The eighties - the era of turbo engines in F1 history

The eighties were the decade in F1 history 1 in which the sport got a new major teams and drivers, in which some of the greatest legends died, and the age of new technical innovations of which the most important were turbocharged engines.

Beginning of the decade was marked by the rise of a new great driver and new great team. Nelson Piquet, the Brazilian driver, have won two World Championships in 1981 and 1983 driving for Brabham team, owned at the time by Bernie Ecclestone. There is an interesting fact that at the end of the seventies the first job of Nelson Piquet in Formula One was to wash the parts of the cars for the Brabham team.

A new great team that also rise at the beginning of the decade was the Williams, which was owned by Englishman Frank Williams. In the early eighties the drivers of that team have won two titles of world champions, and that way they marked the beginning of the rise of a new major team, that will be important to the future of Formula 1.

The middle part of the eighties in F1 history and the middle part of the turbo era was marked by the McLaren team. In 1984, Niki Lauda, who was the McLaren's driver at the time, had won his third world championship. Next two years a new talented young driver from France named Alain Prost have won two titles while driving for McLaren. At that time the turbo engines were totally dominant and the teams which did not have them on their cars didn’t have any chances to win the races.

The second half of the decade was marked by four major drivers and two great teams. Those were McLaren's drivers - Alain Prost and young Brazilian driver named Ayrton Senna . On the other hand, their competitors were the Williams team drivers - Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell from England. Senna quickly became the favorite of the audience because of his incredible talent and great courage on the race track. He had won his first title in 1988. The last years of the eighties will be remembered as the time of great rivalry between Senna and Prost. They even pushed each other off the track to win championship titles.

In that decade, the racing world has lost two great men. Gilles Villeneuve was killed in 1982 in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix on the track in Zolder. And on August 14th 1988 Enzo Ferrari  – founder of the Ferrari team died of natural causes at the age of 90 years old.