Written by Australian Motorsport Hall of Fame Chair, John Smailes.
Alan Stanley Jones was Australia’s last connection with a golden era of Formula 1 racing.
His passing, aged 80 and just three days, has robbed the country of an opportunity to see the transfer of the world championship baton from one Australian to another.
It’s a moment Alan had keenly anticipated through the efforts of Mark Webber, Daniel Ricciardo and Oscar Piastri.
But he knew how hard it was to achieve.
AJ had given it a read hot go for seven years before in 1980 he became the first of Williams’ seven world champions.
He won the title doggedly, determinedly, one race at a time. He claimed five races out of 14 in the Williams FW07 Ford-Cosworth with five poles and three fastest laps.
Two grands prix from season’s end, Jones and Nelson Piquet (Brabham) were both in title winning contention. Jones punted Piquet on the first corner, claiming he didn’t see him and that the corner was his.
They had spare cars in those days. On the restart, Jones let Piquet sprint away in his spare. Jones knew it was a qualifying cheater, and it blew after 23 laps. Jones won the title.
Alan was a complex person, volatile like his Australian and New Zealand Grand Prix winning father Stan (and like Stan, an enthusiastic pugilist).
I asked him after the Grand Prix if there’d been tears. “I had to hold them back,” he admitted. “I didn’t want to get out of the car crying like Bob Hawke.” It was 1980.
People called Jones aggressive and intimidating.
He was a lot deeper. Talk to him about the next, last race of the title season when with the pressure off, he blew the field away. “There’s a zone I got into,” he told me. “Your body ceases to exist. You’re driving simply out of your head, and your arms and legs operate automatically.”
He knew how to articulate.
It made him a great commentator and communicator.
He had his regrets.
“I was pig-headed stupid,” he told me. “McLaren asked me to drive at Monaco because Niki [Lauda] had a cold. I didn’t go. Ferrari asked me to sub for Didier Pironi at Monza – finally a Ferrari drive. I refused just to spite them.”
After F1, he forged an Australia career. He came second in the 1993 Australian Touring Car Championship, won the 1982 Australian GT Championship in Allan Hamilton’s Porsche 935, and raced for Colin Bond’s Alfa Romeo team.
“He was extraordinary,” Bond said. “I’d look at him and think ‘how do you do that?’. I could measure the difference between us in tenths, maybe hundredths of a second, but it was enough to show me why he was world champion.”
He returned to Formula 1 briefly, and unsuccessfully, in 1985 in the star-crossed Beatrice Haas. But at least he got to inaugurate the world championship Australian F1 Grand Prix in Adelaide.
I last spoke to AJ about two months before his death. Fans had contacted the Australian Motorsport Hall of Fame seeking autographs. When I passed the messages on, he was a bit down – not his usual ‘up’ self but hugely proud of the accomplishments of his twins Jack and Zara.
“Mate, it’s only a number,” I counselled him on his upcoming 80th birthday. Thinking that was the problem.
He promised to lift his game. He received his diagnosis just a matter of two weeks later.
Alan Jones MBE, along with Sir Jack Brabham before him, is etched in the ethos of Australian motorsport.
With the transition to our next golden Formula 1 era – hopefully not too far off – there will never be another like him.