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Hyperfixation Corner | The 1982 Formula One World Championship, Part 4 | The Triumph of Keke Rosberg and the Grief of Ferrari

there are wacky seasons in formula one. some have 5, 6 drivers fighting for the championship right until the end. there are mid-season changes. but then there is one who separated weak boys from repressed men and created the collective generational trauma for those who went through the absolute fucking hell that was 1982 formula one world championship. fittingly enough, the person who won it wasn't the greatest winner, but almost literally the one left standing.

background: the fisa-foca war

physics for psychopaths: the killer regulations of the 70s-80s

heating the tires: the drivers strike in kyalami!

the 1982 formula one world championship, or, the triumph of keke rosberg and the grief of ferrari

this is the fourth (and last!) part of a series i'm doing this week, fruit of a month of investigation and bingewatching. please consider giving me any sort of sign of life once you read it! liking and reblogging is great, but comments and asks are just fine too! even just a letter saying "dumb" will suffice. we also touch some heavy topics - even though i don't go into detail - so please be careful as you read it! thanks a lot, today especially to those of you who are supporting this series since the start of the week and those who have me heard despair about writing it! this work was a suggestion of the great @hurricanewindattack and while i have an idea of what i want to do for the next ones, i am always open to suggestions. thanks once more and let's FINALLY get to the rest of the series.

4) the 1982 formula one season, or, the triumph of keke rosberg and the grief of ferrari

I'm so tired, Robbie. We've already established that FISA and FOCA were going at it, that the car regulations were enough to ship a man straight to the moon and that the drivers were capable of creating a mosh pit and putting everyone inside it if they had to. We had ONE race and there is a strike then everyone gets suspended. I have to say you guys, it's only downhill from here. There were 15 or so races and everything happened, so prepare for 2 paragraphs per race in this bitch. I'm not sorry, honestly, you are embarking on this journey with me knowing fully well what i'm capable of.

After the whole South Africa shenanigans - which, btw, was won by Alain Prost, with Carlos Reutemann's Williams standing between him and his Renault teammate René Arnoux in the top 3 - and the cancellation of the Argentinian Grand Prix, Brazil was going to host the second race of the season in March (that, to be honest, feels like the proper beginning of the tournament). Curiously enough, it's during this race weekend that Nelson Piquet gives one of the most accurate interviews of his life, unfortunately:

The race wraps with Piquet and his new water cooled brakes Brabham winning in his home soil, so tired that he fainted on the podium celebrations, while Keke Rosberg was on second using the same technology and Prost was in third alongside his turbo charged car. The footage is so unintentionally funny, when Nelson faints Keke was looking the other way so it's a domino effect in slow motion while Alain looks like he has no idea what's happening.

However, FIA thought the new tech was a bit sketchy. There's not even any "Physics" tbh, basically the "water cooling" technology were two heavy tanks of water that would make the car heavier for pre-race weighing. Throughout the race, the cars would just empty their tanks and become lighter (and faster) and because this was the 80s, they would be allowed to re-fill them before the post-race scrutineering so it went back to legality. When the morons at FISA realised they were let had, they took away both Nelson's win and Keke's podium - since both Brabham and Williams had similar rig - gifting first place to Prost. Bernie was livid and here go hell come. Again.

Note: it was here that, in Carlos Reutemann's end, he decided to be done with racing. He had seen it all anyway, the glory of a championship, the accidents and the politics of F1. The bottom line for him was that, besides everything that was going on, he was an Argentinian driving for a British team in the height of the Malvinas war. It was time to let the fat lady sing and hit the door.

They moved on to Long Beach for the first out of THREE grand prix they would hold in the United States this year and at this moment everyone was lost in the sauce AND in the game to be honest. Ferrari decided to show up to the grand prix with two rear wings (SIDE BY SIDE), just to show the extent of the regulations' stupidity. They were like "we either don't get disqualified and you look dumb bc you allowed this or you disqualify us and look dumb because this is technically what you HAVE been allowing all along." Like, thank you, but also, why? Also, can the SF21 be like this.

The way even with a Wacky Races-worthy car he still managed to have an exciting battle with Keke and almost got podium....

