text: Shastriji Maharaj sought to publicly reveal his ideas, and to worship Gunatitanand as the abode of Purushottam, c.q. Swamiarayan. However, his views were rejected by the sadhus of the Vadtal and Ahmedabad dioceses. For the sadhus of the Vadtal diocee, the idea that Swaminarayan had appointed Gunatitanand as his spiritual successor, instead of the two acharyas, was a heretical teaching, and they "refused to worship what they considered to be a human being." Shastriji Maharaj left Vadtal with five swamis and the support of about 150 devotees.


Paralleling Sahajand Swami's building of temples to propagate his teachings, Shastriji Maharaj then set out to build his own "mandir" to "house the devotional representations of Bhagwan and Guru" and propagate his understanding of Swaminarayan's teachings. On 5 June 1907, Shastriji Maharaj consecrated the murtis of Swaminarayan and Gunatitanand Swami in the central shrine of the shikharbaddha mandir he was constructing in the village of Bochasan in the Kheda District of Gujarat. This event was later seen to mark the formal establishment of the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, which was later abbreviated as BAPS. The Gujarati word Bochasanwasi implies hailing from Bochasan, since the organisation's first mandir was built in this village.


title: Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha

text: Shastriji Maharaj spent the majority of 1908–15 discoursing throughout Gujarat, while continuing construction work of mandirs in Bochasan and Sarangpur, gaining a group of devotees, admirers, and supporters. Over the next four decades, Shastriji Maharaj completed four more shikharbaddha mandirs in Gujarat (Sarangpur – 1916, Gondal – 1934, Atladra – 1945, and Gadhada – 1951).


text: On 12 August 1910 Shastriji Maharaj met his eventual successor, Yogiji Maharaj, at the house of Jadavji in Bochasan. Yogiji Maharaj was a resident swami at Junagadh Mandir (Saurashtra), where Gunatitanand Swami had served as mahant. Yogiji Maharaj regarded Gunatitanand Swami as Akshar and also served the murti of Harikrishna Maharaj which had previously been worshiped by Gunatitanand Swami. As he already believed in the doctrine being preached by Shastriji Maharaj, Yogiji Maharaj left Junagadh on 9 July 1911 with six swamis to join Shastriji Maharaj's mission.


text: On 7 November 1939, 17-year-old Shantilal Patel (who would become Pramukh Swami Maharaj) left his home and was initiated by Shastriji Maharaj into the parshad order, as Shanti Bhagat, on 22 November 1939, and into the swami order, as Narayanswarupdas Swami, on 10 January 1940. Initially, he studied Sanskrit and Hindu scriptures and served as Shastriji Maharaj's personal secretary. In 1946, he was appointed administrative head ("Kothari") of the Sarangpur mandir.


text: In the early part of 1950, Shastriji Maharaj wrote several letters to 28-year-old Shastri Narayanswarupdas expressing a wish to appoint him as the administrative president of the organisation. Initially, Shastri Narayanswarupdas was reluctant to accept the position, citing his young age and lack of experience and suggesting that an elderly, experienced swami should take the responsibility. However, Shastriji Maharaj insisted over several months, until, seeing the wish and insistence of his guru, Shastri Narayanswarupdas accepted the responsibility. On 21 May 1950 at Ambli-Vali Pol in Amdavad, Shastriji Maharaj appointed Shastri Narayanswarupdas as the administrative president (Pramukh) of BAPS. He instructed Shastri Narayanswarupdas, who now began to be referred to as Pramukh Swami, to ennoble Satsang under the guidance of Yogiji Maharaj.


text: In the last few years of his life, Shastriji Maharaj took steps to preserve the growth and future of BAPS by registering BAPS as a charitable trust in 1947 under India's new legal code.


text: After the death of Shastriji Maharaj on 10 May 1951, Yogiji Maharaj became the spiritual leader, or guru, of the organisation while Pramukh Swami continued to oversee administrative matters as president of the organisation. Yogiji Maharaj carried Shastriji Maharaj's mission of fostering the Akshar-Purushottam Upasana doctrine by building temples, touring villages, preaching overseas and initiating weekly local religious assemblies for children, youths and elders. In his 20 years as guru, from 1951 to 1971, he visited over 4,000 cities, towns and villages, consecrated over 60 mandirs and wrote over 5,45,000 letters to devotees.


text: This period of BAPS history saw an important expansion in youth activities. Yogiji Maharaj believed that in a time of profound and rapid social ferment, there was an imminent need to save the young from 'degeneration of moral, cultural and religious values'. To fill a void in spiritual activities for youths, Yogiji Maharaj started a regular Sunday gathering (Yuvak Mandal) of young men in Bombay in 1952. Brear notes, "His flair, dynamism and concern led within ten years to the establishment of many yuvak mandals of dedicated young men in Gujarat and East Africa".


text: In addition to providing religious and spiritual guidance, Yogiji Maharaj encouraged youths to work hard and excel in their studies. Towards realizing such ideals, he would often remind them to stay away from worldly temptations. A number of youths decided to take monastic vows. On 11 May 1961 during the Gadhada Kalash Mahotsav, he initiated 51 college-educated youths into the monastic order as swamis. Mahant Swami Maharaj initiated as Keshavjivandas Swami was one of the initiates.


text: Satsang in Africa had started during Shastriji Maharaj's lifetime, as many devotees had migrated to Africa for economic reasons. One of Shastriji Maharaj's senior swamis, Nirgundas Swami, engaged in lengthy correspondence with these devotees, answering their questions and inspiring them to start satsang assemblies in Africa. Eventually, in 1928, Harman Patel took the murtis of Akshar-Purushottam Maharaj to East Africa and started a small centre. Soon, the East Africa Satsang Mandal was established under the leadership of Harman Patel and Magan Patel.


text: In 1955, Yogiji Maharaj embarked on his first foreign tour to East Africa. The prime reason for the visit was to consecrate Africa's first Akshar-Purushottam temple in Mombasa. The temple was inaugurated on 25 April 1955. He also travelled to Nairobi, Nakuru, Kisumu, Tororo, Jinja, Kampala, Mwanza and Dar es salaam. His travels inspired the local devotees to begin temple construction projects. Due to the visit, in a span of five years, the devotees in Uganda completed the construction of temples in Tororo, Jinja and Kampala and asked Yogiji Maharaj to revisit Uganda to install the murtis of Akshar-Purushottam Maharaj. The rapid temple constructions in Africa were helped by the presence of early immigrants, mainly Leva Patels, who came to work as masons, and were particularly skilled in temple building.


text: As a result, Yogiji Maharaj made a second visit to East Africa in 1960 and consecrated hari mandirs in Kampala, Jinja and Tororo in Uganda. Despite his failing health, Yogiji Maharaj at the age of 78 undertook a third overseas tour of London and East Africa in 1970. Prior to his visit, the devotees had purchased the premises of the Indian Christian Union at Ngara, Kenya in 1966 and remodeled it to resemble a three-spired temple. Yogiji Maharaj inaugurated the temple in Ngara, a suburb of Nairobi in 1970.


text: In 1950, disciples Mahendra Patel and Purushottam Patel held small personal services at their homes in England. Mahendra Patel, a barrister by vocation, writes, "I landed in London in 1950 for further studies. Purushottambhai Patel...was residing in the county of Kent. His address was given to me by Yogiji Maharaj". Beginning 1953, D. D. Meghani held assemblies in his office that brought together several followers in an organized setting. In 1958, leading devotees including Navin Swaminarayan, Praful Patel and Chatranjan Patel from India and East Africa began arriving to the UK. They started weekly assemblies at Seymour Place every Saturday evening at a devotee's house. In 1959, a formal constitution was drafted and the group registered as the "Swaminarayan Hindu Mission, London Fellowship Centre". D.D. Megani served as Chairman, Mahendra Patel as Vice-Chairman and Praful Patel the secretary. On Sunday, 14 June 1970, the first BAPS temple in England was opened at Islington by Yogiji Maharaj. In this same year he established the Shree Swaminarayan Mission as a formal organisation.


text: Yogiji Maharaj was unable to travel to the United States during his consecutive foreign tours. Nonetheless, he asked Dr. K.C. Patel to begin satsang assemblies in the United States. He gave Patel the names of 28 satsangi students to help conduct [satsang] assemblies.


text: In 1970, Yogiji Maharaj accepted the request of these students and sent four swami to visit the U.S. The tour motivated followers to start satsang sabhas in their own homes every Sunday around the country. Soon, K.C. Patel established a non-profit organisation known as BSS under US law. Thus, a fledgling satsang mandal formed in the United States before the death of Yogiji Maharaj in 1971.


text: After Yogiji Maharaj's death, Pramukh Swami Maharaj became both the spiritual and administrative head of BAPS in 1971. He was the fifth spiritual guru of the BAPS organisation. Under his leadership, BAPS has grown into a global Hindu organisation and has witnessed expansion in several areas. His work has been built on the foundations laid by his gurus – Shastriji Maharaj and Yogiji Maharaj.


text: Immediately upon taking helm, Pramukh Swami Maharaj ventured on a hectic spiritual tour in the first decade of his role as the new Spiritual Guru. Despite health conditions—cataract operation in 1980—he continued to make extensive tours to more than 4000 villages and towns, visiting over 67,000 homes and performing image installation ceremonies in 77 temples in this first decade. He also embarked on a series of overseas tours beginning in 1974 as the guru. Subsequent tours were made in 1977, 1979, and 1980.


text: Overall, he embarked on a total of 28 international spiritual tours between 1974 and 2014. His travels were motivated by his desire to reach out to devotees for their spiritual uplift and to spread the teachings of Swaminarayan.


text: The personal outreach (vicharan) of the earlier era (1971–1981) by Pramukh Swami Maharaj through traveling to villages and towns, writing letters to devotees, and giving discourses contributed to sustaining a global BAPS community.


