After winning the 1979 World Championship with the cobbled to together Ferrari T4 I looked at last week Ferrari made a decision to change direction, in view of the fact that the recently discovered ground effects which manipulated air passing under the car to create aerodynamic down force with little cost in favored vehicles with narrow motors. During the 1979 season Ferrari had run with the 180 degree V12 the widest motor in the field and were also running the only transverse gearbox which further compromised the aerodynamics.

Ferrari took the decision to build a V6 turbocharged motor but it would not be ready until the 1981 season so in the interim they scaled down the bodywork of the Ferrari T5 in order to try and improve straight line speed which had been lacking in the T4 and also made a narrower version of the 180 degree V12 which had dire consequences on hitherto rock solid reliability. Jody Scheckter, who by his own admission had already achieved his goal in 1979 and decided to retire at the end of 1980 had a simply dire year trying to defend his championship scoring just two points in Long Beach and failing to even qualify for his last but one Grand Prix in Canada completely.

The #1 seen in both photo’s above during practice for the 1980 British Grand Prix is chassis #044 which was mostly taken to races as a spare car in the 1980 season both Jody Scheckter and Gilles Villeneuve raced the car with Gilles scoring the chassis best finish a 5th place in Canada.

Gilles Villeneuve managed to score a total of six points in 1980, the eight points total scored by Ferrari equaled a tenth place finish in the Championship, an all time low scoring only on point more in 14 races than in the 11 race in 1969 season when they finished 6th in the championship. The chassis above is #045 in which Gilles scored a best 5th place in Monaco and a further 6th place in Belgium. At the 1980 Canadian GP Gilles Villeneuve took the first attempt to start in #045 above but was involved in a first corner meleé which eliminated seven cars from the race. He then jumped in to chassis #044, which Jody crashed at during practice for the British Grand Prix, see middle photo and came home 5th.

Thanks for joining me on the ‘Annus Horribilis’ edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !