1979 United States Grand Prix West
| Race details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 4 of 15 in the 1979 Formula One season | |||
 |
|||
| Date | April 8, 1979 | ||
| Official name | 4th United States Grand Prix West | ||
| Location | Long Beach, California | ||
| Course | Temporary street course | ||
| Course length | 3.251 km (2.02 mi) | ||
| Distance | 80 laps, 260.08 km (161.60 mi) | ||
| Weather | Sunny and warm with temperatures reaching up to 66 °F (19 °C); winds gusting up to 8 miles per hour (13 km/h) | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | Ferrari | ||
| Time | 1:18.825 | ||
| Fastest lap | |||
| Driver |
 Gilles Villeneuve
|
Ferrari | |
| Time | 1:21.20 | ||
| Podium | |||
| First | Ferrari | ||
| Second | Ferrari | ||
| Third | Williams-Ford | ||
The 1979 United States Grand Prix West was a Formula One motor race held on April 8, 1979, at Long Beach, California.
Canadian Gilles Villeneuve captured pole, fastest lap and the win for Ferrari, followed by teammate Jody Scheckter, as the Prancing Horses took a big step toward reclaiming the Constructor's and Driver's Championships from Lotus. Villeneuve's second straight win came by almost half a minute over Scheckter, as Alan Jones joined them on the podium for Williams. It was the third win of Villeneuve's career, his second consecutive, and the third United States Grand Prix win in a row for Ferrari.
Qualifying was a battle between Ferrari, Lotus and Ligier, and, as is usually the case at Long Beach, the circuit was littered with broken cars by the end of each session. Carlos Reutemann, in the second Lotus, held the pole until the very end of the final session, when Villeneuve bumped him.
With only Ferrari and Renault on Michelin tires, Villeneuve was able to use seven sets of qualifiers in the final session, while the Goodyear runners had only two sets per car. On his final charge, Villeneuve switched off his rev limiter at the end of the straight, raising the revs by 200 to 12,600 and giving him enough extra speed to pip Reutemann by six hundredths of a second. Scheckter was third, ahead of the two Ligiers of Patrick Depailler and Jacques Laffite, then Mario Andretti in sixth.
On Saturday morning, Jean-Pierre Jabouille had a driveshaft on his Renault break on the curving back "straight," flinging him into the wall at 180 mph. A badly sprained arm would keep him out of the race. Then, in the Sunday morning warmup, a stronger version of the driveshaft, produced by the team in the garage, broke on teammate René Arnoux's car. Rather than taking a chance on duplicating Jabouille's incident, the team withdrew their remaining car from the race, allowing Derek Daly's Ensign onto the starting grid.
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