text: The Gujarati migration patterns in the early 1970s, globalization factors and economic dynamics between India and the West saw the organisation transform into a transnational devotional movement. organisational needs spanned from transmitting cultural identity through spiritual discourses to the newer much alienated generation in the new lands, temple upkeep and traveling to regional and local centres to disseminate spiritual knowledge. As a result, this era saw a significant rise in the number of swamis initiated to maintain the organisational needs of the community – both in India and abroad. Furthermore, having access to a greater volunteer force and community enabled the organisation to celebrate festivals on a massive scale which marked the arrival of a number of milestone anniversaries in the history of the organisation, including the bicentenary of Swaminarayan, bicentenary of Gunatitanand Swami, and the centenary of Yogiji Maharaj. Some effects of the celebration included a maturation of organisational capacity, increased commitment and skill of volunteers, and tangentially, an increased interest in the monastic path.


text: The Swaminarayan bicentenary celebration, a once in a life-time event for Swaminarayan followers, was held in Ahmedabad in April 1981. On 7 March 1981, 207 youths were initiated into the monastic order. In 1985 the bicentenary birth of Gunatitanand Swami was celebrated. During this festival, 200 youths were initiated into the monastic order.


text: The organisation held Cultural Festivals of India in London in 1985 and New Jersey in 1991. The month-long Cultural Festival of India was held at Alexandra Palace in London in 1985. The same festival was shipped to US as a month-long Cultural Festival of India at Middlesex County College in Edison, New Jersey.


text: Migrational patterns in the 70s led to a disproportionate number of Hindus in the diaspora. Culturally, a need arose to celebrate special festivals (Cultural Festival of India) to reach out to youths in the diaspora to foster understanding and appreciation of their mother culture in a context accessible to them. To engage the youths, festival grounds housed temporary exhibitions ranging from interactive media, dioramas, panoramic scenes and even 3D-exhibits.


text: By the end of the era, owing to the success of these festivals and the cultural impact it had on the youths, the organisation saw a need to create a permanent exhibition in the Swaminarayan Akshardham (Gandhinagar) temple in 1991.


text: In 1992, a month-long festival was held to both celebrate Yogiji Maharaj's centenary and to inaugurate a permanent exhibition and temple called Swaminarayan Akshardham (Gandhinagar). The festival also saw 125 youths initiated into the monastic order bringing the total number of swamis initiated to more than 700 in fulfillment to a prophecy made by Yogiji Maharaj.


text: In the third leg of the era, the organisation saw an unprecedented level of mandir construction activities taking place in order to accommodate the rapid rise of adherents across the global Indian diaspora. Initially, beginning with the inauguration of Swaminarayan Akshardham (Gandhinagar) in 1992. A number of shikharbaddha mandirs (large traditional stone mandirs) were inaugurated in major cities; Neasden (1995), Nairobi (1999), New Delhi (2004), Swaminarayan Akshardham (New Delhi) (2005), Houston (2004), Chicago (2004), Toronto (2007), Atlanta (2007), Los Angeles (2012), and Robbinsville (2014).


text: On 20 July 2012, in the presence of senior swamis in Ahmedabad, Pramukh Swami Maharaj revealed Keshavjivandas Swami (Mahant Swami) as his spiritual successor.


text: Following the death of Pramukh Swami Maharaj on 13 August 2016, Mahant Swami Maharaj became the 6th guru and president of BAPS. In 1961, he was ordained as a swami by Yogiji Maharaj and named Keshavjivandas Swami. Due to his appointment as the head (mahant) of the mandir in Mumbai, he became known as Mahant Swami.


text: He continues the legacy of the Aksharbrahma Gurus by visiting BAPS mandirs worldwide, guiding spiritual aspirants, initiating devotees, ordaining swamis, creating and sustaining mandirs, and encouraging the development of scriptures.


text: In his discourses, he mainly speaks on how one can attain God and peace through ridding one's ego (nirmani), seeing divinity in all (divyabhav), not seeing, talking, or adapting any negative nature or behavior of others (no abhav-avgun), and keeping unity (samp).


text: In 2017, he performed the ground-breaking ceremony for shikharbaddha mandirs in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Sydney, Australia, and in April 2019, he performed the ground-breaking ceremony for a traditional stone temple in Abu Dhabi.


text: In May 2021, six workers involved in the construction of a New Jersey temple filed suit against the temple administrators resulting in a government investigation of potential labor law violations. Spokespersons for BAPS said that the claims were without merit. In November 2021, the workers amended the suit to include BAPS temples across the United States and alleged that the temple authorities had misrepresented unskilled workers as specialists in stone carving and painting so that they qualified for R-1 visas. The lawsuit claims that the workers are recruited from Dalits and Adivasis, both marginalized communities in India.


text: The philosophy of BAPS is centreed on the doctrine of Akshar-Purushottam Upasana, in which followers worship Swaminarayan as God, or Purshottam, and his choicest devotee Gunatitanand Swami, as Akshar. The BAPS concurs that Akshar is the divine abode of Purushottam, and "an eternally existing spiritual reality having two forms, the impersonal and the personal" Followers of BAPS identify various scriptures and documented statements of Swaminarayan as supporting this understanding of Akshar within the Akshar-Purushottam Upasana. Through this lineage of the personal form of Akshar Swaminarayan is forever present on the earth. These gurus are essential in illuminating the path that needs to be taken by the jivas that earnestly desire to be liberated from the cycle of rebirth.


text: According to BAPS, Swaminarayan refers to Akshar in the Vachanamrut, with numerous appellations such as Sant, Satpurush, Bhakta and Swami, as having an august status that makes it an entity worth worshipping alongside God. In all BAPS mandirs the image of Akshar is placed in the central shrine and worshipped alongside the image of Purushottam. Furthermore, BAPS believes that by understanding the greatness of God's choicest devotee, coupled with devotion and service to him and God, followers are able to grow spiritually.


text: According to BAPS doctrines, followers aim to attain a spiritual state similar to Brahman which is ultimate liberation. To become an ideal Hindu, followers must identify with Brahman, separate from the material body, and offer devotion to god. As per the Akshar-Purushottam Upasana, each jiva attains liberation and true realization through association with the manifest form of Akshar, in the form of the God-realized guru, who offer spsirtual guidance. Jivas who perform devotion to this personal form of Brahman can, despite remaining ontologically different, attain a similar spiritual standing as Brahman and then go to Akshardham. It is only through the performance of devotion to Brahman that Parabrahman can be both realized and attained.


text: Devotees aim to follow the spiritual guidance of the manifest form of Akshar embedding the principles of righteousness (dharma), knowledge (gnan), detachment from material pleasures (vairagya) and devotion unto God (bhakti) in to their lives.


text: Followers receive gnan through regularly listening to spiritual discourses and reading scriptures in an effort to gain knowledge of God and one's true self.


text: Dharma encompasses righteous conduct as prescribed by the scriptures. The ideals of dharma range from practicing non-violence to avoiding meat, onions, garlic, and other items in their diet. Swaminarayan outlined the dharma of his devotees in the scripture the Shikshapatri. He included practical aspects of living life such as not committing adultery and respecting elders, gurus, and those of authority.


text: Devotees develop detachment (vairagya) in order to spiritually elevate their soul (jiva) to a Brahmic state. This entails practices such as biweekly fasting (on the eleventh day of each half of each lunar month) and avoiding worldly pleasures by strongly attaching themselves to God.


text: The fourth pillar, devotion (bhakti) is at the heart of the faith community. Common practices of devotion include daily prayers, offering prepared dishes (thal) to the image of God, mental worship of God and his ideal devotee, and singing religious hymns. Spiritual service, or seva, is a form of devotion where devotees serve selflessly "while keeping only the Lord in mind."


text: Followers participate in various socio-spiritual activities with the objective to earn the grace of the guru and thus attain association with God through voluntary service. These numerous activities stem directly from the ideals taught by Swaminarayan, to find spiritual devotion in the service of others. By serving and volunteering in communities to please the guru, devotees are considered to be serving the guru. This relationship is the driving force for the spiritual actions of devotees. The guru is Mahant Swami Maharaj, who is held to be the embodiment of selfless devotion. Under the guidance of Mahant Swami Maharaj, followers observe the tenets of Swaminarayan through the above-mentioned practices, striving to please the guru and become close to God.


text: The mandir, known as a Hindu place of worship, serves as a hub for the spiritual, cultural, and humanitarian activities of BAPS. As of 2019, the organisation has 44 shikharbaddha mandirs and more than 1,200 other mandirs spanning five continents. In the tradition of the Bhakti Movement, Swaminarayan and his spiritual successors began erecting mandirs to provide a means to uphold proper devotion to God on the path towards moksha, or ultimate liberation. BAPS mandirs thus facilitate devotional commitment to the Akshar-Purushottam Darshan, in which followers strive to reach the spiritually perfect state of Aksharbrahman, or the ideal devotee, thereby gaining the ability to properly worship Purushottam, the Supreme Godhead.


text: The offering of bhakti, or devotion to God, remains at the centre of mandir activities. In all BAPS Swaminarayan mandirs, murtis, or sacred images of Swaminarayan, Gunatitanand Swami, BAPS gurus and other deities, are enshrined in the inner sanctum. After completion of prana pratishta or life-force installation ceremonies, the deities are believed to reside in the murtis, and are thus subjects of direct worship through sacred daily rituals. In many mandirs, murtis are adorned with clothes and ornaments and devotees come to perform darshan, the act of worshiping the deity by viewing the sacred image. Aarti, which is a ritual of waving lit lamps in circular motions to illuminate the different parts of the murti while singing a song of praise, is performed five times daily in shikharbaddha mandirs and twice daily in smaller mandirs. Additionally, food is offered to the murtis amidst the singing of devotional songs three times a day as part of the ritual of thaal, and the sanctified food is then distributed to devotees. Daily readings of and discourses on various Hindu scriptures also take place in the mandir. Many mandirs are also home to BAPS swamis, or monks. On weekends, assemblies are held in which swamis and devotees deliver discourses on a variety of spiritual topics. During these assemblies, bhakti is offered in the form of call-and-response hymns ("kirtans") with traditional musical accompaniment. Religious assemblies also take place for children and teenagers of various age ranges. Throughout the year, mandirs celebrate traditional Hindu festivals. Assemblies with special discourses, kirtans, and other performances are arranged to commemorate Rama Navami, Janmashtami, Diwali, and other major Hindu holidays. Members of the sect are known as Satsangis. Male Satsangis are generally initiated by obtaining a kanthi at the hands of a swamis or senior male devotee while females receive the vartman from the senior women followers.