TBF, it went well, since the guy who was driving it, Gilles Villeneuve, got to third after all, following Niki Lauda in his first win since returning from retirement and Keke Rosberg's now legal Williams. However, because Ken Tyrell was salty, Ferrari's double winged car got disqualified and gave place to Riccardo Patrese. Can you sense the running theme here? No? OK, i'll give you a few more races.

Oh, by the way, remember the whole appeal about the Brabham wet car? It got denied by FIA's court of appeal and Nelson and Keke lost their podiums. Bernie was throwing a HUUUUGE temper tantrum over it since the water cooling system was basically his first way of responding to the bitching turbo charged cars of the manufacturers and going toe-to-toe with them. Most of the other FOCA teams were like "Bernie shut the fuck up no one noticed that we also have water cooled cars" but it was too late. One for all and all for one and we were heading to YET another episode of the FISA-FOCA war on the opening round of the European leg at the Autodromo di Imola.

Again, these men were slick - call them Pirelli tires. Bathed in baby oil. FOCA needed to find a way to look, so they come up to FISA like "hey babes so the San Marino GP is right on the way and you guys are saying that our water tanks aren't that cash money so can we have one more week so we can get these guys off blease?". FISA, of course they would, just said "naur". and then they went "oop! i guess we have to boycott the grand prix then! can't help being constructors!".

Race week comes, only Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Renault are there - the turbo charged girlbosses at FISA. Toleman arrives shortly after since they were so new to the game they couldn't even join FOCA yet, followed by two smaller FOCA teams, ATS and Osella, who claimed they were also getting fed up with the situation but in reality? They were just happy they would probably be able to qualify all their cars. The last team to join, hilariously so, was fucking Tyrell, one of the key players at FOCA who were practically broke - they spent two years without any sponsors before signing with Candy and Imola Ceramica, two Italian companies who OBVIOUSLY would want them to race in Imola.

Yep, only 14 drivers in a grand prix, just a bit over half of what the season so far had seen on the grid and the triple of total cars in F1 contention that year. Easy race then, right?

Ok, so far in this post i have been relatively quiet about Ferrari, which, honestly, usually means trouble. In context, even though in pre-season the terrific Ferrari 126C2 was incredibly fast and seemingly reliable by the way, if you want to see pictures of the babe that the 126C2 was, look no further: @hurricanewindattack's paper crafts have far more details than any other pictures could do it justice and I HIGHLY recommend you guys check their blog out.

What more could you want? Look at that suspension, baby!

However, the dream team led by Pironi and Villeneuve hadn't managed to capitalise on it, with Didier only having one point after the first three races and Gilles none after his DSQ in Long Beach. When they arrived to the sacred ground of Imola and found out that it was basically going to be a battle between them and Renault to sort out who would take the win, it wasn't a matter of if, but who for Ferrari. The actual race started with a Renault 1-2, but luck played a factor into it when both of those went kaput and Villeneuve and Pironi inherited their positions.

Indeed, there was no need whatsoever anymore for them to race the rest of the grid, they might not have had as much experience with the turbos in comparison to Renault's but they still had a turbocharger and with their competition in the pits, it was fiiiine. They could in theory race each other, but this was just race four of the year and there would be plenty more opportunity for them to do so over the next 12 races. It was, therefore, quite vital in Ferrari's eyes that they brought the full points to the team at the end of the 60 laps: no mistakes, no tomfoolery, no mechanical failures.

The order was simple: slow down. By simple, I mean that the more you think about it the less you get it. Like, what does it mean, do they want these guys to just lower their speed but keep the fight or do they want them to basically vibe and bring the car home? Pironi thought the first option, while Villeneuve thought the second. So, when Didier first overtook Gilles, he was like "bestie is so thoughtful of our tifosi crowd trying to make it interesting for them :D let's go bestie!"... but two laps later when Pironi still was in the lead, it was ON. They battled hard, Gilles got the lead back only for Pironi to snatch it back from his hands in time for the checkered flag.

Gilles was mad. GOOPED. He refused to take part in the post-podium victory lap and left the GP storming, saying that he would never speak to Pironi again and that they would settle the score.

I'm kinda obsessed with the concept of post-race clarity when the driver that gets the best out of it just comes out of his trance and realised what he did. Didier's little podium smirk just screams "oh boy I am SO FUCKED after this," it's brilliant.

