From the archive: Two of the best laps of F1 racing you'll ever see
Credit: Motorsport Images
Despite being the first F1 win for Renault and a turbo car, France 1979 stands out for the battle between Arnoux and Villeneuve
It would truly take something monumental to overshadow the first Formula 1 win for a team or the first for a revolutionary technology, let alone both at once.
Yet what stood out in the 1979 French Grand Prix was not Jean-Pierre Jabouille winning in his turbocharged Renault RS11 but the battle behind him over the last three laps.
Almost immediately after the finish, the Renault team manager, Gérard Larrousse, took aside his junior driver, René Arnoux.
This was only the young Frenchman's 13th start in the sport, and third place at Dijon behind Jabouille and Ferrari's Gilles Villeneuve represented not just his first podium but also his first points finish.
Arnoux's boss did so not to praise him, but to invite him to watch the footage of himself battling the Ferrari 312T4 over the final three laps. You should do the same, especially if you never have before. (It's easy to find on YouTube.)
"Larrousse winked at the crowd gathering around," Autocar's Peter Windsor wrote in his after-race report. “And so they ran the film – of Villeneuve diving inside the Renault with two laps to go.
"Smoke shrouds the Ferrari as it peels into the apex, but Gilles is there and René drops back to third place.
"René opens his eyes wide, a young kid waiting for the next bit of action. Larrousse sits impassively, the master in charge.
"Next lap – and it is the last lap – it is Arnoux inside Villeneuve. He has the line at the end of the straight, but the Ferrari follows him right round the outside, and the two bash wheels as they vie to become the first to apply their power.
"Arnoux looks sideways and gives Larrousse a grin. Larrousse pats him on the shoulder.
"But then comes the real action. Arnoux has the line for an instant. Then it is Villeneuve sweeping to the other side for the downhill plunge, looking perfectly set up for the apex. He is so, and Arnoux runs wide – in fourth gear – over the kerb, into the dirt and off the throttle.
"Villeneuve is in front as the Renault rejoins – but only just. Again the two touch wheels, and the Ferrari slides sideways into what seems like the beginning of a very big spin. But it doesn't spin – Gilles catches it – and the two are side by side going into the slow downhill left.
"They touch wheels for a third time, they both give a squiggle off-line, and it is Arnoux who gets it together first, booting it towards the hairpin with second place seemingly in the bag.
"Then he makes a mistake. He chooses a wide, conventional entry for the right-hand hairpin and in a flash Villeneuve is inside him and on the power, smiling, almost at the ease of the manouevre. Then the Renault has no chance, and it is Gilles who crosses the line in second place.
"Arnoux slaps his palm against his forehead and asks how he could have been so stupid. After all that, after all the wheel-banging, how could he have left the door wide open? He turns to Larrousse in horror, ashen-faced at the sudden memory of his mistake.
"But there are no reprimands, no words. Instead, Larrousse gets to his feet and begins the applause. René, red-eyed, is clapped all the way to the door."
Arnoux would go on to live up to the promise of that performance, winning rounds two and three of the 1980 season, before earning a move from Renault to Ferrari for 1984 and finishing third in the title race. He would retire in 1989 with 22 podiums and seven wins to his name.
Sadly, Villeneuve never got the chance. After finishing second in 1979, having obeyed team orders that knocked him out of the title race, he endured two seasons in terrible Ferraris before being killed aged just 32 in a crash during qualifying for the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder.
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