text: In addition to being focal points of religious activity, BAPS mandirs are also centres of culture. Many forms of traditional Indian art have their roots in Hindu scriptures and have been preserved and flourished in the setting of mandirs. Many BAPS mandirs outside of India hold Gujarati classes to facilitate scriptural study, instruction in traditional dance forms in preparation for performances in festival assemblies, and music classes where students are taught how to play traditional instruments such as tabla. Devotees view the mandir as a place for transmission of knowledge of Hindu values and their incorporation into daily routines, family life, and careers.


text: Apart from classes teaching about religion and culture, mandirs are also the site of activities focused on youth development. Many centres organize college preparatory classes, leadership training seminars and workplace skills development workshops. Centres often host women's conferences aimed at empowering women. They also host sports tournaments and initiatives to promote healthy lifestyles among children and youth. Many centres also host parenting seminars, marriage counseling, and events for family bonding.


text: BAPS mandirs and cultural centres serve as hubs of several humanitarian activities powered by local volunteers. Mandirs in the US and UK host an annual walkathon to raise funds for local charities such as hospitals or schools. Centres also host annual health fairs where needy members of the community can undergo health screenings and consultations. During weekend assemblies, physicians are periodically invited to speak on various aspects of preventative medicine and to raise awareness on common conditions. In times of disaster, centres closest to the affected area become hubs for relief activity ranging from providing meals to reconstructing communities.


text: The founder of BAPS, Shastriji Maharaj, built the first mandir in Bochasan, Gujarat, which led the organisation to be known as "Bochasanwasi" (of Bochasan).


text: The organisation's second mandir was built in Sarangpur, which also hosts a seminary for BAPS swamis.


text: The mandir in Gondal was constructed around the Akshar Deri, the cremation memorial of Gunatitanand Swami, who is revered as a manifestation of Aksharbrahman.


text: Shastriji Maharaj constructed his last mandir on the banks of the River Ghela in Gadhada, where Swaminarayan resided for the majority of his adult life.


text: Yogiji Maharaj constructed the mandir in the Shahibaug section of Ahmedabad, which remains the site of the international headquarters of the organisation.


text: Under the leadership of Pramukh Swami Maharaj, over 25 additional shikharbaddha mandirs have been built across Gujarat and other regions of India and abroad.


text: As a consequence of the Indian emigration patterns, mandirs have been constructed in Africa, Europe, North America, and the Asia-Pacific region. The BAPS mandir in Neasden, London was the first traditional Hindu mandir built in Europe. The organisation has six shikharbaddha mandir's in North America in the metro areas of Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, Toronto, Los Angeles, and in the New Jersey suburb of Robbinsville Township, near Trenton, New Jersey.


text: BAPS has constructed two large temple complexes dedicated to Swaminarayan called Swaminarayan Akshardham, in New Delhi and Gandhinagar, Gujarat, which in addition to a large stone-carved mandir has exhibitions that explain Hindu traditions and Swaminarayan history and values.


text: BAPS is constructing a Hindu stone temple in the Middle East, in Abu Dhabi, the capital city of United Arab Emirates, on 55,000 square metres of land. Projected to be completed by 2021, and open to people of all religious backgrounds, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi participated in the foundation stone-laying ceremony in the UAE, which is home to over three million people of Indian origin.


text: BAPS Charities is a global non-religious, charitable organisation that originated from the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) with a focus on serving society. Their history of service activities can be traced back to Swaminarayan (1781-1830), who opened alms houses, built shelters, worked against addiction, and abolished the practice of sati and female infanticide with the goals of removing suffering and effecting positive social change. This focus on service to society is stated in the organisation's vision, that "every individual deserves the right to a peaceful, dignified, and healthy way of life. And by improving the quality of life of the individual, we are bettering families, communities, our world, and our future."


text: BAPS Charities aims to express a spirit of selfless service through Health Awareness, Educational Services, Humanitarian Relief, Environmental Protection & Preservation and Community Empowerment. From Walkathons or Sponsored Walks that raise funds for local communities to supporting humanitarian relief in times of urgent need or from community health fairs to sustaining hospitals and schools in developing countries, BAPS Charities provides an opportunity for individuals wishing to serve locally and globally.


title: Computer cluster

text: A computer cluster is a set of computers that work together so that they can be viewed as a single system. Unlike grid computers, computer clusters have each node set to perform the same task, controlled and scheduled by software.


title: Computer cluster

text: The components of a cluster are usually connected to each other through fast local area networks, with each node (computer used as a server) running its own instance of an operating system. In most circumstances, all of the nodes use the same hardware and the same operating system, although in some setups (e.g. using Open Source Cluster Application Resources (OSCAR)), different operating systems can be used on each computer, or different hardware.


title: Computer cluster

text: Clusters are usually deployed to improve performance and availability over that of a single computer, while typically being much more cost-effective than single computers of comparable speed or availability.


title: Computer cluster

text: Computer clusters emerged as a result of convergence of a number of computing trends including the availability of low-cost microprocessors, high-speed networks, and software for high-performance distributed computing. They have a wide range of applicability and deployment, ranging from small business clusters with a handful of nodes to some of the fastest supercomputers in the world such as IBM's Sequoia. Prior to the advent of clusters, single unit fault tolerant mainframes with modular redundancy were employed; but the lower upfront cost of clusters, and increased speed of network fabric has favoured the adoption of clusters. In contrast to high-reliability mainframes clusters are cheaper to scale out, but also have increased complexity in error handling, as in clusters error modes are not opaque to running programs.


title: Computer cluster

text: The desire to get more computing power and better reliability by orchestrating a number of low-cost commercial off-the-shelf computers has given rise to a variety of architectures and configurations.


title: Computer cluster

text: The computer clustering approach usually (but not always) connects a number of readily available computing nodes (e.g. personal computers used as servers) via a fast local area network. The activities of the computing nodes are orchestrated by "clustering middleware", a software layer that sits atop the nodes and allows the users to treat the cluster as by and large one cohesive computing unit, e.g. via a single system image concept.


title: Computer cluster

text: Computer clustering relies on a centralized management approach which makes the nodes available as orchestrated shared servers. It is distinct from other approaches such as peer-to-peer or grid computing which also use many nodes, but with a far more distributed nature.


title: Computer cluster

text: A computer cluster may be a simple two-node system which just connects two personal computers, or may be a very fast supercomputer. A basic approach to building a cluster is that of a Beowulf cluster which may be built with a few personal computers to produce a cost-effective alternative to traditional high-performance computing. An early project that showed the viability of the concept was the 133-node Stone Soupercomputer. The developers used Linux, the Parallel Virtual Machine toolkit and the Message Passing Interface library to achieve high performance at a relatively low cost.


title: Computer cluster

text: Although a cluster may consist of just a few personal computers connected by a simple network, the cluster architecture may also be used to achieve very high levels of performance. The TOP500 organization's semiannual list of the 500 fastest supercomputers often includes many clusters, e.g. the world's fastest machine in 2011 was the K computer which has a distributed memory, cluster architecture.


title: Computer cluster

text: Greg Pfister has stated that clusters were not invented by any specific vendor but by customers who could not fit all their work on one computer, or needed a backup. Pfister estimates the date as some time in the 1960s. The formal engineering basis of cluster computing as a means of doing parallel work of any sort was arguably invented by Gene Amdahl of IBM, who in 1967 published what has come to be regarded as the seminal paper on parallel processing: Amdahl's Law.


title: Computer cluster

text: The history of early computer clusters is more or less directly tied into the history of early networks, as one of the primary motivations for the development of a network was to link computing resources, creating a de facto computer cluster.


title: Computer cluster

text: The first production system designed as a cluster was the Burroughs B5700 in the mid-1960s. This allowed up to four computers, each with either one or two processors, to be tightly coupled to a common disk storage subsystem in order to distribute the workload. Unlike standard multiprocessor systems, each computer could be restarted without disrupting overall operation.


title: Computer cluster

text: The first commercial loosely coupled clustering product was Datapoint Corporation's "Attached Resource Computer" (ARC) system, developed in 1977, and using ARCnet as the cluster interface. Clustering per se did not really take off until Digital Equipment Corporation released their VAXcluster product in 1984 for the VMS operating system. The ARC and VAXcluster products not only supported parallel computing, but also shared file systems and peripheral devices. The idea was to provide the advantages of parallel processing, while maintaining data reliability and uniqueness. Two other noteworthy early commercial clusters were the "Tandem Himalayan" (a circa 1994 high-availability product) and the "IBM S/390 Parallel Sysplex" (also circa 1994, primarily for business use).


title: Computer cluster

text: Within the same time frame, while computer clusters used parallelism outside the computer on a commodity network, supercomputers began to use them within the same computer. Following the success of the CDC 6600 in 1964, the Cray 1 was delivered in 1976, and introduced internal parallelism via vector processing. While early supercomputers excluded clusters and relied on shared memory, in time some of the fastest supercomputers (e.g. the K computer) relied on cluster architectures.


title: Computer cluster

text: Computer clusters may be configured for different purposes ranging from general purpose business needs such as web-service support, to computation-intensive scientific calculations. In either case, the cluster may use a high-availability approach. Note that the attributes described below are not exclusive and a "computer cluster" may also use a high-availability approach, etc.


title: Computer cluster

text: "Load-balancing" clusters are configurations in which cluster-nodes share computational workload to provide better overall performance. For example, a web server cluster may assign different queries to different nodes, so the overall response time will be optimized. However, approaches to load-balancing may significantly differ among applications, e.g. a high-performance cluster used for scientific computations would balance load with different algorithms from a web-server cluster which may just use a simple round-robin method by assigning each new request to a different node.


