Formula 1

About the season

The season opened with a scandal at the Brazilian Grand Prix: winner Nelson Piquet and runner-up Keke Rosberg were disqualified after their cars' supposed brake-cooling water tanks turned out to hide extra ballast, drained out before the finish. That disqualification prompted the FOCA teams, including Brabham, McLaren, Williams and Lotus, to boycott the San Marino Grand Prix. At the South African Grand Prix weekend, the drivers, led by Niki Lauda, staged a strike against Jean-Marie Balestre's contested new superlicence terms, barricading themselves inside a hotel conference room. Gilles Villeneuve was fatally injured in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix after colliding with Jochen Mass's March; the Ferrari driver was kept on life support until his wife could reach the hospital. At the start of the Canadian Grand Prix, Riccardo Paletti was killed when he crashed into Didier Pironi's stalled car; weeks later Pironi himself suffered career-ending leg injuries in a qualifying accident at the German Grand Prix. Keke Rosberg won the 1982 Drivers' Championship with 44 points (Williams), 5 points ahead of the runner-up. Ferrari won the Constructors' Championship with 74 points, 5 points ahead of the runner-up. Across 16 completed races this season, there were 226 retirements. 11 different drivers won a race this season. Didier Pironi took the most race wins, 2 in total. Prost won the season-opening race, the South African Grand Prix. The Belgian Grand Prix saw the most retirements of the season, with 19 drivers failing to finish. The season's biggest upset win came from Watson at the Detroit Grand Prix, starting from grid position 17. Surer made the biggest gain of the season at the German Grand Prix, from grid position 26 to finishing 6 (up 20 places). The closest finish of the season came at the Austrian Grand Prix, with a gap of just 0.050 seconds. The most dominant win of the season came at the Caesars Palace Grand Prix, with a margin of 27.3 seconds. Alboreto won the Caesars Palace Grand Prix, the final race of the season.