1979 United States Grand Prix
Formula 1 returned to the United States for the second time this season after visiting Long Beach earlier this season. The season finale was held at Watkins Glen circuit. As both championships had been decided already, the biggest interest lied in the battle for second places, and further back in the battle out from the pre-qualifying places.
Pre-qualifying
Shadow reigned as they have since unveiling their DN10 chassis.
Regazzoni could give the black cars a little push but the rest were far back. Regazzoni's teammate
Ertl was able to hold back the Ensigns. This meant that Team Ensign would be the only team not to score a single point all season.
Qualifying
The last qualifying session of the season was dominated by teams using Michelin tyres. Top-5 positions were clocked with the French marquee's tyres, Ferrari's
Carlos Reutemann being the fastest of all. Williams' in second and third were keen to bounce back after a double-DNF in Canada.
Renaults were in sixth and eighth and between them a huge surprise!
Niki Lauda showed some of his best pace of the season by putting his Copersucar Fittipaldi in fourth row. Some indication of his speed is that his teammate
Keegan couldn't qualify for the race after being over two seconds slower than the Austrian double world champion. As Lauda, Ligier's
Patrick Tambay was also in great shape. Ninth fastest, he too beat his less experienced teammate (
Takahara, 24th) comfortably. Rounding out the top-10 was Lotus's
Derek Daly.
Next few rows provided quite a few surprises. First off in 11th was Rebaque's
Jochen Mass ahead of
Gaillard and
Regazzoni.
Cheever was a disappointing 14th fastest and behind him one of the biggest disappointments of the day -
Didier Pironi. Almost a second slower than his teammate
Scheckter, the Frenchman would have a hard day tomorrow trying to climb to the points.
The biggest disappointment however was McLaren. The team has struggled for consistency this season and today was one of their worst efforts all season. 18th and 19th in the grid is far from what is expected of the team currently sitting fifth in the constructor's standings.
Brabhams and Arrows' were off pace too but the slowest of all was
Jan Lammers The young Wolf driver has struggled for results badly this season and won't be happy at his performance in the final qualifying either.
Race
Top seven had good starts for the final race and got a small gap to their challengers early on. Reutemann led from
Piquet and Scheckter passed
de Angelis for third.
Arnoux,
Jones and
Villeneuve followed. Behind them it was Daly, Gaillard, Tambay and Lauda battling it out for eight place.
It wasn't long until Scheckter passed the other Williams too and moved up to second place. By lap 10 Jones had overtaken de Angelis and got up to fourth. Daly had retired from eight at his moment after puncturing his tyre, probably in the midst of the fierce battle. There problems for other drivers too as Villeneuve lost a lot of time a few laps later and dropped down to 11th. Biggest loser of the early race was however Jochen Mass who had off track and rejoined in last place.
Around lap 20 the race saw a mass exodus of drivers retiring the race. First
Zorzi's gearbox broke down and soon he was joined by Arnoux with a similar problem. De Angelis,
Ertl and Lauda were the next three to retire and reduce the number of running cars to 20. With 39 laps to go Reutemann was leading comfortably over
Piquet and Scheckter who had already pitted. Jones, Gaillard and Cheever were the other drivers on points.
Lap 24 saw another high profile retirement as Piquet's gearbox couldn't handle it any further. Disastrous day for Williams who would now have to hope that Tyrrells don't score enough points to snatch their second place in the constructor's standings. Scheckter was second now but it would also require Pironi (8th at the moment) to score a chink of points too.
Lap 35 would put end to Tyrrell's hopes of getting that precious second place as Didier Pironi's suspension broke. Some consolation was to come for them as the same reason would end race leader Reutemann's race just a few seconds later, promoting Scheckter to the lead.
The South African held his nerve and most importantly his car held to the finish, marking his fourth win of the season and also the second in a row. Alan Jones couldn't challenge the Tyrrell driver and cruised to finish in second. Eddie Cheever had a great drive to third from 14th in the grid. Gaillard, Villeneuve and Tambay were the other points scorers. Tambay in particular can be very happy after scoring Ligier's first point of the second half of the season. Alfa Romeo's Clay Regazzoni was in contention for some time too but lost to Tambay by three seconds in the end.
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The season has now ended. Team budgets are NOT updated at the moment. More info regarding off-season as well as a season review will follow later.