title: Computer cluster

text: Computer clusters are used for computation-intensive purposes, rather than handling IO-oriented operations such as web service or databases. For instance, a computer cluster might support computational simulations of vehicle crashes or weather. Very tightly coupled computer clusters are designed for work that may approach "supercomputing".


title: Computer cluster

text: "High-availability clusters" (also known as failover clusters, or HA clusters) improve the availability of the cluster approach. They operate by having redundant nodes, which are then used to provide service when system components fail. HA cluster implementations attempt to use redundancy of cluster components to eliminate single points of failure. There are commercial implementations of High-Availability clusters for many operating systems. The Linux-HA project is one commonly used free software HA package for the Linux operating system.


title: Computer cluster

text: Clusters are primarily designed with performance in mind, but installations are based on many other factors. Fault tolerance ("the ability for a system to continue working with a malfunctioning node") allows for scalability, and in high-performance situations, low frequency of maintenance routines, resource consolidation (e.g. RAID), and centralized management. Advantages include enabling data recovery in the event of a disaster and providing parallel data processing and high processing capacity.


title: Computer cluster

text: In terms of scalability, clusters provide this in their ability to add nodes horizontally. This means that more computers may be added to the cluster, to improve its performance, redundancy and fault tolerance. This can be an inexpensive solution for a higher performing cluster compared to scaling up a single node in the cluster. This property of computer clusters can allow for larger computational loads to be executed by a larger number of lower performing computers.


title: Computer cluster

text: When adding a new node to a cluster, reliability increases because the entire cluster does not need to be taken down. A single node can be taken down for maintenance, while the rest of the cluster takes on the load of that individual node.


title: Computer cluster

text: If you have a large number of computers clustered together, this lends itself to the use of distributed file systems and RAID, both of which can increase the reliability and speed of a cluster.


title: Computer cluster

text: One of the issues in designing a cluster is how tightly coupled the individual nodes may be. For instance, a single computer job may require frequent communication among nodes: this implies that the cluster shares a dedicated network, is densely located, and probably has homogeneous nodes. The other extreme is where a computer job uses one or few nodes, and needs little or no inter-node communication, approaching grid computing.


title: Computer cluster

text: In a Beowulf cluster, the application programs never see the computational nodes (also called slave computers) but only interact with the "Master" which is a specific computer handling the scheduling and management of the slaves. In a typical implementation the Master has two network interfaces, one that communicates with the private Beowulf network for the slaves, the other for the general purpose network of the organization. The slave computers typically have their own version of the same operating system, and local memory and disk space. However, the private slave network may also have a large and shared file server that stores global persistent data, accessed by the slaves as needed.


title: Computer cluster

text: A special purpose 144-node DEGIMA cluster is tuned to running astrophysical N-body simulations using the Multiple-Walk parallel treecode, rather than general purpose scientific computations.


title: Computer cluster

text: Due to the increasing computing power of each generation of game consoles, a novel use has emerged where they are repurposed into High-performance computing (HPC) clusters. Some examples of game console clusters are Sony PlayStation clusters and Microsoft Xbox clusters. Another example of consumer game product is the Nvidia Tesla Personal Supercomputer workstation, which uses multiple graphics accelerator processor chips. Besides game consoles, high-end graphics cards too can be used instead. The use of graphics cards (or rather their GPU's) to do calculations for grid computing is vastly more economical than using CPU's, despite being less precise. However, when using double-precision values, they become as precise to work with as CPU's and are still much less costly (purchase cost).


title: Computer cluster

text: Computer clusters have historically run on separate physical computers with the same operating system. With the advent of virtualization, the cluster nodes may run on separate physical computers with different operating systems which are painted above with a virtual layer to look similar. The cluster may also be virtualized on various configurations as maintenance takes place; an example implementation is Xen as the virtualization manager with Linux-HA.


title: Computer cluster

text: As the computer clusters were appearing during the 1980s, so were supercomputers. One of the elements that distinguished the three classes at that time was that the early supercomputers relied on shared memory. To date clusters do not typically use physically shared memory, while many supercomputer architectures have also abandoned it.


title: Computer cluster

text: However, the use of a clustered file system is essential in modern computer clusters. Examples include the IBM General Parallel File System, Microsoft's Cluster Shared Volumes or the Oracle Cluster File System.


title: Computer cluster

text: Two widely used approaches for communication between cluster nodes are MPI (Message Passing Interface) and PVM (Parallel Virtual Machine).


title: Computer cluster

text: PVM was developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory around 1989 before MPI was available. PVM must be directly installed on every cluster node and provides a set of software libraries that paint the node as a "parallel virtual machine". PVM provides a run-time environment for message-passing, task and resource management, and fault notification. PVM can be used by user programs written in C, C++, or Fortran, etc.


title: Computer cluster

text: MPI emerged in the early 1990s out of discussions among 40 organizations. The initial effort was supported by ARPA and National Science Foundation. Rather than starting anew, the design of MPI drew on various features available in commercial systems of the time. The MPI specifications then gave rise to specific implementations. MPI implementations typically use TCP/IP and socket connections. MPI is now a widely available communications model that enables parallel programs to be written in languages such as C, Fortran, Python, etc. Thus, unlike PVM which provides a concrete implementation, MPI is a specification which has been implemented in systems such as MPICH and Open MPI.


title: Computer cluster

text: One of the challenges in the use of a computer cluster is the cost of administrating it which can at times be as high as the cost of administrating N independent machines, if the cluster has N nodes. In some cases this provides an advantage to shared memory architectures with lower administration costs. This has also made virtual machines popular, due to the ease of administration.


title: Computer cluster

text: When a large multi-user cluster needs to access very large amounts of data, task scheduling becomes a challenge. In a heterogeneous CPU-GPU cluster with a complex application environment, the performance of each job depends on the characteristics of the underlying cluster. Therefore, mapping tasks onto CPU cores and GPU devices provides significant challenges. This is an area of ongoing research; algorithms that combine and extend MapReduce and Hadoop have been proposed and studied.


title: Computer cluster

text: When a node in a cluster fails, strategies such as "fencing" may be employed to keep the rest of the system operational. Fencing is the process of isolating a node or protecting shared resources when a node appears to be malfunctioning. There are two classes of fencing methods; one disables a node itself, and the other disallows access to resources such as shared disks.


title: Computer cluster

text: The STONITH method stands for "Shoot The Other Node In The Head", meaning that the suspected node is disabled or powered off. For instance, "power fencing" uses a power controller to turn off an inoperable node.


title: Computer cluster

text: The "resources fencing" approach disallows access to resources without powering off the node. This may include "persistent reservation fencing" via the SCSI3, fibre channel fencing to disable the fibre channel port, or global network block device (GNBD) fencing to disable access to the GNBD server.


title: Computer cluster

text: Load balancing clusters such as web servers use cluster architectures to support a large number of users and typically each user request is routed to a specific node, achieving task parallelism without multi-node cooperation, given that the main goal of the system is providing rapid user access to shared data. However, "computer clusters" which perform complex computations for a small number of users need to take advantage of the parallel processing capabilities of the cluster and partition "the same computation" among several nodes.


title: Computer cluster

text: Automatic parallelization of programs remains a technical challenge, but parallel programming models can be used to effectuate a higher degree of parallelism via the simultaneous execution of separate portions of a program on different processors.


title: Computer cluster

text: Developing and debugging parallel programs on a cluster requires parallel language primitives and suitable tools such as those discussed by the "High Performance Debugging Forum" (HPDF) which resulted in the HPD specifications. Tools such as TotalView were then developed to debug parallel implementations on computer clusters which use Message Passing Interface (MPI) or Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) for message passing.


title: Computer cluster

text: The University of California, Berkeley "Network of Workstations" (NOW) system gathers cluster data and stores them in a database, while a system such as PARMON, developed in India, allows visually observing and managing large clusters.


title: Computer cluster

text: Application checkpointing can be used to restore a given state of the system when a node fails during a long multi-node computation. This is essential in large clusters, given that as the number of nodes increases, so does the likelihood of node failure under heavy computational loads. Checkpointing can restore the system to a stable state so that processing can resume without needing to recompute results.


title: Computer cluster

text: The Linux world supports various cluster software; for application clustering, there is distcc, and MPICH. Linux Virtual Server, Linux-HA - director-based clusters that allow incoming requests for services to be distributed across multiple cluster nodes. MOSIX, LinuxPMI, Kerrighed, OpenSSI are full-blown clusters integrated into the kernel that provide for automatic process migration among homogeneous nodes. OpenSSI, openMosix and Kerrighed are single-system image implementations.


title: Computer cluster

text: Microsoft Windows computer cluster Server 2003 based on the Windows Server platform provides pieces for High-Performance Computing like the Job Scheduler, MSMPI library and management tools.


title: Computer cluster

text: gLite is a set of middleware technologies created by the Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE) project.


title: Computer cluster

text: slurm is also used to schedule and manage some of the largest supercomputer clusters (see top500 list).


title: Computer cluster

text: Although most computer clusters are permanent fixtures, attempts at flash mob computing have been made to build short-lived clusters for specific computations. However, larger-scale volunteer computing systems such as BOINC-based systems have had more followers.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: Shamir's Secret Sharing (SSS) is an efficient secret sharing algorithm for distributing private information (the "secret") in such a way that no individual holds intelligible information about the secret. To achieve this, the secret is converted into parts (the "shares") from which the secret can be reassembled when a sufficient number of shares are combined but not otherwise. SSS has the unusual property of information theoretic security, meaning an adversary without enough shares cannot reconstruct the secret even with infinite time and computing capacity. A standard SSS specification for cryptocurrency wallets has been widely implemented.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: SSS is used to secure a secret in a distributed way, most often to secure other encryption keys. The secret is split into multiple shares, which individually do not give any information about the secret.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: To unlock a secret secured by SSS a minimum number of shares are needed, called the "threshold". No additional information about the secret can be gained by examining any number of shares fewer than the threshold (a property called perfect secrecy)"." In this sense, SSS is a generalisation of the one-time pad (which can be viewed as SSS with a two-share threshold and two shares in total).


