René Arnoux

René Alexandre Arnoux (; born 4 July 1948) is a French former racing driver who competed in 12 Formula One seasons (1978 to 1989). He participated in 165 World Championship Grands Prix (149 starts) winning seven of them, achieving 22 podium finishes and scoring 181 career points. His best finish in the World Drivers' Championship was third in 1983 for Ferrari. In 1977, Arnoux won the European Formula Two Championship. In 2006 he raced in the inaugural season of the Grand Prix Masters series for retired F1 drivers.

Early career

Arnoux's career began in Formule Renault and he first moved into Formula Two in 1974 with Elf, taking fourth place on his debut at Nogaro. In 1975 he moved to Formule Super Renault and won the title. For 1976, Arnoux moved back to Formula Two with an Elf-sponsored, works Martini-Renault, winning three races and narrowly losing the title to Jean-Pierre Jabouille. However, he won the European Championship, again driving a Martini-Renault. Arnoux won races at Silverstone, Hockenheim, Pau and Nogaro, which along with second places at Enna-Pergusa and Estoril saw him finish 12 points clear of American Eddie Cheever who was driving for Ron Dennis' Project Four Racing, and 14 points clear of teammate Didier Pironi.

Formula One

Martini and Surtees

Arnoux continued with the Martini team when it made the transition to Formula One in . However, in an organisation with insufficient means to compete in the highest echelon of the sport, he was unable to demonstrate his abilities and Martini abandoned Formula One during the season, having run short of money. Arnoux's best finishes for Martini were two 9th places in Belgium and Austria. He failed to qualify in South Africa, and failed to pre-qualify in Monaco and Germany.

Arnoux moved to Surtees for the last two races of the season, but once again found himself in a team on the edge of failure. In his two races for the team, his best finish was his debut where he placed 9th at Watkins Glen for the United States Grand Prix. He qualified the Surtees TS20 in 21st place at Watkins Glen, while teammate Beppe Gabbiani failed to qualify. His last race for the team in Canada saw him qualify 16th but retire just after half distance when the Ford DFV engine failed. Surtees wanted to sign Arnoux on a permanent basis, but he secured a seat with Renault for .

Renault

In the season, the factory Renault team entered two cars for the first time since its debut in 1977. The team's only victory of the year was taken by Arnoux's teammate Jean-Pierre Jabouille at the French Grand Prix at the Dijon-Prenois circuit, but Arnoux took the headlines due to a fierce wheel-banging battle with the Flat-12 Ferrari of Gilles Villeneuve for second place, which Villeneuve won. In the second half of the season, Arnoux took four top-six finishes, including three podium places; Jabouille's Dijon victory was his only points finish of the year.

In , Arnoux took his first two Formula One victories, the first being at Interlagos circuit in Brazil. His second win came in the very next race at the Kyalami circuit in South Africa, where the thinner air at high altitude gave the turbocharged Renault RE20 a power advantage over its mostly Cosworth-powered rivals. Following this race, Arnoux was leading the World Championship for the first time. He would not lose the championship lead until Round 6 in Monaco. The season though was punctuated by unreliability from the turbocharged Renault V6 engine. The unit was powerful, producing approximately to be on par with Ferrari (and considerably more powerful than the Ford DFV), but fragile, and the Renaults also lacked ground effects. Although he would later finish second in the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, he would finish the season in 6th place with 29 points, 38 points behind World Champion Alan Jones.

Arnoux's situation was complicated in by the arrival of Alain Prost at Renault. Their rivalry on-track flared up off the track and relations between the two men deteriorated. The conflict reached its peak at the 1982 French Grand Prix at the Circuit Paul Ricard. The drivers took Renault's first one-two in Formula One, Arnoux finishing ahead of Prost. Prost was furious, considering that his teammate had not kept to the team orders agreed before the race, according to which he should have ceded the win to Prost, who was better placed in the championship. Arnoux replied that no orders had been given before the race and that he was free to drive his own race. He took one other win at the Italian Grand Prix at the end of the season. He suffered a high speed crash after losing a wheel going into the banked Tarzan corner at the end of the long straight in the 1982 Dutch Grand Prix, though his car's momentum was largely stopped by a sand trap and tyre barrier.

