Alan Jones, the Australian driver who won the 1980 Formula 1 World Championship with Williams, died on Nov. 5, three days after his 80th birthday, SportoweFakty reported. His wife, Amanda Butler-Davis, announced the death in a statement, saying Jones “passed away on 5 November after a short illness.”
Jones was born Nov. 2, 1946, in Melbourne, where his father, Stan Jones, was also a racing driver. Alan won the Australian Grand Prix in 1959 and moved to Europe in the late 1960s to pursue a career, but without money to start racing abroad he returned home. He relocated to London in 1970 and three years later landed a funded seat with the GRD team in Formula 3, winning at Silverstone and finishing second in the British F3 championship that season.
From Hesketh Debut to First Grand Prix Win
Jones made his Formula 1 debut in 1975 with the Hesketh team at the Spanish Grand Prix, a race remembered for a crash that killed five spectators. When Hesketh folded before the end of the season, he joined Graham Hill’s team, whose best result was Jones’s fifth place at the Nürburgring. An unsuccessful 1976 season with Surtees put his F1 future in doubt until the death of Tom Pryce at the South African Grand Prix in 1977 opened a seat at Shadow. Jones won his first Grand Prix in Austria that year.
Ferrari then offered him a contract but withdrew it and signed Gilles Villeneuve instead, sending Jones to Williams. There he found his peak.
The 1980 Championship Season with Williams
In 1980, Jones won five races — in Argentina, France, Great Britain, Canada and the United States — to claim the World Drivers’ Championship. He became only the second Australian to win the title, after Sir Jack Brabham. He retired from F1 for the first time after the 1981 season, winning the final race at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and made occasional comebacks before his last Grand Prix in 1986.
Television Career and Family
After racing, Jones competed internationally for years and moved into broadcasting, serving as a Formula 1 commentator for Australia’s Channel Nine from 1987 to 2002 and later for Network 10 when it carried the series. Butler-Davis said Jones would be remembered by his family and the many fans whose support he always appreciated, adding that he “devoted his life to motorsport, building a legacy that will endure through the countless people he influenced.” Jones is survived by his wife and six children: Christian, Amber, Zara, Jack, Camille and Emma.
Why Jones Mattered to Australian Motorsport
Jones’s 1980 title remains a landmark in Australian sport: he is still the only Australian driver other than Brabham to win the Formula 1 world championship. His win at the Austrian Grand Prix with Shadow had been his first in F1, and his 1981 Caesars Palace victory closed his first retirement on a high note.
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