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: A company needs to secure their vault's code. A single person knowing the code could act dishonestly or be unavailable when the vaults needs to be opened.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: SSS can be used in this situation to generate shares from the vault's code which are distributed to executives in the Company. The selected threshold and number of shares given to each executive can be selected such that the vault is accessible only by (groups of) authorized individuals. If less than the threshold of shares were compromised, these shares alone would not be enough to determine the code.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: SSS has useful properties, but also weaknesses that mean there are some situations where it should not be used.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: The essential idea of the scheme is based on the Lagrange interpolation theorem, specifically that formula_1 points is enough to uniquely determine a polynomial of degree less than or equal to formula_2. For instance, 2 points are sufficient to define a line, 3 points are sufficient to define a parabola, 4 points to define a cubic curve and so forth.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: Shamir's Secret Sharing is an ideal and perfect "formula_3-threshold scheme" based on polynomial interpolation over finite fields. In such a scheme, the aim is to divide a secret formula_4 (for example, the combination to a safe) into formula_5 pieces of data formula_6 (known as "shares") in such a way that:


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: If formula_20, then every piece of the original secret formula_4 is required to reconstruct the secret.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: Assume that the secret formula_4 can be represented as an element formula_23 of a finite field formula_24 (where formula_25 is larger than the number of shares being generated). Randomly choose formula_12 elements, formula_27, from formula_24 and construct the polynomial formula_29. Compute any formula_30 points out on the curve, for instance set formula_31 to find points formula_32. Every participant is given a point (a non-zero input to the polynomial, and the corresponding output). Given any subset of formula_1 of these pairs, formula_23 can be obtained using interpolation, with one possible formula for doing so being formula_35, where the list of points on the polynomial is given as k pairs of the form formula_36. Note that formula_37 is equal to the first coefficient of polynomial formula_38.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: The following example illustrates the basic idea. Note, however, that calculations in the example are done using integer arithmetic rather than using finite field arithmetic to make the idea easier to understand. Therefore the example below does not provide perfect secrecy and is not a proper example of Shamir's scheme. The next example will explain the problem.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: In this example, the secret will be split into 6 shares formula_40, where any subset of 3 shares formula_41 is sufficient to reconstruct the secret. formula_42 numbers are taken at random. Let them be 166 and 94.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: Each participant in the scheme receives a different point (a pair of formula_48 and formula_49). Because formula_50 is used instead of formula_51 the points start from formula_52 and not formula_53. This is necessary because formula_54 is the secret.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: Recalling that the secret is the free coefficient, which means that formula_61, and the secret has been recovered.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: Using polynomial interpolation to find a coefficient in a source polynomial formula_62 using Lagrange polynomials is not efficient, since unused constants are calculated.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: Considering this, an optimized formula to use Lagrange polynomials to find formula_54 is defined as follows:


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: Although the simplified version of the method demonstrated above, which uses integer arithmetic rather than finite field arithmetic, works, there is a security problem: Eve gains information about formula_4 with every formula_66 that she finds.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: Suppose that she finds the 2 points formula_67 and formula_68. She still does not have formula_69 points, so in theory she should not have gained any more information about formula_4. But she could combine the information from the 2 points with the public information: formula_71. Doing so, Eve could perform the following algebra:


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: Geometrically this attack exploits the fact that the order of the polynomial is known and thus gives information into the paths the polynomial take between known points. This reduces possible values of unknown points since the points must lie on a smooth curve, and the polynomial must have coefficients that are natural numbers.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: This problem can be fixed by using finite field arithmetic. A field of size formula_102 is used. The figure shows a polynomial curve over a finite field. In contrast to a smooth curve it appears disorganised and disjointed.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: In practice this is only a small change. A prime formula_103 must be chosen that is bigger than the number of participants and every formula_104 (including formula_105). The points on the polynomial must also be calculated as formula_106 instead of formula_107.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: Everybody who receives a point must also know the value of formula_103, so it is considered to be publicly known. Therefore, one should select a value for formula_103 that is not too low to prevent attacks where somebody guesses every possible value for formula_4.


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: For this example, choose formula_111, so the polynomial becomes formula_112 which gives the points: formula_113


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: This time Eve doesn't gain any information when she finds a formula_51 (until she has formula_7 points).


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: Suppose again that Eve finds formula_116 and formula_117, and the public information is: formula_118. Attempting the previous attack, Eve can:


title: Shamir's Secret Sharing

text: This time she is not able to stop because formula_139 could be any integer modulo formula_103 (even negative if formula_141) so there are formula_103 possible values for formula_85. She knows that formula_144 always decreases by 3, so if formula_145 was divisible by formula_146 she could conclude formula_147. However, formula_103 is prime she can not conclude this. Thus, using a finite field avoids this possible attack.


title: Spice Girls discography

text: The Spice Girls, an English girl group, have released three studio albums, one compilation album, 11 singles and 18 music videos. Formed in 1994, the group was made up of singers Geri Halliwell ("Ginger Spice"), Emma Bunton ("Baby Spice"), Melanie Brown ("Scary Spice"), Melanie Chisholm ("Sporty Spice") and Victoria Beckham ("Posh Spice").


title: Spice Girls discography

text: The Spice Girls' debut single, "Wannabe", was released by Virgin Records in the United Kingdom in July 1996. It went to number one in 37 countries worldwide and became the biggest-selling debut single of all time. In the UK it stayed at the top of the UK Singles Chart for seven weeks and went on to sell over six million copies worldwide. It subsequently topped the "Billboard" Hot 100 in the United States for four weeks in February 1997. Follow-up singles "Say You'll Be There" and "2 Become 1" also went to number one in the UK, and reached the top five across most of Europe and the US. "2 Become 1" was unofficially declared the band's "Christmas #1" in December 1996. The group's debut album, "Spice", was released in the UK in November 1996 and became another global success, selling two million copies in its first week, and 10 million copies in the next seven months. "Spice" has sold 23 million copies worldwide and was certified ten times platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) in the UK. The fourth Spice Girls single, the double A-side "Mama"/"Who Do You Think You Are", also went to number one in the UK.


title: Spice Girls discography

text: In November 1997 the group released their second album, "Spiceworld", which has been certified five times platinum by the BPI. The album produced three number-one singles in the UK, "Spice Up Your Life", "Too Much" and "Viva Forever", with "Stop!" peaking at number two, ending the group's run of consecutive number-one singles in the UK. "Too Much" was noted as the Spice Girls' second Christmas #1 in the UK. In May 1998, Geri Halliwell left the group to pursue a solo career. She also cited personal differences between the band and herself. Geri expressed an interest in attending a breast cancer event, due to her own experience with a benign tumor removal years earlier; allegedly this was not possible with their European tour schedule, and ultimately she chose to leave.


title: Spice Girls discography

text: Now a four-piece, the Spice Girls released their third album, "Forever", in November 2000; it peaked at number two in the UK Albums Chart and was certified platinum by the BPI. "Forever" also produced two more UK number-one singles, "Goodbye" and the double A-side "Holler"/"Let Love Lead the Way". "Goodbye" was initially released in December of 1999, becoming the group's third British Christmas #1. It was later included as a track on "Forever". In December 2000, the four remaining members decided to go on an indefinite hiatus and concentrate on solo projects and motherhood; all had solo UK top ten singles.


title: Spice Girls discography

text: In June 2007 all five members of the Spice Girls reunited to tour. A "Greatest Hits" was released with two new tracks; the single, "Headlines (Friendship Never Ends)" and "Voodoo". The album peaked at number two in the UK, and became their first number-one album in Australia. It also peaked within the top ten in Ireland. "Greatest Hits" was also certified two times platinum in the UK. In 2012, the Official Charts Company revealed the biggest selling singles artists in British music chart history; the Spice Girls placed at 20th overall, making them the most successful girl group in UK chart history. They are currently the seventh overall biggest group of all time, with 8 million singles sold in the UK. The Spice Girls have sold more 100 million records worldwide


title: Spice Girls discography

text: To mark the 25th anniversary of "Wannabe", an EP of the group's debut single was released in July 2021 that included previously unreleased demos.


title: Normandy (administrative region)

text: Normandy (; ; ; from Old French , plural of , originally from the word for 'northman' in several Scandinavian languages) is the northwesternmost of the eighteen regions of France, roughly coextensive with the historical Duchy of Normandy.


title: Normandy (administrative region)

text: Normandy is divided into five administrative departments: Calvados, Eure, Manche, Orne and Seine-Maritime. It covers , comprising roughly 5% of the territory of metropolitan France. Its population of 3,322,757 accounts for around 5% of the population of France. The inhabitants of Normandy are known as Normans, and the region is the historic homeland of the Norman language. The neighboring regions are Hauts-de-France and Ile-de-France to the east, Centre-Val de Loire to the southeast, Pays de la Loire to the south, and Brittany to the southwest. The capital is Rouen.


title: Normandy (administrative region)

text: Normandy's name comes from the settlement of the territory by Vikings ("Northmen") from the 9th century, and confirmed by treaty in the 10th century between King Charles III of France and the Viking "jarl" Rollo.


title: Normandy (administrative region)

text: Rollo's descendant William became king of England in 1066 after defeating Harold Godwinson, the last of the Anglo-Saxon kings, at the Battle of Hastings, while retaining the fiefdom of Normandy for himself and his descendants.


title: Normandy (administrative region)

text: In 1204, during the reign of John of England, mainland Normandy was taken from England by France under King Philip II. Insular Normandy (the Channel Islands) remained, however, under English control. In 1259, Henry III of England recognized the legality of French possession of mainland Normandy under the Treaty of Paris.