Ferrari

The pairing of Prost and Arnoux having become unsustainable, Arnoux left Renault at the end of 1982 to join Ferrari in , joining another French driver Patrick Tambay. With three victories, at the Canadian, German, and Dutch Grands Prix, Arnoux was in contention for the world title until the final race of the season, the South African Grand Prix. He retired from that race with engine failure, and finished the season third, behind Nelson Piquet and Prost. Both Arnoux and Tambay became favourites with the Tifosi for their hard-charging styles, and their conjuncted results saw Ferrari win the 1983 Constructors' Championship. Arnoux's win at Zandvoort turned out to be the seventh and final win of his Formula One career.

With the McLarens of Prost and Niki Lauda dominating , Arnoux had a less successful second season at Ferrari, only finishing 6th with 27 points, with his new teammate Michele Alboreto progressively taking the initiative and team leadership from him. After three wins and four pole positions in 1983, Arnoux failed to win or claim a pole position in 1984 (Alboreto won the Belgian Grand Prix from pole with Arnoux starting second and finishing third), though he finished second in San Marino and Dallas where he was forced to start from the pits due to an electrical fault on the warm-up lap and managed to keep his car out of trouble on the crumbling track. The only Grand Prix ever held in Dallas was also the last time Arnoux achieved a Formula One podium finish. As the season progressed, Arnoux appeared to lack motivation, and after finishing 4th in the opening race of the championship in Brazil, he left Ferrari by mutual consent. His place in the team was taken by Swedish driver Stefan Johansson. He was seen in the Brabham pits at Imola in Round 3, sparking rumours that he would join the team then owned by Bernie Ecclestone, but nothing came of it and he was rarely seen at races for the rest of the season.

Ligier

Without a drive for the rest of the 1985 season, Arnoux made his return to Formula One in for the French Ligier team who were using turbocharged Renault engines. The Pirelli-tyred Ligiers proved uncompetitive as the season progressed. Arnoux had two teammates in 1986. For the first half of the season his teammate was French driver Jacques Laffite. However, Laffite's career ended when he broke both of his legs in a first corner crash at Brands Hatch in the British Grand Prix. From the following race Laffite was replaced with another French driver, Philippe Alliot.

For , Ligier were to have exclusive use of a new, four-cylinder turbocharged Alfa Romeo engine in the new Ligier JS29. However, after Arnoux compared the engine to "used food" during pre-season testing, Alfa's parent company Fiat pulled the plug on the project and Ligier were forced into using the four-cylinder Megatron engines for the season, which produced around . Arnoux scored the team's only point during the season with a 6th place in Belgium. The race at Spa also saw the best finish for his teammate Piercarlo Ghinzani who finished 7th.

was to prove the final year for turbos in Formula One and Ligier took the chance to race the new, 3.5-litre Judd V8 engine. The Ligier JS31 proved to be uncompetitive, with both Arnoux and new teammate Stefan Johansson failing to qualify several times. Both drivers complained that even in dry conditions the lack of grip saw them forced to drive with a wet weather technique. Arnoux failed to qualify twice during the season (San Marino and France, while Johansson failed to make the grid six times. Arnoux's best finish of the year was 10th place in the Portuguese Grand Prix. It was the first time since his debut season in 1978 that he had failed to score a World Championship point. His DNQ at Imola was the first time he had failed to qualify for a race since the 1981 Belgian Grand Prix. In the final race of the season in Adelaide, he took out race leader Gerhard Berger while being lapped at the 1988 Australian Grand Prix. Arnoux was criticised, but Berger said that he was experiencing a "very long" brake pedal which meant he could not stop to avoid Arnoux, nor pass him as easily as he normally would have. He also said that with his turbo boost turned up to full, the Ferrari would have run out of fuel long before the race ended.

In , the new Ford DFR powered Ligier JS33 showed promise. Arnoux's driving had attracted some criticism, and he was frequently accused of not using his mirrors and blocking faster cars in qualifying and when being lapped. During the 1989 Monaco Grand Prix, BBC
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