HOW JONES AND SHADOW CONQUERED THE AUSTRIAN GP

Alan Jones’s maiden grand prix victory was also the Shadow squad’s sole win. Neither expected that result from a 14th-place starting position…

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Friday morning would stand as his qualifying mark.

The Cosworth in the back of the Shadow ran its bearings in the second session that afternoon, and then the ignition system nestled in the Cossie’s vee, the so-called ‘bomb’, started to play up in final qualifying on Saturday.

The Shadow came to a halt at the new-for-1977 Hella-licht ‘S’ at the top of the hill beyond the pits and Jones couldn’t restart. A bizarre and humorous footnote to the tale of Shadow’s only GP victory is provided by the car’s return to the pits.

Luckett and Dave James, number two on the Jones car, went out to inspect the thing after qualifying and managed to restart it first time. Luckett wanted to turn the car around and drive it back to the pits the wrong way down the circuit. The marshals objected, pointing out that the pitlane was about to open for qualifying for one of the support races.

“I had to drive a lap of the circuit with poor old Dave perched on the rear wing,” recalls Luckett. “These little Formula 3 cars, I think they were, were buzzing past us on their out-laps as we made our way back to the pits.”

The developments undoubtedly made a difference to the

DN8, reckons Jones. “We did a few little bits to the car, slimmed it down and certainly improved it,” he recalls. “It didn’t become a consistent frontrunner, but it did turn it into a car that was consistently in the top 10.”

The upturn in Shadow’s fortunes coincided with the return of Tony Southgate, the architect of the DN5 that had claimed pole position in Argentina and Brazil with Jean-pierre Jarier in 1975. Much was made in the press at the time about the significance of that return. The truth is that he’d had little to do with the updates on the DN8 in Austria. They were the result of the efforts of Dave Wass, who’d stepped into his shoes just over a year earlier and was co-credited with the design of the

DN8 that had came on stream at the end of 1976.

“I’d actually only been back for three or four weeks, but it still detracted from what Wassy had done,” recalls Southgate, who’d spent 15 months at Lotus. “All I did was twiddle the knobs a bit. They were his bits.”

The revised Shadow went to the grid, like everyone else, on wet-weather tyres after a heavy rain shower in the build-up to the race. But when the sun came out there was a mass switch to slicks. Only four cars took the start on grooved rubber.

Opting for slicks was a no-brainer for Jones. “I was always of the opinion that if you’re down in 14th place or whatever on the grid, you’ve got nothing to lose by going to slicks,” he recalls. “And anyway, I’d always been fairly good in those wet-dry conditions.”

“I’VE ALWAYS DRIVEN 100% TO THE LAST LAP, AND WHAT COMES WILL COME. I WAS ALWAYS

HEAD DOWN AND BUM UP”

Jones wasn’t dissuaded of his opinion when team-mate Arturo Merzario, in for regular Shadow number two Riccardo Patrese after his sponsorship money didn’t arrive, came past him on wets from 21st on the grid as early as lap two. “I was pretty convinced that I’d made the right decision because I could already feel the track drying,” he explains. “I thought that if it continued like it was, I’d be seeing him again shortly.”

Merzario made it as high as sixth before ducking into the pits for slicks at the end of lap nine. By that time, Jones was up to eighth and every car he’d passed, like his Shadow, was on slicks.

They included Lauda’s Ferrari, which would end up second to Jones at the chequered flag. Next up, he passed Patrick Tambay’s Ensign and had moved to fourth by lap 12 when first Gunnar

Nilsson pitted his Lotus 78 to go from wets to slicks and then the Nicholson-mclaren Cosworth in race leader

Mario Andretti’s sister car blew up.

Four laps later, Jones was up to second, passing Hans Stuck’s Brabham-alfa Romeo one lap and then the Wolf driven by

Jody Scheckter the next. The unfancied Shadow was flying.

Jones was taking some unconventional lines on the damp track, most notably at the ultra-fast, banked Bosch Kurve and then the final corner named in honour of Jochen Rindt.

“I did have the tendency to take some unusual lines and I probably did in Austria,” he says. “What I was doing was what I call letting the car have its nose. My father [Stan, winner of the 1959 non-championship Australian Grand Prix] taught me that cars go quicker when the wheels are pointing straight. If you can hug the kerb and then straight-line it out, you can normally get the power down a lot earlier.”

Second position appeared to be as far as Jones was going to get, though that would still have been Shadow’s best grand prix finish. Hunt was 12s up the road when the Shadow made it past Scheckter, the Mclaren edging away as the laps ticked by. The gap stood at 23s when the development Cosworth in the back of Hunt’s M26 cried enough on lap 44. Jones and Shadow were now leading a grand prix, and by a healthy margin from Lauda.

Jones reckons he never thought about his chances of becoming a grand prix winner at the 31st time of asking when he was trailing Hunt. That was not his style.

“I never sat in a car and thought ‘I can win this’ or ‘I can’t win this’,” he says. “I’ve always driven 100% to the last lap, and what comes will come. I was always head down and bum up. Everything came together that day. The car suited the conditions. It was quite a heavy, soft old thing and that’s what the conditions required.”

Southgate agrees with that assessment. “It definitely suited the conditions and the circuit,” he says. “We had a good balance and Jonesy was able to extract the most out of it. He was that kind of driver.

“He was the best driver we ever had at Shadow. He wasn’t necessarily the quickest, but he had the best racecraft. He had mechanical sympathy and was the type of driver who could always get the car home.”

Luckett has good memories of Jones, too. He credits him with effectively saving Shadow after the shock of losing

Pryce. “He made all the difference with the effort and sheer guts he put into it,” says Luckett. “He was the one who kept the team going really. I remember Jonesy saying when he arrived, ‘I guarantee you I’ll get you 20 points this season’. And that’s what he did.”

The revised DN8 was good enough for Jones to get on the podium at Monza and he followed it up with a pair of fourths in the final two GPS of the season at Mosport and Fuji. His final tally from 14 of the 17 races he contested was 22 points.

An upturn in reliability played its part: Southgate explains that the team started to life consumable parts for the first time after his return. So, too, did the revisions to the DN8, while Jones reckons the Austria win also buoyed his confidence.

“It was probably a subconscious thing, but I think my confidence increased,” he says. “You’ve won a race, so you get into the car with the belief that you can do it again if things go your way.”

Victory at the Osterreichring also raised Jones’s stock in the paddock. Within weeks, Ferrari had his signature on an option for the following season. It ultimately didn’t take it up, preferring instead to bring in Gilles Villeneuve, but Jones was still heading places.

Not that he knew it at the time.

“When you become a professional racing driver, your dream is to get to Formula 1,” he says. “When you get to F1, your dream is to win a GP. I remember turning around to my wife and saying, ‘I don’t care what happens now, I’ve won a GP’.”