Alan Jones returns to Adelaide Motorsport Festival to be reunited with Beatrice Lola car

An Australian motor racing legend will be reunited with the first Formula One car to drive on the iconic Adelaide street circuit - but it’s not a reunion he’s especially excited about.

It was a special moment in Adelaide’s history – especially if you were a revhead.

Former world champion Alan Jones steered his red Beatrice Lola onto the track and completed a ceremonial solo lap to the roars of a crowd celebrating the first day of the inaugural Adelaide Grand Prix.

The year was 1985 and Jones and the Lola were creating history by becoming the first Formula One driver and car on the newly minted street circuit that would be home to the Australian Grand Prix for the next decade.

You might think that sharing such a moment would create a special bond between man and machine. A bond that man (in this case Jones) would be jumping out of his skin to recreate.

Hmmm. Maybe not.

Jones will, indeed, be reunited with that Lola-Hart THL1 (aka Beatrice Lola) at this year’s Adelaide Motorsport Festival to commemorate the 40th anniversary of that historic race.

But it’s not a reunion he will particularly relish.

“We used to call it the hand grenade, because it was never a matter of if, it was always a matter of when it would blow up,” Jones, 78, says as we chat over the phone.

“The actual chassis itself was quite good, and it was very nicely built, but the engine was just a nightmare … it was a boy trying to do a man’s job.”

The Beatrice Lola-Hart F1 car that Alan Jones drove at the first Adelaide F1 Grand Prix in 1985.

The newly formed Team Haas had lured Jones out of retirement in ’85 but the Beatrice Lola was a disaster from the start, retiring after six laps in its first race and finishing just one of its six Grand Prix starts.

The idea of competing in the first Australian Grand Prix for championship points was another important carrot for the 1980 world champion who had retired from F1 at the end of 1981.

“One of the contributing factors (for me coming out of retirement) was the fact that the Australian Grand Prix was going towards the world championships, so that was something that appealed to me,” Jones said.

“And then I got there and (former F1 supremo) Bernie (Ecclestone) gave me the privilege of being the first car to lap the circuit – it was great.

“Poor old Ken Terryll from the Terryll team said I was getting an unfair advantage – well he obviously had no idea of the car I was driving.”

Jones’s dry sense of humour is obvious as we chat, and we joke that one lap was never going to be enough head start considering the car he was driving.

“I needed to start the night before,” he says.

Team Haas had planned to power the Beatrice Lola with a powerful Ford engine that never materialised, so Jones was left driving what he describes as “basically a Formula Two” engine.

“I was told ‘you’re going to see American muscle at its best now’,” he says. “Needless to say it never got to the gym because it was bloody hopeless.”

Despite all that, the car did have its moments. After qualifying 19th and stalling at the start of that historic first Adelaide Grand Prix, Jones started half a lap behind all other competitors. But he “drove my bloody heart out” to storm through the field to be sixth by lap 20, before electrical issues forced him to retire.

Alan Jones talks with Bernie Eccleston as he waits for the green light for his first lap at the 1985 Adelaide Grand Prix. Picture: Graham Tidy

The self-confessed revhead remains the last Australian to win both his home Grand Prix and the world title. He followed the footsteps of his father Stan when he won the non-championship Australian GP at Calder Park in Victoria in 1980, the same year he became our first world champion since Sir Jack Brabham won his third crown in 1966.

Despite that inauspicious first race, Melbourne born Jones remains full of praise for the Adelaide street circuit and the city’s motor racing heritage.

“Quite frankly, I think Adelaide was always a much better Grand Prix than the Melbourne Grand Prix,” he says.

“In fact I’d love to see the Grand Prix go back to Adelaide. I enjoy going to Adelaide. I really enjoy the festival of speed (Adelaide Motorsport Festival).

“The people are friendly. You can walk around and see all the cars. It’s a much better event than the Australian Grand Prix.”

Jones became a respected F1 commentator after he retired from the sport and says he still misses the adrenaline rush and the perks of competing at the highest level.

He says the sport has changed enormously since he debuted 50 years ago in the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix.

Former Australian Formula One world champion Alan Jones. Picture: Marie Nirme

“I think modern Formula One, it’s become more theatrical,” he says. “It’s more or less like a bloody movie, you know, it’s, I mean, I’m sure half of them won’t be long before they start turning up with their own makeup artists.”

Jones will be one of several former F1 drivers in Adelaide for the Adelaide Motorsport Festival on March 8-9. Damon Hill, Thierry Boutsen, David Brabham and Valtteri Bottas are among other big names at the Victoria Park-based event.

Former world champion Hill will drive his first Grand Prix car, the 1992 Brabham BT60B Judd, at the event. It will be the first time Hill has driven an F1 car in Adelaide since he won the last Adelaide Grand Prix in 1995. Boutsen, the 1989 Adelaide Grand Prix winner, will drive a 1990 Benetton F1 car.

The Beatrice Lola that drove that historic first lap of the Adelaide track 40 years ago will recreate that moment at this year’s motorsport festival. Jones, however, won’t be behind the wheel.

When asked if he has any fond memories of the car, anything at all, he’s categorical in his reply.

“No,” he says. “I’m not even going to sit in it … it will bring back all the nightmares.”

The Adelaide Motorsport Festival, which will feature categories including Formula 1, V8 Supercars, sportscars, touring cars and motorbikes, will be at Victoria Park on March 8 and 9.

Originally published as Alan Jones returns to Adelaide Motorsport Festival to be reunited with Beatrice Lola car