Formula 1

About the season

The first Concorde Agreement was signed barely ten days before the season opener, finally ending the open warfare between FISA and FOCA and allowing the championship to go ahead at all. In February, the FOCA teams staged their own non-championship race in South Africa, won by Carlos Reutemann, which was later stripped of any bearing on the title fight. The McLaren MP4/1 debuted at the Argentine Grand Prix as Formula 1's first car with a monocoque built entirely from carbon-fibre composite, reshaping how chassis safety was approached. Colin Chapman's answer to the skirt restrictions was the twin-chassis Lotus 88, a design so contentious that rival teams got it banned before it ever started a race. Nelson Piquet clinched the title with a fifth-place finish at the season-ending Las Vegas Grand Prix, then collapsed from heat exhaustion after climbing from the car, having been sick inside his helmet during the race. Nelson Piquet won the 1981 Drivers' Championship with 50 points (Brabham), 1 point ahead of the runner-up. Williams won the Constructors' Championship with 95 points, 34 points ahead of the runner-up. Across 15 completed races this season, there were 190 retirements. 7 different drivers won a race this season. Nelson Piquet took the most race wins, 3 in total. Jones won the season-opening race, the United States Grand Prix West. The United States Grand Prix West saw the most retirements of the season, with 16 drivers failing to finish. The closest finish of the season came at the Spanish Grand Prix, with a gap of just 0.220 seconds. The most dominant win of the season came at the British Grand Prix, with a margin of 40.6 seconds. Cheever made the biggest gain of the season at the British Grand Prix, from grid position 23 to finishing 4 (up 19 places). The season's biggest upset win came from Laffite at the Canadian Grand Prix, starting from grid position 10. Jones won the Caesars Palace Grand Prix, the final race of the season.