primotipo…

Alain Prost came, saw, and conquered the Calder Park circuit to win the 100 lap, 100 mile Formula Pacific Australian Grand Prix on November 8, 1982. His weapon of choice, a Ralt RT4 Ford BDA of course.

Bob Jane, bless the Melbourne entrepreneur, bagged the AGP for his ‘Melbourne International Raceway’ from 1980-84. Roberto Moreno was the dominant racer in that era, winning the Formula Pacific AGPs in 1981, and 1983-84. Alan Jones won the F5000/F1 event in 1980 aboard a Williams FW07B Ford.

The international stars in 1982 also included Roberto Moreno, Nelson Piquet and Jacques Laffitte, while the local hotshots were Alan Jones, John Bowe, John Smith, Alf Costanzo, Andrew Miedecke and Lucio Cesario. The whole lot of ’em were mounted in Ron Tauranac’s Ralt RT4s with the exception of Costanzo who raced an Alan Hamilton/Porsche Cars Australia owned Tiga FA81 with bags of modifications made by Jim Hardman. F5000 became Formula Lola and Formula Atlantic/Pacific became Formula Ralt from the day the first RT4 rolled out of Ron’s Byfeet Road, Weylock Works in Weybridge…

The Renault team leader – victor of the South African and Brazilian Grands Prix that year aboard 1.5-litre Renault RE30B V6 turbos – bagged pole from Laffitte, Costanzo, Bowe and Piquet and then convincingly jumped-off well from the start and won the race from Laffitte, both of them in Bob Jane Racing owned and prepared RT4s. Roberto Moreno was third, Kiwi, Dave McMillan was next and Alf Costanzo fifth. Alfie’s points – and a spin by John Bowe – bagged him his third Gold Star, the Australian Driver’s Championship.

Moreno shot himself in the foot by stalling at the start, but then provided much of the event’s fizz by driving back through the field. Alan Jones was even less fortunate after his Ralt ‘broke its flywheel’ (WTF does that mean?). A great fifth place dice between John Smith and Nelson Piquet’s Ralts was ruined on lap 35 when a collision between Peter Williamson’s Toleman TA860 Toyota 2T-G and Graham Watson’s RT4 took all four off. Smithy was the only one to continue, he placed ninth.

Of course Prost returned to Australia annually in the F1 Adelaide AGP era, winning the race – and his second World Championship on-the-trot – aboard a McLaren MP4/2C TAG-Porsche in 1986.

The shot above shows him ahead of Nigel Mansell’s Williams FW11 Honda at the end of Dequetteville Terrace – the main straight – site of Noige’s spectacular 180mph’ish Goodyear blowout, and William’s correct call for Nelson Piquet in the other William s to take a precautionary pitstop that effectively decided the championship in Prost/McLaren’s favour.

A useless Wiki statistic is that this victory made Alain the only driver to win both ‘domestic’ and World Championship AGPs.

Missed by that much…the great, four-time World Champ looking pretty chillaxed during the Pro-Am golf-day over the South Australian Open weekend at Kooyonga, Adelaide in 1986.

Credits…

Australian Motor Racing, Ray Berghouse on alainprost.net, Twitter, Rennie Ellis, State Library of New South Wales, ‘The Official History of the Australian Grand Prix’

Tailpiece…

Prost about to flick Ralt RT4/81 chassis 263 through the Calder’s Tin Shed left-hander.

This car – raced by Jones in the 1981 AGP – was owned by Bob Jane/related entities forever until sold at auction a couple of years ago, who owns it now?

By the way, Cheviot, the primary sponsor of Alain’s car, was a prominent Australian mag-wheel brand that was acquired by ROH Wheels Australia in the late 1980s. ROH are located at 28 Sheffield Street, Woodville North, South Australia.

There is a British Racing Motors connection here. ROH Wheels, a wholly owned subsidiary of England’s vast vertically and horizontally integrated Rubery Owen manufacturing transnational, commenced making original equipment steel wheels in Woodville for the then nascent Australian motor industry way back in 1946. The assets of the bankrupt BRM Trust, the original manufacturers of BRM cars, were acquired by Rubery Owen in October 1952.

So…the reason the Owen Racing Organisation raced their superb BRMs in New Zealand, and later Australia too, was to help promote the parent group and its far flung colonial enterprises owned way-back in mother-England…

Here Jackie Stewart is rallying his BRM P261 on the exit of Peters during his victorious run in the February 27, 1966 Sandown Park Cup, Tasman Series round. Oh yes, he won the Tasman Cup too.

Finito…