1981 Formula One season

The 1981 Formula One season was the 32nd season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 1981 FIA Formula One World Championship which was contested over a fifteen race series that commenced on 15 March and ended on 17 October. Formula One cars also contested the 1981 South African Grand Prix, although this was technically a Formula Libre race and was not part of the Formula One World Championship.

The 1981 championship was the inaugural FIA Formula One World Championship, replacing the former World Championship for Drivers.Nelson Piquet won the Drivers' Championship, claiming the first of his three Formula One titles and Williams won the Constructors' Championship.

The following teams and drivers contested the 1981 FIA Formula One World Championship:

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The 1981 Formula One season was an extraordinary season of Grand Prix racing for many reasons: it was effectively the first season that Briton and Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone and FOCA had the Concorde Agreement in place, which would set Formula One on a course to become a profitable business, thanks to the growing professional involvement of outside companies and professional sponsorship.

The South African Grand Prix held on February 7 (an event which was a consistent mainstay on the Formula One calendar) at the Kyalami Circuit near Johannesburg, was originally supposed to be the first round of the 1981 Formula One championship – but it was eventually stripped of its championship status. The ongoing FISA–FOCA war resulted in Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA) insisting on a date change which was not acceptable to the race organisers. Approval was ultimately given for the race to go ahead on its original date but as a Formula Libre race rather than as a round of the Formula One World Championship. The downgraded race was supported by the Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA) aligned teams but not by the teams of the manufacturers, whose allegiances lay with FISA. This race was run with the cars running in 1980-specification trim, with the ground-effect wing cars of the time, equipped with sliding skirts that increased their downforce by ensuring the air under the car did not escape from under the car, where the most important airflow was. This race, run in wet conditions, was won by the Argentine driver Carlos Reutemann in a Williams-Ford/Cosworth.

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