title: Normandy (administrative region)

text: Between 1956 and 2015 Normandy was divided into two administrative regions: Lower Normandy and Upper Normandy; the regions were merged into one single region on 1 January 2016. Upper Normandy ("Haute-Normandie") consisted of the French "departments" of Seine-Maritime and Eure, and Lower Normandy ("Basse-Normandie") of the "departments" of Orne, Calvados, and Manche.


title: Normandy (administrative region)

text: The modern region of Normandy was created by the territorial reform of French Regions in 2014 by the merger of Lower Normandy, and Upper Normandy. The new region took effect on 1 January 2016, after the regional elections in December 2015.


title: Normandy (administrative region)

text: The Regional Council of Normandy, created on 1 January 2016, has 102 members who are elected under a system of proportional representation. The executive consists of a president and vice-presidents. Hervé Morin from the Centre party was elected president of the council in January 2016. The council is based in Caen, making Normandy one of only two regions (the other being Bourgogne-Franche-Comté) where the prefecture and seat of local government are different cities.


title: Normandy (administrative region)

text: As of January 2006 the population of Normandy (including the part of Perche which lies inside the Orne "département") is estimated at 3,260,000 with an average population density of 109 inhabitants per km, just under the French national average, but rising to 147 for Upper Normandy.


title: Normandy (administrative region)

text: The main cities (population given from the 1999 census) are Rouen (518,316 in the metropolitan area), the capital since 2016 of the province and formerly of Upper Normandy; Caen (420,000 in the metropolitan area) and formerly the capital of Lower Normandy; Le Havre (296,773 in the metropolitan area); and Cherbourg (117,855 in the metropolitan area).


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The 1981 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 35th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 1981 Formula One World Championship for Drivers and the 1981 Formula One World Championship for Constructors, which were contested concurrently over a fifteen-race series that commenced on 15 March and ended on 17 October. Formula One cars also competed in the 1981 South African Grand Prix, although this was a Formula Libre race and was not part of the Formula One World Championship.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The 1981 championship was the first to be run under the "FIA Formula One World Championship" name, replacing both the original "World Championship of Drivers" and "International Cup for Constructors". Teams were now required to lodge entries for the entire championship rather than individual races, and a standardised set of rules would be in place at every championship race, while the FIA would also set the prize money for all races. After this season, the FIA required that Formula One entrants own the intellectual rights to the chassis that they enter, and so the distinction between the terms "entrant" and "constructor", and hence also "team", have become less pronounced.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: Nelson Piquet won the Drivers' Championship, claiming the first of his three drivers' titles, while Williams won the Constructors' Championship for the second consecutive year.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The South African Grand Prix at Kyalami on 7 February was originally on the calendar, but difficulties from the ongoing FISA–FOCA war led to the event being run as a non-championship race, and it was contested only by the Ford-Cosworth powered teams all running cars that had aerodynamic devices which were banned for the 1981 championship season.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The Brazilian Grand Prix was moved from Autodromo de Interlagos in São Paulo to Jacarepaguá (which was resurfaced after cancellation in 1980) in Rio de Janeiro for 1981, due to a long list of safety issues. The race was originally supposed to be held at a resurfaced and revamped Interlagos for 1981, but this did not happen. The race date was moved from January to March.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The San Marino Grand Prix was run for the first time in 1981. The race was held at Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari on 3 May.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The French Grand Prix was moved from Paul Ricard Circuit to Dijon-Prenois, in keeping with the event-sharing arrangement between the two circuits.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The British Grand Prix was moved from Brands Hatch to Silverstone, in keeping with the event-sharing arrangement between the two circuits.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The Italian Grand Prix was moved from the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari to the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza for 1981, Monza couldn't host the Italian Grand Prix in 1980 because of major upgrades, including building a new pit complex which could not be done in time for 1980. It was done in time for 1981.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The United States Grand Prix was originally scheduled for 4 October, but was cancelled due to the financial difficulties Watkins Glen International was having.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The Caesars Palace Grand Prix made its début on the world championship schedule and was held in the Caesars Palace car park.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The 1981 Formula One season was a noteworthy season of Grand Prix racing for many reasons: it was effectively the first season that Brabham team owner Bernie Ecclestone and FOCA had the Concorde Agreement in place, which would set Formula One on a course to become a profitable business, thanks to the growing professional involvement of outside companies and professional sponsorship.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: There had been a lot of change over the winter. Williams had the same driver line-up as in with World Champion Alan Jones and Carlos Reutemann; and Brabham was little-changed as well with BT49Cs for Nelson Piquet and Hector Rebaque. McLaren had lost Alain Prost to Renault, despite a two-year contract, and so John Watson was partnered by Andrea de Cesaris. The team was in the process of being taken over by Ron Dennis's Project 4 and one of the new all-carbonfibre cars appeared in practice. Jean-Pierre Jabouille was still not recovered from his leg injuries from Canada the previous autumn and so Jean-Pierre Jarier was called in to be Jacques Laffite's teammate at the Ligier team (now officially called Talbot Ligier and using Matra V12 engines again). Tyrrell had lost both of its 1980 drivers with Derek Daly moving to March and so hired Eddie Cheever and Kevin Cogan. The team was without sponsorship again.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: Ferrari had replaced the retired Jody Scheckter with Didier Pironi and the team had the new turbocharged 126CK. Team Lotus had lost Mario Andretti to Alfa Romeo and so had hired Nigel Mansell to partner Elio de Angelis and were intending to debut the controversial twin-chassis Lotus 88. Team Ensign struggled on with Marc Surer driving while Emerson Fittipaldi had finally decided to retire as a driver and was replaced by Chico Serra to partner Keke Rosberg at Fittipaldi. Arrows had new sponsorship from Ceramiche Ragno and Beta and was running Riccardo Patrese and newcomer Siegfried Stohr while Osella expanded to two cars for Miguel Angel Guerra and Beppe Gabbiani. ATS continued with one car for Jan Lammers, while Theodore Racing had produced a new chassis for Patrick Tambay and RAM had gone into business with March Engineering and was running two March 811s for Daly and Eliseo Salazar.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The South African Grand Prix, held on 7 February at the Kyalami Circuit near Johannesburg, was originally supposed to be the first round of the 1981 Formula One World Championship – but it was eventually stripped of its championship status. The ongoing FISA–FOCA war resulted in Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA) insisting on a date change which was not acceptable to the race organisers. Approval was ultimately given for the race to go ahead on its original date but as a Formula Libre race rather than as a round of the Formula One World Championship. The downgraded race was supported by the Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA) aligned teams but not by Ferrari, Ligier, Osella, Renault, or Alfa Romeo, whose allegiances lay with FISA. This race was run with the cars running in 1980-specification trim, with the ground-effect wing cars of the time, equipped with sliding skirts that increased their downforce by ensuring the air under the car did not escape from under the car, where the most important airflow was.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: In qualifying, it was once again a major battle between the major players of 1980. The Brabham of Nelson Piquet battled the two Williams cars of Alan Jones and Carlos Reutemann for pole position. Piquet took pole, with Reutemann in second. Reutemann had a close call when in the closing minutes of the session, his Williams spun off and went into the catch fencing. The fencing had wrapped around his windpipe and had begun to strangle Reutemann, and the hapless Argentine was unable to remove the catchfencing on his own. It was only the quick mobilisation of the marshals that were able to rescue Reutemann from what could have quite easily have been his death. Following Reutemann was Jones, Keke Rosberg in the Fittipaldi, Elio de Angelis (Lotus), Riccardo Patrese (Arrows), Ricardo Zunino (Brabham), Nigel Mansell (Lotus) and Andrea de Cesaris (McLaren).