The garages couldn't even try to make it better considering the poetic nature of a team order such as "slow down" meant that not even Mauro Forghieri and Marco Piccinini, then Ferrari head engineer and team principal, respectively, quite knew where they wanted to get at. Gilles, I believe, spoke every single profanity you could imagine about Pironi and declared their friendship was over and they weren't on speaking terms anymore. Pironi was ok with it, since his POV was that he hadn't done anything wrong. Let the racing do the talking? Even better, let the drivers do the talking immediately after the race as they always do.

Pironi: People seem to think we had the battle of our lives! I was coasting those last 15 laps. The 'slow' sign means only to use your head [... not that] if you think you can win, don't do it.

Villeneuve: I've declared war. Absolute war. Finishing second is one thing – I'd have been mad at myself for not being quick enough if he'd beaten me. But finishing second because the bastard steals it…

The fact is that when they got to Zolder for the Belgian Grand Prix, they were interested in settling the score on track. I'm not going to say the details here, there's no need for that. All you need to know is that Pironi had locked sixth place during qualis 0.1 seconds ahead of Gilles, who went for a fast lap with 10 minutes left on the clock. When he got to it, Jochen Mass was riding slower than him, and in a misunderstanding they both turned at the same time to let each other through, kind of like we do with strangers on the street. Unfortunately, it was a racing incident Gilles would never recover from and his passing was confirmed on the same day. It didn't even take the confirmation for Ferrari to withdraw from the grand prix, only finding a "replacement" for Gilles in Patrick Tambay 4 rounds later.

It's a romantic idea, I think, to speculate about how Gilles went all in because he was careless and all he could think about was beating Pironi, but the bottom line is: driving was incredibly dangerous, claiming people every season - time elapsed between that Piquet quote and the Belgian GP was less than two months. It's true that drivers can't really think too much about the ephemerality of life or else they might lose the spark, but this was particularly valid for that period between the 70s and 80s when the teams were so lost in their own games of beating each other that they weren't concerned about how that would impact the people inside the cars - and to be fair, at 1982 drivers were clearly as I have stated so far highly dedicated to improving the safety regulations. Fuck, Zolder held the grand prix in Belgium only because 10 years prior to this the drivers had refused to drive in a much more deadly configuration of Spa-Francochamps! It was raining, but there was 10 minutes left to try to improve his time and a driver from Gilles Villeneuve's caliber just had to have faith in himself and in his car (a Ferrari, nevertheless) to be able to pull this one through. In fact, there is a quote from after his accident in 1980 that goes like "You know, I am content, because I hit the wall at 280 km/h and the car took it - resisted it. That means the car is solid and I can drive it like that again". Holding Didier Pironi accountable for something like this (directly or indirectly) or even Gilles himself for being "reckless" is just completely ignoring the context of what was Formula One back then.

This isn't related to any of this, this is just a cute gif of Gilles in Brazil. To lighten the mood.....

Either way, the fact is that the GPDA's official statement, ran by Didier Pironi himself, painted the picture as inevitable due to the recklessness of the ground effect cars:

We have been protesting since the start of the season. The cars have become too dangerous. The conflicts of interest in Formula 1 are stronger than all the feelings about safety. We proclaim that it is necessary to get rid of the lateral skirts. Gilles’s death is a dramatic consequence of ground effects. The cars are at the limit of their adherence and flat to the ground. And they go faster and faster. At the least shock they take off, transformed into an uncontrollable missile. Since the introduction of ground effects and wings, the cars have made incredible progress in the corners. At the place where Gilles had his accident you’re doing 250-260 km/h. A few years ago, when skirts didn’t exist, we were doing only 180 km/h.

The rest of the race weekend was also chaotic, with only 9 cars finishing (and Niki's being disqualified after the race due to its weight) and John Watson getting p1, with Keke and Eddie Cheever from Ligier right behind him. We also had Scuderia Fittipaldi's last F1 point scoring race, with Chico Serra getting 1 point in P6.

