Jones won the World Championship in 1980 with Williams, taking seven race wins that season and defeating Nelson Piquet by 13 points. He announced his retirement after the 1981 season, but could not entirely stay away from the sport. A one-off return with Arrows at the 1983 United States Grand Prix West at Long Beach ended in retirement after 58 laps, and he drove again for Arrows at the non-championship Race of Champions at Brands Hatch, finishing third.
Jones's connection with Team Haas owner Carl Haas predated the F1 project: in 1978, Jones had raced a Lola in the Can-Am series for Haas, winning the championship. In August 1985, just weeks before his full-time F1 return, Jones substituted for injured Newman-Haas driver Mario Andretti at a CART race at Road America and finished third in the Champ Car field.
Carl Haas recruited Jones to lead his new Formula One team, which was entered under the Lola name and backed by Beatrice Foods. Jones was 39 at the time of his return — an age at which a majority of drivers had already retired permanently. The team had created FORCE (Formula One Race Car Engineering) in Colnbrook, England to design and build the cars, but the anticipated Ford TEC V6 engine was delayed, forcing the team to race with a Hart turbocharged straight-four producing around 750 bhp.
The THL1 made its debut at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, where Jones qualified 25th of 26 cars, 9.859 seconds behind Ayrton Senna's pole time, and retired after six laps. He was absent from the South African Grand Prix — officially through illness, though Jones later described how the withdrawal had been arranged by Bernie Ecclestone to shield Beatrice Foods from pressure by civil rights activists opposing participation in apartheid-era South Africa.
At the season finale in Adelaide — the first Australian Grand Prix as a World Championship round — Jones stalled on the grid and dropped to last place, then charged back up to sixth before retiring on lap 20 with electrical problems. The recovery drive in front of his home crowd demonstrated he retained the commitment and pace that had made him champion five years earlier.
For 1986, Patrick Tambay joined Jones at the team, and the new THL2 — designed specifically for the Ford TEC V6 — appeared at the San Marino Grand Prix. The car was widely praised for its handling, but the engine produced around 900 bhp in a field where Honda, Renault and BMW units were delivering significantly more power, limiting competitiveness on circuits where straight-line speed mattered.
Jones scored four championship points during 1986. His best individual result was fourth at the Austrian Grand Prix, where mechanical failures for several leading teams allowed the underpowered Haas entries to run near the front. A slipping clutch on Jones's car reduced wheelspin and, combined with a no-stop strategy that kept him on track while faster cars pitted, allowed him to take the position. He added a point for sixth at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
The team finished the season in financial difficulty after Beatrice Foods progressively reduced and eventually withdrew their sponsorship following a management change at the company. Jones retired from Formula One permanently at the end of 1986 after 12 wins, 6 pole positions and one world title across his career.
After retiring from single-seater racing, Jones competed extensively in Australian touring cars, including seasons in Ford Falcons and a 1–2 result at the 1995 Bathurst 1000. He became a television commentator for Channel Nine's Formula One coverage in Australia in 1987, a role he held until 2002.
Jones's Haas Beatrice tenure is assessed as a dignified if ultimately unrewarding comeback. The car's handling quality suggested the team had genuine engineering capability, but the Ford engine's power deficit relative to the front-running turbos was too large to overcome with chassis balance alone.
Gallery · 4 related images
