1981 Canadian Grand Prix

1981 Canadian Grand Prix
Race 14 of 15 in the 1981 Formula One World Championship
Race details
Date 27 September 1981
Official name XX Grand Prix du Canada
Location Circuit Île Notre-Dame
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Course Temporary street circuit
Course length 4.410 km (2.740 miles)
Distance 63 laps, 277.830 km (172.636 miles)
Scheduled distance 70 laps, 308.700 km (191.817 miles)
Weather Wet and cold with temperatures up to 20 °C (68 °F); wind speeds up to 15 kilometres per hour (9.3 mph)[1]
Pole position
Driver Brabham-Ford
Time 1:29.211
Fastest lap
Driver United Kingdom John Watson McLaren-Ford
Time 1:49.475 on lap 43
Podium
First Talbot Ligier-Matra
Second McLaren-Ford
Third Ferrari
Lap leaders

The 1981 Canadian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Circuit Île Notre-Dame, Montreal on 27 September 1981. It was the fourteenth race of the 1981 Formula One World Championship.

The race was run in wet conditions, and ended after 63 of the scheduled 70 laps due to the two-hour time limit.[2] Frenchman Jacques Laffite won in a Talbot Ligier-Matra, with Northern Ireland's John Watson second in a McLaren-Ford and local hero Gilles Villeneuve third in a Ferrari. Brazilian Nelson Piquet finished fifth in his Brabham-Ford, having started from pole position, while Drivers' Championship rival, Argentine Carlos Reutemann, could only manage tenth in his Williams-Ford. Piquet thus moved within one point of Reutemann with one race to go, while the win gave Laffite an outside chance of the title. Despite both Reutemann and Australian teammate Alan Jones failing to score, Williams clinched the Constructors' Championship.

This would turn out to be Laffite's final F1 victory, as well as the last for the Ligier team for fifteen years, until the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix. It was also the last time the Canadian Grand Prix was held in the fall, as the race would move to June the following year.

  1. ^ "Weather information for the "1981 Canadian Grand Prix"". The Old Farmers' Almanac. Retrieved 8 September 2014.
  2. ^ Jenkinson, Denis (November 1981). "The Canadian Grand Prix: Heroes all". Motor Sport. p. 72. Retrieved 17 February 2018.

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