Note: it's not a fun fact per se, but it's heartfelt - at the time of his death in 1987, Didier Pironi's girlfriend was pregnant with twins. The two boys were named Didier and Gilles after the Ferrari duo, and some of you might recognise this name since Gilles Pironi is currently an engineer for Mercedes and went to the podium to receive their 2020 British Grand Prix trophy. Time is a flat circl- [gets sniped]

I know you are probably done with the championship play-by-play at this point but we need to talk. I'm not particularly religious, actually you could say I am quite a skeptic at the end of the day but I do believe that there are things out there stronger than us, whether it's our psyche or the paranormal. This comes into play in Monaco, the first round after Gilles' death. The range of feelings of those there was from kinda weirded out to full grief according to whoever you talked to - although I remember Murray Walker saying "this is the most pornographic race I've ever been to" if I'm not mistaken. The audio feed from F1TV is very weird sometimes. Gilles was the previous year's winner and many people saw him as the face of Monaco, since he lived there and loved the city. but you know, the show must go on etc. And overall, I think besides Ferrari, everyone was dealing with it as they could (repressing their feelings, babeh!).

René Arnoux was leading the GP up until lap 15 when he just spun all by himself and stalled his car - out. The lead was inherited by Alain Prost, who kept it pragmatic while the cars around him started to have failures of all sorts: engines, oil leakage, suspension, just turning off and saying "no," you call it, it happened. Even Keke, whose reliability at this point shouldn't have gone unnoticed, retired after a collision. Well, the barriers of the soul decided to merge with the barriers of the metaphysical world once and for all when there was but two laps left and it. started. fucking. raining.

Alain crashed. HARD. and with the car, gone were his hopes of scoring for the first time since Brazil and keeping the lead he had managed to build. Riccardo Patrese inherited it for one lap (and tbf to him, he was trying really hard for the whole thing to overtake Prost). Before he also spun and stopped, with Pironi managing over half a lap in P1 before his car started slowing down in the tunnel… because of fuel shortage. Don't fear though guys, because Andrea de Cesaris is busting through!!!! And stopping meters after Pironi also out of fuel. But it's okay, Derek Daly is charging through the track and he already can feel his fingers snatching the trophy from Prince Rainier's hands…… No, nevermind, his gearbox is fucked. Somehow during all of this Patrese managed to bump start his car and dragged himself to the checkered flag, wrapping this bullshit with it. If there is a video I will recommend (and embed just to make sure you guys know I'm not making this up), it's this one right here:

youtube

It was kinda cute even because Patrese gave Pironi a lift (a very dangerous one btw) so they could have their lap of honour.

After this hellish European leg, they headed back to North America to have a double header starting in Detroit. Looking back, it definitely wasn't as messy as it could have been: they did a street circuit but it wasn't ready in time and they only had 2 hours of practice in total for a Brand New Track before qualis on Saturday, and the second qualifying session happened in the rain. Yep, there were accidents and scenes but overall? Not bad, not bad. Watson-Cheever-Pironi weren't complaining on the podium, at least.

You can see the track was rough.... but somehow, rave reviews? Wasn't the worst race of the season imo.

The second part of the double header was held at the just renamed Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Canada and things started off well with the Brazilians Chico Serra and Raul Boesel fighting it out after a free practice. However, as race day came things got dark again and it just sucks to have to write this one more time so I'll be brief. The lights took too long to turn green and as Pironi raised his hand to warn the cars behind him, they turned on. Raul Boesel followed the lights queue and clipped the Ferrari, spinning around. Most of the following cars managed to react to the accident and go around, except Ricciardo Paletti, who hit the stalled Pironi. Again, things got way too graphic and grim and Paletti didn't make it.

quick intermission: Riccardo Paletti

Sincerely, Paletti's death hits me harder than Villeneuve's (not that this is the death olympics at all). But unlike Villeneuve who gets remembered as being a most likely future World Championship, beyond his passing, Paletti was just racing for the second time in F1. Beyond that, many people just cite him (including myself, I suppose) when it's time to talk about the horrific details of what happened - looking up his name on YouTube means you will for sure come across with NSFL thumbnails. So, I just want to write a small paragraph about what he actually did in life that deserves to be celebrated.

Riccardo Paletti was born in Italy on 13 March 1958. He was an incredibly skilled athlete in his teens - he had a karate medal AND was called up for the national alpine skiing team. By chance, he had found himself in motorsports, after jokingly racing with his father when he didn't even have a drivers license yet! Known to be a calm, and shy person, he used to say it himself:

I haven’t a lot of friends and I find establishing a rapport with people of my own age particularly difficult. Doing sport is a way to be with other people, get closer to them. I’ve competed on the ski slopes, I’ve taken part in measured kilometre events on skis and then I came to car racing. It is a strange world but when I am inside the cockpit everything seems beautiful to me. And I feel happy.

