Alan Jones, Williams' First World Champion, Dies at 80
The Australian won the 1980 Formula 1 title and gave Williams its first drivers' championship.
Alan Jones, the Australian who won the 1980 Formula 1 world championship and gave the Williams team its first drivers' title, has died at the age of 80, BBC Sport, Sky Sports and The Guardian reported this week.
His wife, Amanda Butler-Davis, confirmed the news in a statement released through Motorsport Australia, saying he would be "fondly remembered by those closest to him."
The 1980 title
Jones started 116 Grands Prix between 1975 and 1986 and won 12 of them. His best season came in 1980. Driving the Williams FW07B, he won five races and beat Nelson Piquet to the championship.
The title transformed Williams. Before Jones arrived, the team founded by Frank Williams and Patrick Head was a small outfit. His championship was the first of many for the team, and the drivers who later won titles there, including Nelson Piquet, Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost, followed the path he opened.
Jones was only the second Australian to become Formula 1 world champion, after Jack Brabham, and no Australian has won the title since.
A career beyond Williams
Before Williams, Jones raced for smaller teams, including Hesketh and Shadow, and won his first Grand Prix with Shadow in Austria in 1977.
He first retired from Formula 1 at the end of 1981, soon after his 35th birthday, before making brief comebacks in the following years. He later raced touring cars in Australia and became a well-known television commentator, admired for his direct, outspoken style.
Frank Williams often described Jones as a tough, uncompromising racer, the kind of driver the team was built around in its early years.
Tributes from across the motorsport world are expected in the coming days.
