Ambassadors

Jones senior ran a Holden dealership in their native Melbourne and his son was driving as soon as he could. Fired by watching his father race, Alan Jones travelled to Europe in 1967 but did not have the money to race in Formula Ford as intended.


Jones and compatriot Brian McGuire bought and sold cars in order to find the budget to progress in their chosen sport. Jones eventually bought a Formula 3 Lotus 41 but his stuttering career was further delayed when he broke a leg testing the car at Brands Hatch.They eventually had done enough deals (selling camper vans to travellers visiting from Down Under) to run a pair of Brabhams in the 1970 British Formula 3 Championships under the Australian International Racing Organisation banner. 



Jones finally scored his breakthrough victory at the following season’s August Bank Holiday meeting at Castle Combe – his BT28 winning in the rain.

Without a drive at the start of 1974, Jones made the sideways switch to British Formula Atlantic after the season had already begun, driving a March 74B for former British F3 Champion Harry Stiller. Jones won four times but mechanical failures prevented a sustained title challenge. 



Despite that, he finished as runner-up in the Southern Organs Championship and fourth in the John Player standings.

Jones was at the centre of a storm when he made his next F1 move – driving a Durex-sponsored Surtees TS19-Ford in the 1976 Race of Champions. The BBC cancelled its broadcast of the Brands Hatch non-championship race, officially because of the “unacceptable volume of advertising on racing cars” and denying their action was specifically due to the London Rubber Company’s high profile
support of one car.

The race, when it finally started, provided Jones’s finest day so
far for he led until half-distance before finishing second behind James Hunt’s McLaren. That prompted Surtees to sign him for the rest of the season although team boss and driver soon clashed.

Existing commitments with Theodore’s North American Formula 5000 team yielded victories at Mosport Park and Watkins Glen
but tested his relationship with John Surtees. Jones completed the season by finishing fourth in the Japanese GP before walking away from Surtees and F1.

He joined Williams Grand Prix Engineering in 1978 – driving the single Saudia Airlines-sponsored Williams FW06-Ford for the newly reconstituted.

Patrick Head’s first design for the team was a neat and effective chassis with which Jones was regularly qualifying in the top 10 by the end of the season. Fourth in South Africa and fifth at Paul Ricard, Jones finished the United States GP in second place at the climax of a promising season for team and driver.

In addition, his Lola T333-Chevrolet won five times on the way to Jones clinching the 1978 Can-Am Challenge for Haas-Hall Racing.Bolstered by his most competitive F1 season so far, team owner Frank Williams expanded to a two-car operation in 1979 by adding the experienced Clay Regazzoni to the line-up.

Even more important was the introduction of the “ground effect” FW07 at the Spanish GP. Jones, who had finished third at Long Beach on the final appearance of the FW06, was suddenly the fastest man in the field although poor reliability prevented a title challenge that year. Jones retired from the lead of the British GP (handing Williams’ first victory to Regazzoni) but the Australian then won four of the next five GPs.