In 1979, Piquet competed in his first full season in Formula One. He once again drove for the Brabham team, alongside double world champion, Niki Lauda. The season was difficult for the team, which was accustomed to success. Piquet retired from eleven of the fifteen races in the season. He started off his season being involved in a first-lap pile up and getting injured at the Argentine Grand Prix in Buenos Aires and crashing into Clay Regazzoni's Williams car at the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos. The first points of his career came at the Dutch Grand Prix, where he finished fourth. He had a huge accident at the Italian Grand Prix; the rear section of his BT48 was completely ripped off at Monza's Curva Grande corner after another incident with Regazzoni; Piquet walked away uninjured. But even though he crashed a few times driving a semi-competitive car that had an unreliable engine, Piquet qualified in the top 5 several times- often out-qualifying Lauda. 2 weeks after the Italian round, Lauda abruptly quit driving before the start of the Canadian Grand Prix, leaving Piquet as the number one driver for Brabham, and leaving him and new recruit Ricardo Zunino to debut the new BT49, which had a Ford-Cosworth DFV engine; Brabham ditched the Alfa Romeo V12's in protest to Alfa Romeo entering as a full works team. In the final race, the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, Piquet started from the front row and took the fastest lap in the race, clearly showing the new BT49's considerable potential.