1983 was the last year without a mandatory super license. Pay drivers still roamed—some terrifyingly slow. But more chilling: the danger. No carbon fiber chassis yet. No halo. No medical car requirement.
All eyes were on Renault’s Alain Prost (the "Professor") and Ferrari’s René Arnoux (the fiery Frenchman). They traded wins, crashes, and insults. Prost was smooth; Arnoux was chaos. 1983 f1 season
For years, turbos were unreliable jokes. Not in ’83. Ferrari, Renault, BMW, and Honda (with Williams) turned engines into bombs with wheels. Qualifying boost pressures approached 5 bar —over 1,400 hp in short bursts. Engines that lasted one race, if lucky. 1983 was the last year without a mandatory super license