He didn't have a particular stellar career in junior formulae before joining Osella for the 1982 season. He was, however, one of the few drivers back then who believed just knowing how to drive fast wasn't enough and his athlete background meant he took the mens sana in corpore sano way of life very seriously, focusing on exercising and having a healthy diet during his F1 stint. He was sponsored by Pioneer, who had faith in him even though he was a professional driver for only 4 years, and even though that showed whenever his car didn't fail him by itself during qualis, he was showing steady improvement in comparison to his teammate up until Canada. His family and friends have a small website dedicated to his memory (in Italian) and I was really moved by the testimonials they have.

I think this is the best video of Riccardo I managed to find, so I just did a gif. It's genuinely better to remember him like that than what happened to him in my opinion.

back to the season

Hooo boy. You can call that section of this write-up a mercury thermometer, because it was heavy af. Thankfully, during the middle of everything, Brabham were down bad. Of course there were good results (like the second place in the Dutch Grand Prix - in which btw Arnoux barely made it from a serious crash), but mostly not, specially considering their car was outlawed, their water cooling system as well, they had the currently reigning champion but there was about it. That plaque wasn't going to stop Brabham, because they didn't know how to read, and therefore they devised something for the next races that in English media became known as "The Ploy," but I like to call "The Bernie Ecclestone Master Plan".

The idea: race with less fuel, fly like a motherfucker ahead of the grid and build a 40 second lead so that when came back from the pits after refuelling for the second stint, they would still be in first and light af. When you think about it…. Galaxy brained and literally the standard that was held by the refuel era until the cars became good enough for them to afford to choose if they wanted a lighter or heavier car. Brabham also had the advantage of being a top tier team, so with brainiacs like Gordon Murray as their car designer and the slickness of Bernie, they were able to do The Monster Math and calculate how the tyres would wear off, how much the fuel would weight on their car, how could they make their fuel tank smaller and they ended up running with a brand new and improved version of their chassis onwards - they also had the advantage of FISA wanting them to change their car after the whole water cooled bullshit.

However, back in the day when the cars were a canned soup with wings and a fidget spinner for an engine, it was more of a bargain, and unbeknownst to Brabham, Toleman had also thought of the same thing, except they just cut to the chase and said "hey, we're gonna with half a tank, we're probably gonna crash anyway lol".

But overall, congrats to Brabham, great plan! Just a few points:

Issue 1: you have a brand new chassis and thus basically a new car;

Issue 2: you are in Brands Hatch for the British Grand Prix;

Issue 3: if God is real, she is probably in a manufacturer team and affiliated to FISA.

Even though they got the pole position last minute due to a failure in Keke's car during the formation lap and Patrese's also refused to start, while Piquet's dipped after 10 laps - it did kinda work though, since Nelson had managed to overtake 7 guys on the first lap to first place and was 1.4 seconds faster than the runner up before his fuel injection got away. The Bernie Ecclestone Master Plan became a secondary after thought as Didier Pironi took the lead of the championship after finishing second, between Niki Lauda (uwu he won again!) and Patrick Tambay, now a Ferrari driver. Needless to say, Toleman also ate shit.

The ploy went great!

Nevertheless, if there was one thing Brabham F1 Team didn't know was how to quit (and my god, sometimes they really should) and for the French Grand Prix coming up in Paul Ricard, they would try it again, for goodness' sake!! And they would fail again due to engine failures on both cars, for goodness' sake!!! to be fair as well, Patrese managed to lead the race from lap two until his retirement, handing over to Piquet, who did the same thing. plus, no one really focused on The Ploy going awry since René Arnoux's victory meant that he had violated a team agreement that stated that, in case Renault had a Arnoux/Prost 1-2, he would concede the lead to his teammate who was in the run for the WDC - huh funny how Prost always found himself in situations like these. Naur, hawld awn, let me speak about the petulance of that motherfucker: Prost went to the media to slate Arnoux's lack of team mentality and how he wasn't pragmatic enough, etc, but a while after said smth like "yeah, the team were kinda crazy to propose this to us when there wasn't a #1 and #2 driver, the] misjudged us... but I'm still kinda mad at Arnoux tho". I have no comments. [Victory's Theme playing LOUDLY IN the back]

I mean, to get the position from someone you at least kinda... need to get close to them, but what do I know about racing? What. Do. I. Know. About. Racing.

