left without a drive after the Jenkins team pulled out, Rupert Keegan joined JLD
• 1979's journeyman, Beppe Gabbiani, moved to his third team in 14 months, Restov, ahead of the 1980 season.
• Niki Lauda was dropped by Brabham after a lacklustre 1979, with the Austrian joining Audi.
• Marc Surer recovered from his horrific back injuries he suffered at the 1979 German Grand Prix to join Audi.

Entered Formula One

• Along with Formula One's first team from behind the Iron curtain, Bulgaria's Deyan Rangelov proved to be Formula One's first Eastern European driver.
• Larry Perkins joined Brabham after winning Australia's Rothmans International Series.
• Nigel Mansell joined RAM full-time after serving as their test driver in 1979.
• Briton Brian Henton joined Shadow Ford Racing after finishing second in European Formula Two in 1979.
• American Eddie Cheever joined Osella's F1 effort after a successful campaign with them in European Formula Two.

Left Formula One

• Danny Ongais was left with no drive after Fittipaldi pulled out of the sport, and returned to race in America.
• Marshal Jenkins did not return along with his team.
• Geoff Lees, after being sacked by Tyrrell before the 1979 Australian Grand Prix, did not find a drive for 1980.
• Gianfranco Brancatelli was not kept on at RAM, being replaced by Nigel Mansell. However, he was to return after just two racing driving for Restov Racing.

Politics

The aftermath of the 1980 South African Grand Prix saw many new political unions spring up amongst the constructors, after FISA proposed radical new rule changes that were detrimental to the sport.

Association des Constructeurs de Formule Une (ACF) was the first of these groups to be set up, with Ligier the founding member. Ligier was soon joined by teams up and down the pitlane, and before the 1980 Brazilian Grand Prix]], Osella, Renault, Williams, JLD, Restov Racing and McLaren were all members.

In response to this, and the perceived manufacturer bias according to RAM, the British team formed the Union of Independent Teams (UIT) to stand for the smaller, independant teams. Ensign joined quickly after it's inception.

A third constructor's association, namely the Constructor's Assembly (CA), which in the eyes of Ken Tyrrell, the founding member, is a "more liberal and more open F1 constructors association". The CA immeadiately placed a restriciton on membership to those teams who were not aligned to either ACF or UIT.

Team Merzario, on the other hand, set up the Sit on the Fence Association (SOFA) which was "for those teams who don't wish to align themselves with ACF, UIT or the CA". The purpose of SOFA was for teams who didn't want to align themselves to ACF, UIT or the CA to have a united voice if major trouble should kick off between FISA and the unions in the future.

Season Calendar

	Race	Track	Date	Pole position	Fastest lap	Winning driver	Winning team
1	Australian Grand Prix	Adelaide Street Circuit	2nd March	Nelson Piquet	Jaques Laffite	Callum McAllister	Williams-Honda
2	South African Grand Prix	Kyalami	16th March	Callum McAllister	Harvey Jones	Harvey Jones	Lotus-Renault
3	Brazilian Grand Prix	Interlagos	30th March	Nelson Piquet	Larry Perkins	Larry Perkins	Brabham-Renault
4	Belgian Grand Prix	Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps	13th April
5	French Grand Prix	Paul Ricard	27th April
6	Monaco Grand Prix	Circuit de Monaco	4th May
7	Swiss Grand Prix	Dijon-Prenois	18th May
8	United States Grand Prix	Burke Lakefront Airport	8th June
9	Canadian Grand Prix	Silverstone	15th June
10	Irish Grand Prix	Mondello Park	6th July
11	British Grand Prix	Donington Park	13th July
12	German Grand Prix	Hockenheimring	27th July
13	European Grand Prix	Vallelunga, Italy	10th August
14	Austrian Grand Prix	Salzburgring	24th August
15	Italian Grand Prix	Monza	7th September
16	Japanese Grand Prix	Fuji Speedway	21st September
17	US East Grand Prix	Watkins Glen	12th October

Championship Standings

Driver's Championship

Pos	Driver	AUS	RSA	BRA	BEL	FRA	MON	SWI	USA	CAN	IRE	GBR	GER	EUR	AUT	ITA	JPN	USE	Pts
1	Callum McAllister	1	5																12
2	Harvey Jones	Ret	1																10
3	Alan Jones	2	Ret																7
4	Jody Scheckter	Ret	2																7
5	Jean-Pierre Jabouille	3	Ret																5
6	Nelson Piquet	Ret	3																5
7	Carlos Reutemann	4	Ret																3
8	Larry Perkins	Ret	4																3
9	Jacques Laffite	5	6																3
10	Guillaume Gauthier	6	9																1
11	Elio de Angelis	7	Ret																0
12	Edward Kevin	Ret	7																0
13	Jan Lammers	Ret	8																0
14	Piercarlo Ghinzani	8	DNQ																0
15	Keiran Sutherland	9	DNQ																0
16	Stefan Bellof	Ret	10																0
17	Derek Daly	Ret	11																0
18	Brian Henton	Ret	12																0
19	Emerson Fittipaldi	Ret	13																0
20	Gilles Villeneuve	Ret	14																0
21	Pierre Depault	Ret	15																0
22	Alain Prost	Ret	16																0
23	Rupert Keegan	Ret	17†																0
24	Beppe Gabbiani	Ret	DSQ	EX															0

• † denotes that a driver did not finish a race, but was classified due to completing more than 90% of the race distance

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