Brabham began the 1982 season with two BMW-powered BT50 chassis at the South African Grand Prix, where Piquet and Patrese qualified second and fourth respectively, but retired early in the race.

Piquet qualified on pole from Jones but used a car in fragile qualifying specification to do it.

Reigning World Champion ( and local favourite ) Nelson Piquet qualified 7th in his Brabham-BMW, while a Formula One rookie by the name of Ayrton Senna qualified 17th for his first ever Grand Prix in his Toleman-Hart.

Piquet and Nakajima qualified 5th and 6th respectively, Piquet in front for having set his time earlier in the last qualifying session.

Nelson Piquet was looking good having qualified well and been 7th fastest in the warm-up.

Japanese Grand Prix winner Nelson Piquet qualified his Benetton-Ford in 7th with team mate Roberto Moreno 8th and 1989 race winner Thierry Boutsen 9th in his Williams.

Riccardo Patrese took his second consecutive pole position from team-mate Nigel Mansell, Ayrton Senna, Jean Alesi, Gerhard Berger, Nelson Piquet, Alain Prost, Stefano Modena, Roberto Moreno, and a surprising Olivier Grouillard in his Fondmetal, the first time the team had qualified for a race this season.

In his final season he only qualified 3 times, and his final Grand Prix saw him hit from behind by Nelson Piquet in torrential rain.

He also crashed out late in the race while leading at San Marino, but in a season which saw his team-mate Nelson Piquet claim his second Drivers ' Championship title, Patrese finished a distant ninth.

Piquet finished fourth ahead of Carlos Reutemann in the second Williams.

Despite finishing second to Piquet, Jones lost the world championship points lead.

Australian driver Alan Jones, driving a Williams FW07B, won his second consecutive Canadian Grand Prix, and coupled with the retirement of the Brabham BT49 of Brazilian driver Nelson Piquet due to the failure of its Cosworth DFV engine, this allowed Jones to secure the 1980 World Drivers ' Championship.

At the start Piquet passed Tambay to take the lead, with Patrese moving into second place.

The race finished with Patrese in first place, de Cesaris in second and Piquet in third, and Piquet won the championship by two points.

After intentionally dropping to 6th in order to save fuel, Alain Prost stormed through the field, passed 5 leading cars ( Nelson Piquet, Nigel Mansell, Andrea De Cesaris, Keke Rosberg and Ayrton Senna ) and battled with Senna ( who made an excellent start from fourth on the grid, had been leading almost every lap since lap 1, but eventually retired with fuel problems ) for much of the second half of the race.

Both Brazilian drivers in the race finished 1-2 in this race, with Nelson Piquet winning and Ayrton Senna finishing second.

However, the Finn retired with a tyre puncture on lap 63, handing the lead back to Piquet and elevating Mansell into second place, which would have been sufficient for the Englishman to secure the championship.

Piquet made a late charge to close the gap to 4. 2 seconds but Prost took victory to win his second of four titles.

The leader of the championship prior to the race was British driver Nigel Mansell ; six points behind him in second was Alain Prost, who was looking to defend his title and one point behind Prost was Mansell's teammate at Williams, Nelson Piquet.

To win the championship Mansell needed either third position or higher, or for both Prost and Piquet to finish in second place or lower.

His teammate, Nelson Piquet, and Lotus ' Ayrton Senna were the only drivers within a second of Mansell's time.

Mansell started from pole position but yielded the lead to Ayrton Senna's Lotus at the second corner on lap 1 and fell behind both Piquet and Keke Rosberg on the same lap.

Piquet charged back through the field, passing Mansell for second place on lap 44 but Prost closed on the two Williams cars and, with 25 laps to go, all three championship contenders were running together in positions 2, 3 and 4.

Mansell was elevated to second behind new leader Piquet, but Prost passed him almost immediately.

Fearing the same happening to the second car, Williams called Piquet to the pits and Prost took the lead.

When Prost stopped for fresh tyres the lead was briefly passed to Thierry Boutsen, who was performing admirably with his Benetton B187, before Piquet went back to first before his second stop, on lap 21.

Berger retired on lap three with a broken piston whilst on lap 10 second place Michele Alboreto's wheel bearing broke and Nelson Piquet retired with a broken turbo pipe, handing the lead to Alain Prost from Teo Fabi and Stefan Johansson.

Senna won by 33 second over fellow Brazilian Nelson Piquet driving a Williams FW11B with Italian Michele Alboreto scoring the first podium of the year for Ferrari in his Ferrari F1 / 87 in third place.

The pole position was claimed by Nigel Mansell in the Williams FW11B, second was Ayrton Senna in his Lotus 99T, and third was the other Williams of Nelson Piquet.

Piquet came home second from Alboreto in third and Gerhard Berger in fourth.

For the following race, the Belgian Grand Prix, Piquet and Patrese switched back to the BT50, but Piquet finished three laps behind the winner and Patrese retired.

He finished four points behind Piquet for the championship and three behind Reutemann.

However, when all the stops were over, Massa was behind Nelson Piquet, Jr. who had already pitted as he was on a one-stopper.

With three victories, at the Canadian, German, and Dutch Grands Prix, he was in contention for the world title for much of the season, but was left behind by his rivals Prost and Nelson Piquet in the championship run in.

Third on the grid, Nelson Piquet was almost two seconds behind in qualifying in his Brabham BT49.

Piquet was one point behind Jones with Pironi just one point further behind.

Arnoux faded to fifth behind Nelson Piquet ( Brabham BT49 ) with throttle problems with Reutemann taking the final point in sixth.

Piquet won the start and led the field into the La Source hairpin but behind him was chaos.

Following the tyre failures of Rosberg and Mansell, the Williams team called Piquet in for a pre-cautionary stop and he came out of the pits 15 seconds behind Prost.

He rejoined behind Piquet and the pair began to climb through the field.

Piquet was about 20 seconds behind Mansell, but on the final laps he was gaining at two seconds a lap.

Mansell's win put him into second place in the championship, tied with Piquet and one point behind Senna.

Mansell rejoined the race some 29 seconds behind Piquet, with 28 laps remaining.

Senna had a queue of both Ferraris, Prost's McLaren and Thierry Boutsen's Benetton behind him, which was joined by Piquet after a long pit-stop.

Piquet spent much of the race behind Senna's Lotus but was unable to find a way past his countryman.

Due to Berger's retirement, Thierry Boutsen climbed to 4th behind Michele Alboreto and ahead of a thrilling battle between Alessandro Nannini, Satoru Nakajima, Nelson Piquet, and the two Arrows.

On lap 22, the race order was Prost 2. 5 seconds ahead of Mansell, Boutsen a further 32 seconds behind, half a second ahead of Piquet ( Nannini had pitted for new tyres ) who was 25 seconds ahead of Alliot who was 1 second of Jean Alesi in his second ever Grand Prix.