1979 Formula One season
 SOUTH AFRICAN GRAND PRIX, 1979. AP Archive - British Movietone News footage. |
The 1979 Formula One season was the 30th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 1979 World Championship of F1 Drivers and the 1979 International Cup for F1 Constructors which were contested concurrently over a fifteen-round series which commenced on 21 January 1979, and ended on 7 October. The season also included three non-championship Formula One races. Jody Scheckter of Scuderia Ferrari won the 1979 World Championship of F1 Drivers while Scuderia Ferrari won 1979 International Cup for F1 Constructors. Gilles Villeneuve made it a 1-2 for Ferrari in the championship, concluding a successful second half of the 1970s for Ferrari (three drivers' and four constructors' titles). Alan Jones finished the season strongly for Williams, finishing third in the championship and with teammate Clay Regazzoni scoring Williams' first ever Grand Prix win as a constructor. Scheckter's title was Ferrari's last drivers' title for 21 years, before Michael Schumacher won five consecutive titles for the team between 2000 and 2004.
The following drivers and constructors contested the 1979 World Championship of F1 Drivers and the 1979 International Cup for F1 Constructors.
Several high-profile changes happened among the leading teams for this season, as the death of Swedish driver Ronnie Peterson the previous October precipitated a merry-go-round of some of the most highly regarded drivers on the grid.
The dominant Lotus team signed Carlos Reutemann from Ferrari to replace Peterson. Ferrari took on Jody Scheckter to fill the gap, and the Wolf team hired James Hunt in his place. McLaren replaced Hunt with fellow British contender John Watson, whose place at Brabham was taken by the highly regarded but inexperienced Nelson Piquet, who had competed at the last race of the previous season in Canada.
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