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For the joy of driving

29. Mar 2024 
by Ziv Knoll
2550 views

Jacques Laffite, so much attached to the Ligier team, had not enjoyed its decline and had tried to relaunch his career by signing in 1983 for Williams, the team of his F1 debut. The British team, still bathing in Keke Rosberg’s 1982 success, continued with the modest V8 Ford-Cosworth and was not able to compete against the ones using turbo-charged engines. Only Rosberg, with a fantastic drive at Monaco, succeeded to shine.

Picture-above: Jacques Laffite masters his Williams FW09B Honda in pouring rain on the new Nürburgring, at the 1984 European Formula One Grand Prix.

In 1984, Frank Williams finally succeeded to obtain a turbo engine for his team from new partner Honda. Nevertheless, reliability was a big problem and it took the engineers a full year to make the package function correctly. Once more, Rosberg succeeded to win, in the heat of Dallas, while Laffite had an even more disappointing season than the year before. With five points only, he finished fourteenth in the championship and was replaced by the promising Nigel Mansell.

After two difficult seasons with Williams, Laffite already 41, was tempted by retirement. However, he decided to return to his old friend Guy Ligier in 1985, justifying his decision by his joy of driving, still very much present (picture below taken at Zandvoort in 1984).

 

Source: DR

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