1983 Formula One World Championship


The 1983 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 37th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 1983 Formula One World Championship for Drivers and the 1983 Formula One World Championship for Manufacturers, which were contested concurrently over a fifteen-race series that commenced on 13 March and ended on 15 October.
Nelson Piquet, driving for Brabham, won the Drivers' Championship, for the second time. Renault driver Alain Prost led the championship from the Belgian Grand Prix in May until the final race in South Africa, where he retired and enabled the Brazilian to snatch the title. It was the first title by a driver using a turbocharged engine and the last title by a Brabham driver. Piquet won the title despite his team only finishing third in the World Constructors Championship; he would be the last Drivers' Champion for a constructor that was placed third or lower until 2024.
Ferrari won the Constructors' Championship, despite neither of its drivers finishing in the top two positions of the Drivers' Championship with the Maranello team's highest placing driver, René Arnoux, finishing only third in the drivers' standings overall – a unique feat in Formula One history.
The season also included a non-championship Formula One race for the last time: the Race of Champions, held at Brands Hatch early April and won by defending World Champion Keke Rosberg. Brands Hatch would also host a championship round later that year under the European Grand Prix title, the first time that race title had been used as an official race title for a standalone championship event rather than being used as an honorary designation for pre-existing national Grands Prix as had been the case in previous seasons.

Drivers and constructors

exited as a tyre supplier after two seasons.
The following drivers and constructors contested the 1983 FIA Formula One World Championship.
EntrantConstructorChassisEngineTyresNoDriverRounds
Goodyear

Team changes

  • Lotus would be without team founder Colin Chapman after the legendary team boss's sudden death from a heart attack on 16 December 1982 at the age of 54. Chapman's right-hand man Peter Warr took over as team manager.
  • Fittipaldi closed its doors due to insufficient funds.
  • Ensign was merged into the existing Theodore team.
  • March Engineering had been building cars for RAM Racing from. From 1983 on, the chassis was labeled RAM and the March name was only seen in the official entry list.
  • ATS switched from Ford-Cosworth V8s in 1982 to BMW 1.5 litre turbo engines for this season. Likewise, Alfa Romeo traded their V12 engine for freshly developed V8 turbos called the 890T.
  • Ligier lost their Talbot sponsorship and, with that, the use of the Matra V12s. They managed to buy a supply of Cosworth V8 engines.

    Mid-season changes

  • There was a clear trend of manufacturers switching from naturally aspirated engines to turbocharged engines, attracted by their power output. Most teams were careful in their approach, running the old and new cars simultaneously, before finally stepping over to turbo.
  • * After the opening race in Brazil, Lotus switched Elio de Angelis from the Ford-Cosworth V8 powered car to the Renault V6 turbo, the same as used by the factory Renault team. Nigel Mansell continued with the Cosworth powered car until the British Grand Prix.
  • * At the Dutch Grand Prix, McLaren went from Cosworth V8s to the Porsche built V6 TAG turbo engine for Niki Lauda while John Watson had to wait until the next race in Italy before he also got turbo power. The engine was labelled as the TAG turbo after sponsor Techniques d'Avant Garde.
  • * At the final round of the season in South Africa, Williams also made the switch from Cosworth V8s to Honda V6 turbos. Williams got exclusive use of the Honda engines at the expense of the Spirit team.
  • Osella, too, stopped using Cosworth V8s, but then went a different way from their rivals: they bought one-year-old Alfa Romeo V12 engines.
  • Spirit Racing debuted in Formula One with factory backing from Honda. They entered the 1982 European Formula Two Championship with Marlboro sponsorship and were immediately successful. Before the end of the year, they had developed a F1-ready chassis powered by a Honda turbo engine and begin a testing programme. The team's first championship race was the British Grand Prix with Swede Stefan Johansson at the wheel. The team lost their Honda engines to Williams before the final race of the season.

