Watkins Glen, then a favourite amongst F1 fans and a mainstay on the calendar since the 1960s, was originally intended to be the venue for the last race of 1981, but with the season already under-way, it was dropped from the calendar due to financial difficulties. F1 organisers turned to Nevada and decided the race would be held in Las Vegas. The Caesars Palace Grand Prix venue was a makeshift construction around the Caesars Palace casino parking lot; a circuit wide enough for overtaking with sandy run-off areas, but, due to the desert-like heat in Las Vegas and the anticlockwise circuit, it proved to be a challenge for the fittest of drivers and has gone down in history as one of the worst Grand Prix venues in history. However on both occasions the race was held, they were championship-deciders, and the 1981 Caesars Palace Grand Prix was the first of those occasions.
Before the race, Carlos Reutemann of Williams led the championship ahead of Brabham’s Nelson Piquet by one point, despite Piquet winning more races, with the final contender being Ligier’s Jacques Laffite, who kept his slim chances of being World Champion alive after winning the previous race in Canada.
In qualifying, Reutemann, with his best and possibly last chance to win the championship in front of him, put his Williams on pole, with team-mate Alan Jones, in his final race for Williams, second. Piquet was fourth on the grid with Laffite’s already-difficult task made harder by qualifying a lowly 12th. Many drivers suffered with heat exhaustion during practice, with Piquet particularly affected with what was dubbed “Las Vegas neck”. Jones, whose relationship with Reutemann soured earlier in the season, stated: “I would not go holding up people as I am a member of the British Commonwealth and I would consider that unsporting.”
The race got underway with Jones storming into the lead, and led by five seconds by the end of lap one, with Reutemann down in fifth, who then lost fourth gear. 15 laps later, Piquet got past Reutemann after the Argentine inexplicably braked early. Reutemann dropped out of the points, still struggling with gearbox problems. Jones built-up a commanding lead and paced himself to the finish; Gilles Villeneuve retired with an engine fire, but had already been disqualified for lining up improperly on the grid. Piquet’s head began to visibly roll around the cockpit, suffering with extreme exhaustion but managed to stay in the points. Jones won the race with Alain Prost second, with Alfa Romeo’s Bruno Giacomelli finishing third after an impressive driver after recovering from an early spin. Nigel Mansell brought his Lotus home in fourth ahead of Piquet, who took the championship from Reutemann, who eventually finished eighth and a lap down, by a solitary point.
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