1980 Season

The 1980 Formula One season is the 34th running of the FIA Formula One World Championship, contested over fifteen scheduled rounds from Argentina in January to the United States in October. Jody Scheckter and Ferrari enter as defending champions in both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ titles.

Driver changes

Williams adds Carlos Reutemann, who finished third in the championship in both 1975 and 1978, after a difficult 1979 season with Lotus. Clay Regazzoni has moved from Williams to Ensign Racing — the team he drove for in 1977 — with Marc Surer departing Ensign to join ATS. ATS also signs Jan Lammers, who comes from the slowly dissipating Shadow team. Elio de Angelis fills the Lotus seat vacated by Reutemann.

Shadow enters 1980 with two new drivers: David Kennedy, runner-up in the 1979 British Formula One Championship, and Stefan Johansson, who is still competing in British Formula 3. Jacky Ickx has retired after 1979, his Ligier seat taken by Didier Pironi.

McLaren sign Alain Prost — the 1979 European Formula 3 champion — for his Formula One debut, replacing Patrick Tambay, who has moved to the Can-Am series with Haas Lola. Fittipaldi sign Keke Rosberg after purchasing the remains of the Wolf team at the end of last season. Patrick Depailler joins Alfa Romeo while still recovering from a hang gliding accident, taking Vittorio Brambilla’s seat.

New Italian constructor Osella makes its Formula One debut, having come close to the 1979 European Formula Two Championship with Eddie Cheever, who joins them having previously raced for Theodore and Hesketh in 1978. The operations of Arturo Merzario and Héctor Rebaque, both of whom built and raced their own chassis in 1979, have closed.

Calendar

The season comprises fifteen planned rounds after three originally scheduled Grands Prix were cancelled before the season began: the Mexican Grand Prix (the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez was not renovated in time), the Swedish Grand Prix (cancelled in November 1979 after financial support was not secured, with enthusiasm for Formula One in Sweden having fallen sharply following the deaths of Ronnie Peterson and Gunnar Nilsson), and the Caesars Palace Grand Prix in Las Vegas.

The Brazilian Grand Prix returns to Interlagos in São Paulo after the planned return to Jacarepaguá in Rio de Janeiro was abandoned when sections of the circuit’s tarmac were found to be sinking into soft swampland. The French Grand Prix moves from Dijon-Prenois to Circuit Paul Ricard, continuing a shared-hosting arrangement between the two venues. The British Grand Prix moves from Silverstone to Brands Hatch. The Italian Grand Prix leaves Monza — which is undergoing major upgrades including a new pit building — for the Autodromo Dino Ferrari near Imola, the first time since 1948 the Italian GP will not be held at Monza.

Regulation changes

Points continue to be awarded to the top six finishers on the 9-6-4-3-2-1 system. Under a split-season format, only the best five results from rounds 1–7 and the best five results from rounds 8–14 count toward each driver’s championship total. All rounds count toward the Constructors’ Cup.