Nostalgia: Formula 1 Championship 1983

The Brabham BT52

The first Formula 1 practice session of the 2010 season at Bahrain is less than 18 days away. To tide me over until the start of the season I have been watching some classic F1 highlights. In the next few weeks I will attempt to relive some of the epic past battles that took place in this new feature I call "Nostalgia." Who knows, we may make it all the way from 1983-2009 (but I doubt it). First up, the 1983 season. 1983 featured far less controversy than the 1982 season (reviewing 1982 will require a far lengthier post than I have time for today), but was still epic.

///Motorsports Stripe on the BT52's front wing

For the BMW F1 fans out there (I'm looking at you Hardflip) 1983 was one of the greatest seasons ever. Nelson Piquet drove his Brabham-BMW to the driver's championship in a year where it came down to him and Alain Prost in a Renault to decide the title at the final round. Piquet trailed Prost by two points going into the final round at South Africa. Prost's Renault broke down at Kyalami and Piquet finished 3rd to take the championship.


The turning point in the season though likely came at the Dutch GP at Zandvoort where Prost made a somewhat optimistic attempt to pass Piquet at the Tarzan corner and the two collided. Both went out of the race. This was a rare mistake for "Le Professeur" as Prost was regarded as a calculated racer and an excellent overtaker. Prost left Zandvoort with an 11 point lead over Rene Arnoux and a 14 point lead over Piquet with 3 rounds to go. Prost, however, would not finish in Italy or South Africa and come second in the European GP and Piquet would win both the Italian and European GP and come 3rd in South Africa to take the Championship by 2 points. Arnoux (Prost's teammate the prior year at Renault) driving a Ferrari finished 9th at the European GP and did not finish in South Africa to see his title chances slip away. Ferrari would win the constructors championship as they had in 1982.

Prost would move back to McLaren, the team he began his F1 career with, for 1984 but a similar fate awaited him (more on that later this week...probably).

Fun fact: Bernie Ecclestone (yep, the same one) owned and ran Brabham F1 in 1983.