It may have been 13 years since he won his Formula 1 World Drivers’ Championship, but the first in the belly of Alan Jones had not disappeared.
Since becoming just the second Australian to win the Formula 1 World Drivers’ Championship in 1980, Jones had been in the wilderness after retiring from the sport’s top-tier just a year later.
Jones left Formula 1 disenfranchised after his fiery battle with Carlos Reutemann, which cost both the championship in the end and retired to a farm in Australia.
For the next decade, Jones endured a less than successful career in touring car racing, sports cars and a return to Formula 1 courtesy of Team Haas.
After settling in Australia during the late-1980s, Jones gave touring cars a fair crack by first re-linking up with Colin Bond after the duo led Alfa Romeo’s efforts in 1985, then joining Frank Gardner’s team.
On the eve of a new era in 1992, Jones made the move to Glenn Seton Racing and a touring car title contender.
The Peter Jackson-backed squad debuted a Ford EB Falcon at the Sandown 500 built to the new 1993 Group 3A formula.
Unlike fellow Ford team Dick Johnson Racing’s concept, which was more akin to a Sports Sedan, GSR was in the spirit of the new rules and this set-up a title-winning season for the operation.
Although DJR won the opening round, but Seton and Jones split the next six rounds between them in an utter run of dominance as Ford remained undefeated until Round 8 at Wanneroo Raceway.
Symmons Plains was a controversial event for Jones as in a matter of corners he spun Mark Skaife exiting the hairpin and contacted Wayne Gardner in what was an aggressive move around the outside of what is now the final corner.
A heated Skaife met Jones post-race to highlight his anger at being tipped into a spin.
Jones led the standings entering Round 5 at Winton after victories at Symmons Plains and Lakeside, plus a third at Lakeside.
The rural Victorian circuit though was not a happy hunting ground for Jones after a spectacular multi-car incident sparked by Bowe rotating Skaife, which sent Tomas Mezera spearing into the Peter Jackson Falcon in avoidance.
Jones was back on the podium at Eastern Creek, but lacklustre results to end the season at Mallala, Wanneroo and Oran Park dropped him away from his teammate although maintained a GSR 1-2 in the standings.
Seton and Jones continued to be a formidable team until the end of 1995, before the Grand Prix winner took sponsor Peter Jackson to his new operation led by New Zealand brothers Jim and Ross Stone.
New regulations banning tobacco advertising led to the new Jones team being named Pack Leader Racing. This lasted a season as Jones was to struggle for sponsorship through the start of the V8 Supercars era.
For Seton, he was forced to slim down to a single entry for 1996 sponsored by Ford Credit and this proved a success as he won the first title under the V8 Supercars moniker.
In 1999, Seton received factory backing from the Blue Oval until his squad was absorbed by Prodrive in 2003 to form Ford Performance Racing.