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The race was held in quite wet conditions, however the rain had abated shortly before the start of the grand prix. Notably it was only Carlos Reutemann from second on the grid and Keke Rosberg in fourth on the grid who went for slicks, everyone else was on wet weather tyres. Unsurprisingly, Reutemann and Rosberg made poor starts in the still wet conditions. Piquet maintained his lead as Reutemann dropped behind Elio de Angelis and the fast starting Jan Lammers who had come up from tenth on the grid. Lammers was running well behind De Angelis before on the second lap, he went for the overtake. Lammers lost control in the wet conditions and tapped the rear of De Angelis where he spun wide into the gravel trap. He dropped right down to the back of the field where he would go on to retire later in the race with brake fade. Nigel Mansell had made a storming start, moving into fourth place with John Watson right behind him. The reigning champion Alan Jones had dropped down to sixth after a poor start to the race. Derek Daly had also done well to climb up to seventh, on March's return to F1. On lap 4, both Mansell and Watson moved ahead of Reutemann. A three-way battle for second place then followed with De Angelis, Mansell and Watson. Lap five saw Watson move ahead of Mansell, the following lap he moved ahead of the other Lotus of De Angelis. Alan Jones then began a comeback drive, moving ahead of Reutemann and Mansell. On lap 11, Geoff Lees spun off the circuit in his Theodore, Lees unluckily went through the catchfencing and was hit on the head by one of the catchfencing poles. Lees had to be lifted out of the car by the marshalls as he had been briefly knocked unconscious by the pole. The track had then began to dry, Alan Jones was the first driver to come into slicks with Nigel Mansell following suit, despite having spun on the previous lap. Jones having aquaplaned off the circuit on his out-lap damaged the rear of his car. Jones returned to the pits as his mechanics were forced to repair his rear wing. Jones would later retire with a loose skirt. By this time, only Piquet and Watson were the only front runners not to have pitted. Piquet pitted for new tyres allowing Watson to take the lead of the race. Watson then followed Piquet into the pits the following lap. Reutemann now inherited the lead, enjoying a comfortable lead, his gamble of racing with dry tyres since the start of the race had paid off. Female racer Desiré Wilson retired on lap 51 when she spun her Tyrrell off the circuit. Reutemann took a comfortable win, 20 seconds ahead of Piquet ahead of de Angelis, Rosberg and John Watson in a McLaren.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The first of two rounds in the United States of America started a trilogy of F1 races in the Americas on March 15 at the Long Beach street circuit in southern California, just outside the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles. Goodyear had decided to withdraw from F1 and so everyone was on Michelin tires, and the cars were now running in new 1981-specification cars, with the sliding skirts now banned and cars required to have a 6 cm ground clearance, in order to reduce downforce. Qualifying resulted in something of a surprise with Patrese on pole in the Arrows with Jones and Reutemann behind him. Piquet was fourth with Villeneuve fifth, home favorite Andretti sixth and Mansell seventh. The top 10 was completed by Cheever, Giacomelli (Alfa Romeo) and Jarier. The circuit had been slightly modified with the second left hander on Pine Avenue made one fluid corner instead of two apexes.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: Raceday had typically perfect Long Beach weather, and at the start Villeneuve made an amazing start and charged down to Queen's Hairpin, the first corner so quickly that he overshot and so Patrese went into the lead with Jones and Reutemann chasing. In the middle of the pack Prost and de Cesaris collided and both went out. Pironi made a remarkable start to go from 11th on the grid to fourth, ahead of Piquet, the recovering Villeneuve, Cheever and Andretti. On the second lap Reutemann overtook Jones for second but otherwise the top six remained unchanged until lap 17 when Pironi was able to pass Piquet for fourth but on the next lap Villeneuve's Ferrari stopped with a driveshaft failure and so Cheever moved to sixth place. On lap 25 Patrese began to suffer from fuel pressure problems and lost the lead to Reutemann. Patrese soon headed for the pits and so everyone moved up a place and Andretti took over sixth place. As Jones closed up on Reutemann, the Argentine driver made a mistake on Pine Avenue as he lapped Surer and went wide. Jones went ahead. On the same lap Laffite overtook Andretti for sixth place and chased after Cheever. The two cars collided on lap 41 on Ocean Boulevard and Laffite ended up in the pits. As Cheever began to drop back, Andretti was able to climb to fifth place and on lap 54 that became fourth when Pironi slowed with an oil leak.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: Jones thus led another Williams 1–2 with Piquet third, Andretti fourth, Cheever fifth and Tambay sixth in the Theodore.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The Formula One circus moved from North to South America to start a two-stop tour there. The first round was at the Jacarepagua Autodrome in Rio de Janeiro – only the second time F1 had been there. F1 had previously visited the 5-mile Interlagos circuit in São Paulo in 1972–1980; this circuit was effectively dropped after 1980 because of safety issues with the circuit and the growing slums around the circuit being at odds with Formula One's glamorous image. Tyrrell rented its second car to Zunino but otherwise the field was exactly the same, although the new carbon-fibre McLaren MP4/1 which had been seen in Long Beach was not taken to South America. Jean-Pierre Jabouille tried to qualify the Talbot Ligier but his legs were clearly not well enough healed from his accident in Montreal 6 months earlier and so the car was handed over to Jean-Pierre Jarier again. Lotus again ran into trouble with the twin-chassised Lotus 88 and there were murmurs about a new hydro-pneumatic suspension on the Brabhams which enabled the cars to be 6 cm off the ground when they were measured but much closer to the ground when they were out on the track. Pole position went to local hero Piquet in his Brabham with the two Williams cars of Reutemann and Jones behind him. Fourth was Patrese in the impressive Arrows while Prost put his Renault fifth ahead of Bruno Giacomelli's Alfa Romeo, Villeneuve's Ferrari 126CK, the second Renault of Rene Arnoux, Andretti's Alfa Romeo and the Lotus 81B of de Angelis.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: It was wet on race morning and at the start took place with the track damp but the rain holding off. Piquet decided to go on slick tires (but everyone else except Didier Pironi and Siegfried Stohr decided to use wets). Prost made a bad start and this caused the fast-starting Villeneuve to have to lift off. Andretti hit the rear of Villeneuve and went over the Ferrari. Behind them Arnoux, Eddie Cheever, Stohr and Chico Serra were all involved. At the front Reutemann went into the lead with Jones, Patrese, Giacomelli, de Angelis and the rest in pursuit. In the early laps de Angelis overtook Giacomelli to take fourth place and when Giacomelli spun off fifth place went to Keke Rosberg's Fittipaldi. John Watson made good progress from a poor grid position and on lap 14 he overtook Rosberg for fourth. The Finn then dropped behind Jean-Pierre Jarier (Talbot Ligier) as well. The order at the front remained unchanged until lap 29 when Jarier went wide and dropped behind Marc Surer (Ensign) and Jacques Laffite (Talbot Ligier). On lap 35 Watson spun as the rain increased and so Surer moved to fifth with Laffite sixth. Surer's remarkable run went on and on lap 49 he overtook de Angelis for fourth place while behind him Jarier repassed Laffite for fifth.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: In the closing laps the two Talbot Ligiers switched positions again (Jarier being told to drop back by the team), while Jones waited for Reutemann to move aside as the World Champion was the team's number one. Reutemann did not budge. The team showed pitboards indicating that Reutemann should move over but he did not. Everyone thought he must be waiting for the last lap but Reutemann took the flag first and Jones was furious. Patrese finished third with the remarkable Surer fourth ahead of the Talbot Ligiers.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The other half of the South American tour in Reutemann's home country of Argentina was usually held in January; this time it was in the cooler weather of April. Reutemann's decision to disobey team orders in Brazil had split the Williams team while the Lotus 88 was once again banned and team boss Colin Chapman was so incensed by the decision that he left before practice even began. There was also a dispute over Brabham's new hydro-pneumatic suspension which was designed to overcome the regulation which meant cars had to run with 6 cm of ground clearance. Whenever the Brabham was measured it was 6 cm above the ground. The entry was the same as in Brazil except that Jabouille was back in the Talbot Ligier. He failed to qualify. Also missing out were the two Osellas and Eliseo Salazar's March. Thanks to his hydro-pneumatic suspension system Piquet was on pole position with Alain Prost second quickest in the Renault. Then came Jones and Reutemann, Rene Arnoux in the second Renault and Hector Rebaque in the second Brabham. The top 10 was completed by Gilles Villeneuve (Ferrari), Keke Rosberg (Fittipaldi), Riccardo Patrese (Arrows) and Elio de Angelis in the Lotus.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: Raceday came about, and at this varied circuit located in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, Jones took the lead at the start but Piquet got ahead in the course of the first lap by driving around the outside of Jones in one of the corners and he then drove away from the field. He ended the race over 25 secs ahead. In the course of the second lap Reutemann overtook Jones and the Australian would later drop behind Prost and Rebaque as well. Rebaque's Brabham was handling well and so he was able to get ahead of the Renault on lap 11 and soon after he got past Reutemann, so for the middle part of the race the Brabhams were running in 1-2 formation. On lap 33, however, the Mexican disappeared with a distributor problem. This put Reutemann back into second place with Prost third and Jones fourth. Arnoux finished fifth while the final point went to de Angelis after a fight with Patrese and Patrick Tambay (Theodore).


