Alan Jones, the last Australian to win the Formula 1 world championship, died Thursday on the Gold Coast at 80 following a short illness. The 1980 champion built his legacy in the ground-effect revolution at Williams, winning 12 grands prix and going toe-to-toe with the sport's biggest names in an era when the cars were lethal and the racing was raw. Jones nearly signed with Ferrari for 1978 until Enzo pulled the rug out and took Villeneuve instead — a slight that sent him to Williams, where he and Patrick Head's FW07 rewrote the rule book. He won five times in his title year, then led Williams to the constructors' crown in 1981 before retiring, burned out by the grind. He came back twice, raced everything from V8 Supercars to Le Mans, and spent decades as a TV commentator pulling no punches. Jones remains the last Australian to win his home grand prix, a drought now stretching 46 years.
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