| He may be in his mid 50s but the sparkle in Arnoux’s
eyes remains as bright as it was at the peak of his F1 career with
Renault between 1979-1982. Many saw him as both a hero and villain.
Take the French GP of 1982, for example, when, against team orders,
he led team-mate Alain Prost across the line for a famous home 1-2.
He was – and still is – a young boy at heart who simply
loved racing for all the things it was meant to be. And it was something
at which he excelled.
Who will ever forget the final laps of the 1979 French GP at Dijon
when he and Ferrari’s Gilles Villeneuve literally drove one
another off the road fighting over second place. They locked wheels,
banged into one another, drove down the inside and outside of one
another. People remember those amazing final laps but the record
books show Arnoux’s team-mate, Jean-Pierre Jabouille, was
up front achieving Renault’s first F1 victory.
Renault F1 Victories:
Interlagos, Brazil, 1980; Kyalami, South Africa, 1980; Paul Ricard,
France, 1982; Monza, Italy, 1982 (plus Montreal, Canada, 1983; Hockenheim,
Germany, 1983; Zandvoort, Holland, 1983, for Ferrari) |
