1980 Classic GP Manager

[Milos]

euhm

1980 South African Grand Prix

Formula 1 circus returns to the high altitudes of Kyalami as the teams ship their gear across the Atlantic ocean to South Africa. Turbo engines are again expected to have power advantage over normally-aspirated Cosworths, Alfas and Matras. One team will also unveil their new car here as Ligier has completed work on a brand-new FRA-01 chassis.

Pre-qualifying
Jacky Ickx is quickly gaining himself a reputation as a pre-qualifying specialist by clocking the fastest time of Friday morning once again. Jabouille was second in his Ensign but it just wasn't enough as his teammate Bobby Rahal was almost a second slower, meaning Ensign was only the third best team. This meant that Wolf would advance from pre-qualifying for the first time this season following Hunt and Zunino's decent drives. Osella and ATS were well off the pace and there looks to be little to no hope for the newcomers at the moment.

View attachment 102111

Qualifying
Renault was expected to do well here but after the qualifying sessions had concluded the expectations proved to be false. Villeneuve in 11th and Arnoux in 13th was largely disappointing result for the team. Much happier faces were seen in Ferrari pits as Carlos Reutemann took his second pole position of the season after narrowly beating Williams driver Elio de Angelis. McLaren's rookie driver Nigel Mansell continued his good efforts in third.

Battle for fourth in the grid was extremely tight as the next four drivers (Jones, Rosberg, Mass and Piquet) were all within one tenth of a second. Patrick Tambay showed promise of the new Ligier FRA-01 in 8th ahead of Laffite and Pironi who got Tyrrell their best qualifying result of the season in 10th. is teammate Scheckter was far down the order in 19th. Word out for Lotus too who got a clear boost following the manager change. Cheever's 12th place was very good considering their poor pace in the first two races.

View attachment 102112

Race
Reutemann took the lead in the start. De Angelis retained second and Jones got past Mansell to third. Rosberg and Piquet followed. In sixth was Jacques Laffite who got a great start but the best of all was Wolf's James Hunt who made up a staggering 11 places on the first lap on his way to 15th. Fittipaldis had everything but like Hunt's start as they dropped to the back in the start.

Lap 3 saw the first retirement as Jacky Ickx and Clay Regazzoni made contact, forcing the Alfa Romeo driver to retire. Ickx limped back to pits for repairs and was able to continue a lap down. Next few laps meant the end for two high-profile drivers as de Angelis' Cosworth and Villeneuve's Renault exploded. Bitter blow especially for de Angelis who was comfortably in second.

On lap 15 of 78 the running order was Reutemann, Mansell, Jones, Laffite, Piquet and Daly who had come from out of nowhere in to the points! Talk about a boost by the new manager! Rosberg and Binder were heading the chasing pack behind them.

Mansell crashed out on lap 22 promoting Jones to second which meant Ferrari had a 1-2 lead. Laffite was up to 3rd and Binder to 5th - Arrows was having a great race, until... A disaster struck on lap 34 for Laffite. His gearbox failed under downshifting for the first corner and a few laps later Binder suffered a similar faith meaning Arrows' promising race was ruined for good. These and other events had suddenly promoted Tyrrell's Didier Pironi to third but Mass, Piquet and Daly weren't far away.

Pironi's pace was enough in the end as he grabbed the team their first points of the season behind Ferrari 1-2. Reutemann lead from start to finish and the Maranello outfit never looked like giving up their lead, lapping the entire field on the process. Derek Daly got Lotus a formidable fourth after making wonderful overtakes on Mass and Piquet, who finished fifth. Jody Scheckter had a quiet race today but capped it off with a solid sixth place finish.

View attachment 102110

- - - - -

The development market for the fourth race is NOT yet open! I will update the budgets later today/tomorrow.

e. Also @Tim Engberink has been added to waiting list. If no team loses their managers before the start of next season, you will have a chance to pick one of the three teams joining the series.

 

[Deleted member 161052]

euhm

I meant the one on the first page.

 

[TTupsi]

Don't forget the results

Oh right
Knew I forgot something but can't do it until Monday.

 

[Donaldinho105]

No money = No improvements = No races for me this season

 

[Andy 'Mars Bar' Graham]

No money = No improvements = No races for me this season

You'll stand more chance when Brabham get kicked out of prequalifying as their too OP for us

 

[TTupsi]

1980 United States Grand Prix West

Back to the Americas, this time to California, US, and the sunny streets of Long Beach. Jody Scheckter was the winner here last year butso far this season Tyrrell has been far from challenging the podium places - how will they perform now? Alan Jones is the championship leader following his win and two second place finishes in three races. A good result here would put him in a prime position to lead the champinship in the mid-season cut-off.

For the third race in a row there was an unveiling of a new car. Wolf Racing had finally completed the work on their WR8 chassis and the drivers James Hunt and Ricardo Zunino were fired to give the car its first laps in Friday morning pre-qualifying.

Pre-qualifying
And what speed did they have! Hunt and Zunino were comfortably the two fastest drivers, over half a second faster than the Brabham duo. The increased performance of the Wolf team, among with the superior form of Brabham will make life tough for the other three teams taking part. Ensign, ATS and Osella tried their best but were never truly challenging the top two teams. The three are certainly hoping for the mid-season cut-off to come as soon as possible.

