1982 Formula One World Championship

The 1982 Formula One World Championship was the 36th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. The season featured sixteen rounds between 23 January and 25 September. The Drivers’ Championship was won by Keke Rosberg and the Constructors’ Championship by Scuderia Ferrari. There was a run of nine different winners in nine consecutive races from the Monaco Grand Prix to the Swiss Grand Prix.

About 1982 Formula One World Championship in brief

Summary 1982 Formula One World ChampionshipThe 1982 Formula One World Championship was the 36th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. The season featured sixteen rounds between 23 January and 25 September. The Drivers’ Championship was won by Keke Rosberg and the Constructors’ Championship by Scuderia Ferrari. The Championship started with a drivers’ strike at the season opener in South Africa and saw a partial-race boycott as part of the ongoing FISA–FOCA war. Two drivers died during 1982: Gilles Villeneuve during qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix and Riccardo Paletti at the start of the Canadian Grand Prix. The off season saw rumours of several former champions returning to the sport, but in the end only double World Champion Niki Lauda returned to Formula One after an absence of two years to partner John Watson at McLaren. All teams and constructors who had competed in 1981 returned for the new season. Brabham had entered an engine supply deal with German car manufacturer BMW for the use of their inline-four turbo engines. The team announced in January that they were committing to the new BMW engine throughout the season, but after experiencing reliability problems with it, they reverted to the Cosworth DFV motor several times during the season. There was a run of nine different winners in nine consecutive races from the Monaco Grand Prix to the Swiss Grand Prix – Alain Prost, René Arnoux, Riccardo Patrese, Marc Surer, Derek Daly, Nigel Mansell, Roberto Moreno, Eliseo Salazar and Niki Salazar.

At Team Lotus, Nigel Mansell missed two races due to a comeback at the French Grand Prix, but was replaced by Roberto Moreno. At Lotus, Mansell failed to qualify at the Dutch Grand Prix but was again replaced by Mansell at the German Grand Prix after a crash at Brands Hatch. At Arrows, Marc Surer was hired by Arrows, but broke both his feet in pre-season testing at Kyalami. He was set to be replaced by Patrick Tambay, who was then fired after taking part in the drivers’ strikes at that race and the seat went to Henton. At Williams, 1978 World Champion Mario Andretti was hired as a one-off replacement for the United States Grand Prix then became the permanent second driver for the last two races of the season with Derek Daly. At Ferrari, the team retained their race-winning line-ups of GillesVilleneuve and Didier Pironi and Alainprost and René Arnaoux, respectively. At McLaren, defending World Champion Nelson Piquet remained with the team, and was partnered by Ric Cardo Patrise, who moved from Arrows to replace Héctor Rebaque. The Osella team gave Ric Cardi his Grand Prix debut, while Toleman replaced Brian Henton with Teo Fabi, also a newcomer toFormula One. At the end of the 1981 season, both Williams drivers, 1980 World Champion Alan Jones and Carlos Reutemann, had announced their retirement from racing. Reutamann did in fact return for 1982, competing in the first two races, before retiring unexpectedly at end of March.