On other news, there is no better way to put this: Jochen Mass and his March got catapulted to the stands and caught on fire, leading to injuries on everyone who was close - no casualties, luckily! Immediately after his recovery, Mass' retirement from racing - not that he wasn't physically able to race anymore, it's just that fuck this shit, honestly.

There's a saying that goes "when it rains, it pours," and pour it did on Germany - quick note: wtf is this Hockenheimring - for both Ferrari and Brabham. the rainy weekend saw Pironi ahead of his competitors, locking himself on pole before qualis were even over. In a twist of fate - in this case the twist being a Möbius band i guess - Didier also went for a fast lap in the last moments of quali, he also saw a slower car ahead (Daly) of him a bit too late and he also swerved to avoid hitting him. This time, however, there was a second car just a bit forwards (Prost) and just like Belgium, a big shunt. 5 races from the start of the season, tifosi all around the world felt the loss of Gilles Villeneuve and now, 5 races to the end, it was time for the curtains to close on Didier Pironi, who fortunately survived, but with leg injuries so severe he would never be able to professionally race again.

In terms of the championship, this also meant that F1 was reaching the moment when a winner was supposed to start taking shape, and as the most likely WDC was now out, it was game on. Brabham was still investing in The Ploy and I can only imagine how serious they were about it in the garage - it's not like at this stage they had realistically speaking the chance to win anything, specially with Bernie more focused on taking over the world and FISA breathing on their neck any chance they could - but there is that ego and financial difference between 6th and 7th in the WDC. that all made it even more frustrating after Piquet's race lead was AGAIN fucked over, this time by the world renowned crash into the slow Salazar ahead of him. I have to defend Nelson on that one solely because Salazar at that point was renowned for glossing over blue flags and being a klutz. Either way, F1 history was made that day.

"For me it is not a problem when he starts to punch me, I have my helmet on. He can punch me all day and I don’t care. But when he try to kick me here..." - Salazar on the tussle...

Arnaux and Rosberg got a sweet podium, but the win went to Patrick Tambay. Yep, let that sink in, the guy who had retired after the Kyalami strike because he was too done with the politics bullshit in F1 had just won his first Grand Prix ever with Ferrari in a wet Hockenheimring. This is just pure concentrated 1982 championship juice. The only reason I'm not done here it's because we still have four more races, and luckily for us, the Austrian GP that followed wasn't that eventful.

Other teams were starting to consider The Ploy as a valid tactic, even though the Brabham hadn't managed to capitalise on it yet, and adopted variations of it. The Österreichring also marked the first win of Elio de Angelis in a Lotus, who by 0,05 seconds hadn't gifted it to Keke, still to have his first career win himself. It does go without saying that this was the last time that Colin Chapman would see his beloved team win, since he would pass away mere months later. Unfortunately we can't embed multiple videos on Tumblr posts and the Monaco wildness needs to be experienced, but I can't stress this enough: watch the last laps of Austria. Both Keke and Elio don't put a single foot wrong, this is close to driving perfection honestly.

Heading back to France, this time in the Dijon-Prenois circuit for the *fixes glasses* Swiss Grand Prix…. Things were spicy with Prost, Watson and Rosberg wanting to eat their way into the lead that was still held by Pironi, Keke holding the advantage because he was the only one who didn't get constantly bombarded by car issues. My good bitch Keke did his homework and even though he started on P8, the mad lad just bust through the track and overtook one by one until he got to the race leader Prost on the last lap and GOT HIM TOO. There weren't any shunts, any cars on fire, this was genuinely just guys being dudes and clean racing. Well, de Cesaris TRIED Keke, who was having none of it.

It took him one more lap than necessary as the race director conveniently forgot that there were 80 laps, not 79 - which they attempted to do - nor 81 - which they DID do - but he came out a winner anyway, followed by Alain and Niki <3.

Let's just take some time together to appreciate this man FINALLY got a win in this season from hell

McLaren were also grateful that Niki had made it to the end, but John Watson falling out of points meant that Ferrari still sat at the top of the WCC even though [points at the entire 1982 Ferrari season]

Note: To make matters more interesting the gap did close down between Ferrari, Renault and McLaren, the three teams ahead of the battle for the constructors' championship, since Ferrari didn't have a replacement for Pironi and Tambay skipped the race due to a pinched nerve.

