1982 Formula One Season - Pre-season

Pre-season

Drivers

The off season saw rumours of several former champions returning to the sport, but in the end only double world champion Niki Lauda returned to Formula One after an absence of two years to partner John Watson at McLaren. The 1981 drivers' champion Nelson Piquet remained at Brabham, partnered by Riccardo Patrese. The Williams team kept Carlos Reutemann, but their 1980 champion Alan Jones retired and was replaced by Finn Keke Rosberg, who had failed to score a single point the previous year with Fittipaldi Automotive. Ferrari and Renault retained their race-winning line ups of Villeneuve and Didier Pironi and Alain Prost and René Arnoux, respectively.

Technology

The two main technological themes of the 1982 season were turbocharging and ground effect. The large automotive manufacturers could afford to develop the expensive new technology of turbocharging, which offered a significant power advantage over naturally aspirated engines. However, turbocharged engines were heavy and initially suffered from turbo lag, a delay between the operation of the throttle and the delivery of power. The Renault and Ferrari factory teams, together with the small privateer Toleman team, were the only ones to use turbocharged engines throughout the 1982 season. The other two manufacturer teams used V12 atmospheric engines, which all other things being equal are more powerful than a V8 engine of the same capacity. Alfa Romeo were developing their own turbo engine, but for 1982 they retained what motorsport writer Doug Nye has called the most powerful 3-litre F1 engine seen at that time, with 548 bhp. The French Talbot-Ligier team used Matra's less powerful V12 engine. Brabham also had a foot in the turbo camp, as they had been developing a car powered by a BMW turbocharged engine since the previous year, but at the start of the year mainly relied on their older car powered by the naturally aspirated Cosworth DFV engine.

Britain's specialist race car manufacturers had been following a different technical route, using the less powerful but compact, reliable and widely available Cosworth and focussing on the effectiveness of the chassis. The Lotus team had introduced aerodynamic ground effect in 1978, and rapid progress had been made by others like Williams, McLaren and Brabham in exploiting it more and more effectively. The DFV, and the introduction by McLaren and Lotus of cars built largely from carbon-fibre composites, allowed the teams to create very light cars. Several of the DFV teams felt that the turbo cars had an "unfair" advantage and sought a further weight reduction to equalise performance. The Formula One regulations stated that the weight of the cars must be at least 580 kg including lubricants and coolants. Working within the letter of the regulations, some teams fitted their cars with large water tanks, ostensibly for "water-cooled brakes". In practice, the water was dumped early in the race, allowing the cars to race as much as 50 kg underweight. The regulations stated that the water could be topped up again at the end of the race, before the weight was checked.

For the 1982 season, the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA), motorsport's world governing body, abandoned the previous year's minimum ride height rule. However, the rules requiring that the skirts around the edge of the car be fixed and rigid remained, and the cars kept their almost immovable suspension to allow the skirts to consistently seal the low pressure area under the cars. The cars depended entirely on their aerodynamic downforce and were extremely unpleasant to drive—1978 world champion Mario Andretti cited them as one of the reasons he left F1 at the end of 1981—and caused several of the drivers medical problems.

Sporting Regulations

The new rules for the season included an increase in the number of cars permitted to enter a Grand Prix from 30 to 34, and the number of starters from 24 to 26. To avoid having all 34 cars on the track at one time, a pre-qualifying session was introduced in which the three teams with the poorest record in the previous year would compete to be allowed into qualification proper. Three companies, Goodyear, Michelin and Avon supplied tyres, including special qualifying tyres, which provided much increased levels of grip during the qualification sessions that determined the starting order for the race. For the first time the number of tyres permitted for qualification was limited, creating a situation which Villeneuve thought "...unnecessarily dangerous. If I have only two chances to set a time, I need a clear track, OK? If it isn't clear, if there's someone in my way, I just have to hope he's looking in his mirrors — I mean, I can't lift, because this is my last chance."

Politics

The Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA) and FISA had been in dispute over the control of the sport since 1979. The worst period of the disagreement (known as the FISA-FOCA war) had ended in 1981 with the signing of the Concorde Agreement. FOCA consisted of the major British teams, while the manufacturer teams (Renault, Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Talbot-Ligier), together with Italian team Osella and Toleman were aligned with FISA. The 1982 season had an unusually large number of teams representing major motor manufacturers, with Alfa Romeo and Talbot represented as well as Renault and Ferrari.