    Driver changes

  • After four years with Renault, René Arnoux was attracted by Manufacturers' Champion Ferrari, as teammate to Patrick Tambay. Renault then signed Eddie Cheever from Ligier.
  • Meanwhile, the other Ligier driver, Jacques Laffite, had moved to Williams. So the French team had to find a new driver pair: Jean-Pierre Jarier from Osella and Raul Boesel from March.
  • Another eight driver changes happened in the lower-ranking teams.

    Mid-season changes

  • During the season, RAM put four different drivers in their car.
  • Alan Jones came out of retirement for a one-time drive with Arrows instead of their driver Chico Serra. The Brazilian was definitely replaced when sportscar driver Thierry Boutsen paid to make his F1 debut at his home race and was allowed to finish the season.
  • After one enthusiastic attempt in with Shadow, Stefan Johansson made his racing debut with Spirit, having driven for the team in Formula Two.
  • As a 'thank you' from Williams's team leaders, Jonathan Palmer made his F1 debut in a third Williams car during his home race at Brands Hatch.

    Calendar

Calendar changes

Although the provisional calendar showed 18 Grands Prix, 15 were confirmed, one less than the year before.
The last ever non-championship Formula One race was held in 1983 with the Race of Champions held at Brands Hatch on 10 April between the United States Grand Prix West at Long Beach and the French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard.

Provisional calendar

  • Organisers had been trying to let the Argentine Grand Prix return since. The race was scheduled for 30 January, but was later cancelled.
  • Plans were made to host the Grand Prix of the Soviet Union in Moscow on 21 August, but these plans fell through due to bureaucratic barriers.
  • A Grand Prix in New York City, to be held on a temporary circuit at Flushing Meadows in Queens, was scheduled for 25 September, but after certain problems, the event was cancelled and replaced by the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch which had hosted the non-championship Race of Champions earlier in the year.

    Regulation changes

  • A major change in technical regulations mandated a flat undertray for the cars, with a complete ban on the ground effect technology pioneered by the Lotus 78 in. This was done to reduce downforce and cornering speeds, which were deemed to have reached dangerous levels in, a season in which several violent and fatal accidents occurred.
  • Four-wheel drive was banned, as well as cars with more than four wheels.
  • The minimum weight was set at.
  • The red light at the back of the car should have a power of at least 21W.

    Season report

Early season

Race 1: Brazil

Six weeks before the start of what was supposed to be Round 2 in Brazil, FISA had banned ground effects and the sliding skirts while also mandating that all cars had to have flat bottoms. As a result, the organizers agreed to move the South African Grand Prix at Kyalami from the first race of the season to the last race in order to give the teams time to get their cars ready for the new regulations. So, the season began in Brazil at the Jacarepagua Riocentro Autodrome in Rio de Janeiro. Defending World Champion Keke Rosberg took pole position. Rosberg took the lead from the start and held it for six laps, but lost the lead to Nelson Piquet on lap 7, his Williams not being able to hold out the much more powerful Brabham BMW turbo on the long back straight. Rosberg's car then caught fire during his pitstop for fuel and tyres. With the fire extinguished, he fought back from ninth to finish second behind Piquet, but was subsequently disqualified for receiving a push start in the pits. This left an unprecedented situation, as the organisers decided not to award second to Niki Lauda, who finished third, but to leave the position vacant. As such, only five drivers scored points, and other than Piquet and Lauda, these were Rosberg's teammate Jacques Laffite, whose presence in fourth was a surprise given his 18th place grid slot. Ferrari had a difficult race and had a best finish of only fifth with Patrick Tambay, who had started third. The final point went to Marc Surer, who had qualified 20th but moved up to 14th by the end of the first lap. Renault had a tough day in Rio. Still racing an updated version of their / car until the new car would appear in Long Beach for Alain Prost, who started on the front row in Rio but could not sustain pace and finished a lap down in seventh while new teammate Eddie Cheever started in eighth place in his first factory drive but retired from the race on lap 42 with brake failure.