It was time for MONZA, BABY! Easy peasy win for Arnoux who led the entire race even though he had started it in P6. Arnoux was on a ROLL by the way, since he had been announced to be part of the 1983 Ferrari line up, with Mario Andretti warming the seat for him as Pironi's replacement for the last two races of the season. Andretti didn't behave badly either, locking pole position and a podium for the last time in his career, Tambay there to watch. For the championship, the battle was alive for both constructors - with Ferrari the most likely winners after the duo podium but Renault and McLaren still having a chance after terrific results - and drivers - since Keke was miraculously out of points while his direct competitor, John Watson landed in 4th.

The tifosi celebrating like mad men their "1-2-3" podium in Monza. Notice the "GILLES FOREVER" message written on the circuit. Oh my God I am UNWELL.

We finally arrived in 1982's swan song. Perhaps call it a duck jingle actually, because they went to Las Vegas for a street circuit in Caesar's Palace. People might have liked it, I honestly don't think so because the track layout genuinely said "M". This is so fucked up I HAVE to share the circuit:

Anyway, to cleanse our palates, time to do the math:

So far, Keke had a 9 point lead over the second place, now John Watson. The point system was 1 point for P6, 2 for P5, 3 for P4, 4 for P3, 6 for P2 and 9 for P1… Wow. So, ideally, for Watson to win this, he needed both to win the race and for Rosberg to be out of points. In this case, their net score would be the same but Watson had one more win in his bag. The maths for McLaren or Renault to get the championship was more complex, but tbh the gist of it was that they needed to do as well as possible and hope that at least one of drivers from their competitors didn't score.

Drama filled the race as leader Arnoux had to drop out and with him, Renault's chances of winning the WCC. Watson drove the race of a lifetime, dropping from 9 to 12 and then recovering to second, while Keke played it safe. Michele Alboreto, the saint, decided to sort it all out by himself and become the 11th race winner of the season - we have a record, laid ease! - and although both Ferraris were out (Tambay suffering from his pinched nerve again and Andretti from from a broken suspension), Niki's early race retirement meant that Kohn Watson hadn't made the necessary scores by himself to win the championship for McLaren as well. Ferrari had managed to "overcome" their worst season ever with a consolation trophy (if you take a look at it, the F162C was the balance between reliabilty and speed that the rest of the grid lacked one way or the other) while Keke Rosberg's amazing persistence and solidity being rewarded with one of the most controversial yet earned titles in F1 history.

Arguably, the greatest legacy of 1982 was the push for greater safety and the ban on ground effects aero, with a now mandatory flat undertray wrapping the Venturi tunnels party and bringing back stability to the cars - enough so that F1 only saw tragedy as great as what had happened here again in 1994 (yup). As to FISA and FOCA, they actually calmed down to standard bickering as Bernie realised that if you can't beat them, then kinda join them and decided to make his way into the status quo since he had the commercial rights and thus the money anyway. Mostly, people got on with their lives and went on, trying to repress the memories of the season the same way I'm going to after sinking my head 50 feet deep into the whole lore for about a month.

My conclusions on the whole thing? First of all, even though most of young folk tend to think of Nico Rosberg as the Worthy Champion in the father-son duo for spending three years of his life fighting the Silver War while his dad only won once during his championship season, Keke had to live through deaths, unreliable death machines and politics from every side of the paddock, turning up consistently in the podium while everything happened. Put some respeck on Keke's name. Men are petty and I wish no one had died, basically, there isn't much to conclude. Well guys, that's all for this lifetime of Hyperfixation Corner. I'm officially retiring and I will delete my Tumblr in 2-4 business days. Nah, just kidding, see you next time and thanks again for the support <3 Screw you guys, I'm going home!

#f1 #formula one #formula 1 #hyperfixation corner #1982 f1 world championship #keke rosberg #gilles villeneuve #didier pironi #niki lauda #john watson #alain prost #rene arnoux #guys i'm not strong enough i can't tag everyone #but anyway IT'S DONE #pls give me meowdies here it's a long post but you will never read something as close as well researched as this without it being the season

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