Qualifying
Ferrari continued their pole streak as Alan Jones just narrowly beat Williams' Elio de Angelis. Winner of the previous race in Kyalami, Carlos Reutemann, wasn't far away either and would start behind his teammate in third. Alongside him in the grid would be Shadow's French prospect Alain Prost who returned to his top form after a poor showing in South Africa. Piquet and Mansell would start from row three and in row four were former World champion Niki Lauda and Scheckter whose eight fastest time was his best qualifying effort of the season. Rosberg and Laffite rounded up the top-10.

Some remarks about the rest of the grid were Wolf's decent pace (18th & 21st) as well as Alfa Romeos' who were sandwiched between the other Alfa engines using cars. Patrick Depailler in 23rd was a huge disappointment of the session, but the biggest of all was undoubtly Lotus' Eddie Cheever who got disqualified from the race! The American youngster in his home grand prix was 27th fastest, 0,150 seconds off Brabham's Jacky Ickx.

Race
80 laps on a street circuit, though not the narrowest of all, suggested that the race could well be one with high attrition. All of the top guys got good starts as Jones shot into the lead, de Angelis eagerly looking for opportunity to overtake. Prost managed to pass Reutemann and was up to third. Scheckter got a great start too and was up to fifth. His teammate's race didn't start quite as well - Pironi went wide in the first corner and hit the wall. Tambay followed him a second or two later and the two Frenchmen were out of the race.

Unfortunately, this wasn't the end of first lap drama however. Coming into turn 4, Carlos Reutemann lost control of his Ferrari and smashed the wall. Piquet and Mansell had neither room nor time to do anything and they crashed to Reutemann's car. Lauda, Rosberg, Hunt and five others followed and hit the cars lying around the circuit. Somehow a somewhat clear racing line remained and the race was able to continue without red flagging following the 11 car pile-up.

The huge crash meant that only 13 cars were left in the race after just one lap. Jones lead from de Angelis, Prost, Scheckter and Laffite who all got by the carnage without problems. Jarier and Binder had been held up a little and were someway off in 6th and 7th. Patrese, Arnoux, Villeneuve, Zunino and the Alfa Romeos were the other cars still in the game, a few seconds down on Binder.

Jones, whose last season was somewhat difficult despite finishing second in the standings, has been the driver to beat so far this season. It was no different in Long Beach either as after just 10 laps his gap over de Angelis was already over six seconds. Elio though was in the middle of four-way battle with Prost, Scheckter and Laffite. Binder in the second Arrows was doing well too as he had passed Jarier for 6th.

Overtaking on street circuits is difficult and thus most of the position changes were due to retirements. Villeneuve was out on lap 17, Zunino crashed on lap 28 and Prost's gearbox failed on lap 35. In the halfway point of the race the top four had stayed the same but Patrese had got up to fifth and Arnoux to sixth. Both of them would however drop out of the points as Partrese had to pit for repairs on lap 64 after a technical problem and Arnoux's speed just wasn't enough in the latter part of the race.

Alan Jones' second win of the season means that he has now collected 30 of the possible 36 available. Because only the four best results from the first seven races are counted, he now has to win races in order to add to his points tally before the mid-season cut-off. Can anyone challenge him in the title race?

De Angelis was second and gave Williams their first podium finish of the season. Jody Scheckter had by far his best effort of the season and finished third. Arrows drivers Laffite and Binder were fourth and fifth respectively for the delight of their team manager. Last point of the race went to Alfa Romeo's Clay Regazzoni - a point that could prove very useful come the pre-qualifying cut-off.

- - - - -

The development market for the fourth race is open! You have until Monday 08:00 EEST to make/modify your investments.

 

[Jimlaad43]

One of these days both drivers will finish...

 

[Tim.E]

Wow I'm so happy I'm not stuck with a team that has to go through pre quali (yet)

 

[Andy 'Mars Bar' Graham]

New chassis is good. I'm hoping for a point soon so I can get out of prequalifying.

Currently, Brabham and Ensign will be replaced by Ligier and Rebaque

 

[Aidan Keranen]

Pah, stupid Ferrari drivers

 

[Joel]

I don't like the look of that Williams

 

[kedy89]

Not too happy about Didier's early retirement, but the podium gives hope that we might even snatch a win later on.

 

[Milos]

good, we worked hard in the factory to increase the reliability of our cars and it seems to have finally paid off. Finally some good points!
Well done boys! Well done to the team too! Enjoy that result!

 

[the_sigman]

That's why I got two top-class drivers

 

[TTupsi]

That's why I got two top-class drivers

Blame Reutemann whocauses the pileup

 

[Joel]

Reutemann

Nohomo

 

[Deleted member 161052]

Worse than GPTCC S5 Singapore!

 

[Andy 'Mars Bar' Graham]

Well Zunino missed out on the pile up so he decide to crash later on

 

[Omer Said]

Another bad race for Shadow! Last year we had a worse car, but a better luck. Anyway, i still believe in Alain's talent.

 

[Donaldinho105]

No comment. (dot)