Las Vegas 1981: Jacques Laffite rolls a six, and loses the title!

October 1981. For the third consecutive year, the United States hosts the final round of the world championship. This time, in Las Vegas, Nevada, instead of Watkins Glen, New York.

The track, created for the occasion in the parking lot of the Caesars Palace hotel, is a turnstile where you drive counterclockwise. This particularity, combined with the heat of the desert, means that the endurance of the pilots will be severely tested.

Before this grand final of the 1981 championship, three drivers are in the running for the title of world champion: the Argentinian Carlos Reutemann, at the wheel of a Williams-Ford, has 49 points after winning two races; the Brazilian Nelson Piquet, driving a Brabham-Ford, has 48 after winning three; and the Frenchman Jacques Laffite, at the wheel of a Ligier-Matra, who maintains a small chance with 43 points, after having won two GPs including the previous one in Canada.

To be crowned, “Jacquot” must win while Reutemann finishes no higher than fourth and Piquet no better than third, or else finish second without neither Reutemann nor Piquet finishing in the first six.

Reutemann stunned the competition in qualifying with an impressive time achieved on Friday and signed the sixth pole position of his career. Suffering from his neck and back, Piquet gritted his teeth to climb to fourth place. And Laffite? Complaining of a lack of traction, he was unable to find the right settings and found himself relegated to twelfth place. His chances now appear very slim...

Ligier too zealous

On Sunday, the die was quickly cast in favor of Alan Jones, Reutemann's teammate at Williams, who with 15 laps to go was ahead Alain Prost (Renault) of 40''. Bruno Giacomelli (Alfa Romeo) is third after a spectacular comeback from tenth place at the start and Nigel Mansell (Lotus) who overtook Piquet for fourth place.

On the verge of physical exhaustion, the Brazilian nevertheless retained fifth place and the two points he needed for the championship. Reutemann, who was driving without fourth gear, dropped to eighth place. Laffite takes sixth place and the last point from Watson (McLaren) in the last corner of the last lap. He didn't break the bank.

At Talbot-Ligier-Matra, the atmosphere is not one of celebration after the race. If Laffite had qualified well, there is no doubt that he would have firmly established himself among the top three, or even been able to compete with Jones and thus score the points allowing him to become the first French world champion in history.

“Overall in 1981, we achieved the best results achieved by the team,” the French racing icon explained more than forty years later. F1. I found myself in Las Vegas in a position to compete for the title with the JS17 and the Matra engine with two victories on the clock. Lack of concentration on my part, tactical error and disagreement from the team when changing the tires…

AWith hindsight we can say anything, but at the time we did what we could. It was a great opportunity lost, but what I remember is that we came close to the feat with resources and an organization that were much inferior to the teams we were fighting against.

At Ligier, it was cooler, nicer than with the English, but that doesn't work to be world champion. 1981 was a crappy start to the season that got us into trouble because “Duca” (Gérard Ducarouge, technical director. Editor’s note) did not want double springs which he considered illegal even though all the English had adopted them. We lost three races with this bullshit, and lost the championship by 5 points... »

Michel Beaujon, an engineer who arrived in Vichy (Allier) at the age of 22, pillar of the Ligier adventure in F1, has not forgotten this day when fortune slipped through his fingers. “ Jacques had an exceptional second half of the season, he recalls contacted by AUTOhebdo. Victory in Austria, then in Canada in the rain, quite a few podiums, but we lost the first half-season because Guy (Ligier. Editor’s note) and Gérard (Ducarouge) wanted the car to be faithful to the regulations in every way. That season, to break ground effect, the skirts of the single-seaters had to be at a certain height.

This was not respected by anyone, except us! Equipped with hydraulic or pneumatic systems, the English single-seaters lowered as soon as they entered the track and recovered their ground effect. We ended up doing like everyone else, but too late. We didn't lose the title in Las Vegas during the last round, but at the start of the season! »