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: Due to internal politics and the drivers' strike at the 1982 South African Grand Prix, the Argentine GP would not return to the calendar until 1995.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: Three weeks later, the GP circus returned to Europe to start the 4 month long tour there. The first race was a new race – a second Italian race called the San Marino Grand Prix at the Autodromo Dino Ferrari near Imola, just outside Bologna and 50 miles west of the tiny principality of San Marino. Team Lotus had decided to miss the race but in England a new Lotus 87 was being tested to replace the banned twin-chassis Lotus 88. The controversy over hydro-pneumatic suspensions had also faded as all the cars now had systems fitted. The big excitement in the paddock was the appearance of the new Toleman F1 team, complete with a Brian Hart turbo engine and Pirelli tires. Neither Brian Henton nor Derek Warwick qualified. Otherwise the entry was little changed although Tyrrell had replaced Ricardo Zunino with a rising star called Michele Alboreto who brought much-needed backing for the team from a local ceramics company. News had emerged on Friday that the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen had been cancelled, although this was seen as predictable, given the historic circuit's financial troubles. Qualifying resulted in a popular pole position for Gilles Villeneuve in the turbocharged Ferrari. The Canadian was seven-tenths ahead of Carlos Reutemann's Williams while the Renaults of Rene Arnoux and Alain Prost filled the second row. Nelson Piquet was fifth and Didier Pironi (Ferrari) sixth while the top 10 was completed by John Watson (in the new McLaren MP4/1 - being raced for the first time), Jones, Patrese, and Laffite.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The track was wet at the start and everyone was on wet tires. This race turned out to be an exciting affair as Villeneuve went into the lead while Pironi was able to use the prodigious power of the Ferrari to blast his way up to second position. At the back of the field there was a nasty accident when F1 debutante Miguel Angel Guerra had a moment in Tosa corner and was then hit by Eliseo Salazar's March. This punted the Osella into the barrier at high speed and the Argentine driver had to be cut from the wreck with serious leg injuries. While Guerra was being released from his car the two Ferraris ran away from the rest of the field with Reutemann third, having driven into his teammate Jones to stop the Australian taking third on the first lap. This had damaged Jones's front wing and he was soon in the pits for repairs. That put Patrese up to fourth place and he overtook Reutemann a few laps later the Argentine went off over the grass at the final chicane. Piquet and his Brabham teammate Hector Rebaque completed the top six after Laffite and Arnoux had collided. On lap 14 Villeneuve went into the pits for slicks. As he accelerated away it started to rain again and so two laps later Villeneuve was back in pitlane for wet tires. Pironi led with Patrese second while Piquet moved to third ahead of Reutemann. The Brazilian later got ahead of Patrese as well, and then started to race hard with Pironi. The top five remained unchanged until the 47th lap when Piquet finally overtook Pironi, the Ferrari having damaged a skirt early on. Pironi drifted back behind Patrese, Reutemann and Rebaque but he finished fifth, just ahead of Andrea de Cesaris's McLaren.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: In stark contrast to San Marino, the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder was a shambolic event filled with tragedies and frustration. Politics dominated this event – Gordon Murray's hydraulic suspension gave his Brabhams considerable performance advantages, and the teams had been heavily protesting the system's legality within the revised rules for the season.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: Also, the political bickering over the Concorde Agreement meant that with 32 entries there were too many cars and pressure was applied to ATS and Theodore to withdraw. ATS withdrew Jan Lammers but ran its second car for Slim Borgudd while Patrick Tambay was left without a drive. The Osella team had Piercarlo Ghinzani driving in place of the injured Miguel Angel Guerra. But the tragedy started with Carlos Reutemann accidentally running over an Osella mechanic, Giovanni Amadeo – who died of a fractured skull the Monday after the race. This accident led to complaints from the drivers about the congestion in the pits.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: Qualifying resulted in pole position for Reutemann with Piquet second for Brabham and Pironi third in his turbocharged Ferrari. Fourth place went to Patrese, with the top 10 being completed by Watson, Jones, Villeneuve, Cheever, Laffite, and Mansell.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The race, however, was an appalling embarrassment by top motor racing standards – at the start, there was a drivers' strike concerning mechanic and team personnel safety – they complained that their views were being ignored, which delayed the start. And when the race started, an Arrows mechanic, Dave Luckett, jumped onto the grid just as the clerk of the course hit the lights to go green in an attempt to start Riccardo Patrese's stalled car. Luckett was run over by the other Arrows driver, Sigfried Stohr – and as Luckett laid sprawled unconscious on the track with broken legs, the marshals were able to get him off the track, and the disorganization continued: as the drivers started their second lap with both Arrows cars still on the narrow start–finish straight, a number of marshals, protesting the clerk's dangerous decision jumped onto the track – mere feet from the cars going at full racing speeds – and attempted to stop the race by waving at the drivers to stop, without the approval of the clerk of the course (who is the ultimate authority on the race's direction). The drivers continued on – because they had not been shown the red flag by the clerk of the course- who is the only person at a Grand Prix who can show this flag. But by the time they were to start a 3rd lap, the marshals succeeded in stopping the field themselves. In the meantime, Luckett was taken to hospital, and survived.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: When the race restarted neither Arrows took part. Pironi took the lead with Reutemann, Piquet, Watson and Jones chasing him. The Australian looked very strong in the early laps as he passed Watson and Reutemann and then Jones had a brush with Piquet which left the Brabham in the catchfencing. A furious Piquet charged up to Jones in the pits and attempted to physically fight him. On lap 12 he took the lead from Pironi but eight laps later the Williams jumped out of gear at Bianchibocht and smashed into the barriers. He was fortunate to escape with a scalded thigh caused by water from a demolished radiator. This left Reutemann in the lead from Laffite and Mansell, Pironi having dropped back after going off. Watson was fourth with Villeneuve fifth and de Angelis sixth. It then started to rain, and the race was called off early at 75% distance with Reutemann taking his last victory. The race was In the closing laps Watson faded with gearbox trouble and so Villeneuve finished fourth, de Angelis fifth and Cheever sixth.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The historic Monaco Grand Prix was the scene of an ultra-exciting race. With too many cars entered there had to be a pre-qualifying session to get the field down to 26 for practice. This eliminated both Tolemans, both Marches and the single ATS of Slim Borgudd. A further six were lost in qualifying with Hector Rebaque (Brabham), Rosberg and Chico Serra (Fittipaldi), Jabouille, and the two Osellas (Piercarlo Ghinzani and Beppe Gabbiani) all going home early. At the front of the grid Piquet was on pole in his Brabham with Villeneuve a remarkable second in this near downforce-absent Ferrari and an impressive Mansell third in the new Lotus 87, which made its first appearance. Then came Reutemann, Patrese, de Angelis, Jones, Laffite, and Alain Prost (Renault). Watson completed the top 10 in the McLaren MP4/1.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: At the start there was the usual first corner accident as Andrea de Cesaris (McLaren) tangled with Mario Andretti's Alfa Romeo. Piquet took the lead with Villeneuve chasing and Mansell third ahead of the two Williams cars. The young Englishman disappeared early on with a suspension problem and Reutemann went out with gearbox trouble and Jones moved up ahead of Villeneuve and began to pressure Piquet for the lead. On lap 53 Piquet came up to lap some backmarkers, went offline and slid off into a barrier at Tabac. Jones took the lead and seemed to have the race in his pocket until lap 67 when he went into the pits with a fuel vaporization problem. He was soon on his way again but Villeneuve saw his chance and began to close in. On lap 72 Villeneuve took the lead at Ste Devote. A disappointed Jones finished second with Laffite third, Pironi fourth, Eddie Cheever fifth (despite being two laps down) and Marc Surer sixth in the Ensign.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: Three weeks after the Monaco Grand Prix, the narrow and tight Jarama circuit just outside Madrid was the location for the Spanish Grand Prix, and it produced one of the best races of the year. The field had altered somewhat with Eliseo Salazar having left March to join Ensign, displacing Marc Surer. Laffite took pole in his Ligier-Matra with the two Williams-DFVs of Jones and Reutemann second and third ahead of Watson, Prost, and the Alfa of Bruno Giacomelli. Villeneuve was seventh.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: Race day was incredibly hot, and the temperature was around 100-degrees when the race began with Jones and Reutemann blasting into the lead as Laffite made a poor start and Villeneuve diving into third place at the first corner, snagging Prost's front wing as he took the place. At the end of the first lap Villeneuve pulled out of Reutemann's slipstream and took second place. Jones quickly built a lead but on lap 14 - when he was around 10secs ahead - he went off at Nuvolari. This left Villeneuve in the lead with Reutemann on his tail. Behind them Watson, Laffite and Elio de Angelis emerged from the hurly-burly and all began to close on the dueling leaders. Reutemann was having some trouble with his gearbox and when Laffite arrived behind him there was little Reutemann could do to stop Jacques overtaking. The Argentine would later drop behind Watson as well as the five front-runners became a train of cars, nose-to-tail for the 18 laps of the race. Villeneuve had the power to get away from his rivals on the straight but in the corners they were all over him. Time and time again Laffite pulled alongside as they emerged from a corner but the Ferrari would surge ahead as the horsepower kicked in. The five remained locked together right to the flag, crossing the line covered by just 1.24s to record the second closest race in the history of F1 at the time. Villeneuve, in a powerful but very ill-handling Ferrari, managed to keep 4 better-handling cars behind him in a car that was badly suited to the slow, narrow and twisty Jarama circuit. Villeneuve, Jacques Laffite, John Watson, Reutemann and Elio de Angelis were all separated by 1.2 seconds at the finish.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The small crowd, the inappropriate time of year this race was held in and the waning interest of the organizers caused this race to be the last Spanish Grand Prix until 1986, when it was moved south to the new Jerez circuit near Seville.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: Two weeks after Gilles Villeneuve's extraordinary victory in Spain, the alternating French Grand Prix moved from the Paul Ricard circuit near Marseille to the fast, sweeping Prenois circuit near Dijon, located in the Burgundy countryside where the F1 gathered with Carlos Reutemann well ahead of Nelson Piquet in the World Championship.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: Marc Surer (displaced from Ensign by Eliseo Salazar) had taken over the Theodore drive, leaving Patrick Tambay out of work. However Jabouille had decided to retire as he was no longer competitive as a result of the leg injuries he had suffered in Canada in 1980 and so Tambay became the second Talbot Ligier driver. This was perfect as it reduced the field to 30 cars and meant that there was no need for pre-qualifying. The other news was that Goodyear had returned to F1 and so Williams and Brabham appeared on Goodyear tires. Ensign and March used Avon. Qualifying resulted in pole position for Arnoux's Renault. This was not a surprise but second place for Watson's McLaren MP4/1 was rather startling, particularly as the Marlboro car was ahead of the second Renault driven by Prost. Fourth place went to Piquet with Andrea de Cesaris (McLaren), Laffite, Reutemann, de Angelis, Jones and Mario Andretti (Alfa Romeo) completing the top 10.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: On the first lap Piquet took the lead from Watson, Prost, de Cesaris and Villeneuve (who had been 11th on the grid in his Ferrari) while Arnoux dropped back to ninth. Prost soon moved ahead of Watson while further back de Cesaris was pushed behind Villeneuve, although both men were then overtaken by Reutemann. Arnoux recovered to run fifth and he moved up to fourth ahead of Reutemann on lap 33 only to run into trouble and drop back behind the Argentine driver.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: On lap 58 there was a torrential downpour and the race was stopped. The weather cleared up quickly and so it was decided that the second part of the race would be run with the grid based on the finishing order of the first part. This time Piquet was engulfed by Prost's Renault and he was followed ahead by Watson and Arnoux. Piquet faded quickly behind Pironi and any advantage he had had in the first part of the race disappeared. Prost stayed ahead all the way to the flag to win his first F1 victory and he was followed home by Watson. Piquet was given third place (although he was fifth on the road) while the remaining points went to Arnoux, Pironi and de Angelis. Prost, who was to become one of the greatest drivers in Formula One history, had won his first of 51 championship Grands Prix at home in a Renault.


title: 1981 Formula One World Championship

text: The British Grand Prix was held at the flat Silverstone circuit this year, which was the fastest Grand Prix circuit in the world at the time. The field was almost the same as at Dijon two weeks earlier except that Jean-Pierre Jarier had been hired to drive for Osella in place of Miguel Angel Guerra. Team Lotus appeared with the Lotus 88B but once again the team ran into trouble with the FISA over the legality of the car and eventually the cars were disqualified and as they had been built by cannibalizing the 87s the team had no choice but to withdraw. Qualifying resulted in a 1-2 for the Renaults of Arnoux and Prost with Nelson Piquet third in his Brabham. The Brazilian used a new BMW turbo-engined BT50 in the course of practice but set his time in the old BT49C. Pironi was fourth fastest for Ferrari and then came the two McLarens of Watson and de Cesaris. The fourth row featured Jones alongside Villeneuve's Ferrari while the top 10 was completed by Reutemann (Williams) and Patrese (Arrows).