The fiery Canadian, Gilles Villeneuve, set a competitive pace right from the first practice session on California's Long Beach road circuit. As is the case with road circuits, setting a fast time requires that everything goes perfectly. Gilles nailed a super lap at 1:18.8, 0.4 seconds better than his next-best lap time, and fast enough to steal pole-position away from Lotus 79 driver, Carlos Reutemann.
Sunday morning dawned cool and it seemed likely to rain. Happily, the skies cleared in plenty of time for the race to begin. Chaos and attrition weren't just a part of the race; pre-race confusion began when the Renault team withdrew, Lotus suffered an electrical problem that dropped Reutemann to the back of the grid and Villeneuve missed his grid position at the end of the formation lap!
When the race finally began, Villeneuve and teammate, Scheckter, went into the first corner side-by-side. Coming out of turn one, Villeneuve pulled into the lead and over the course of the event pulled farther and farther away from the rest of the field, setting fastest lap along the way. The two Ferraris came over the line in 1st and 2nd, 30 seconds apart and with the rest of the field almost a full minute behind Villeneuve. For Ferrari and Villeneuve it was a perfect weekend: pole, fastest lap, and a one-two finish!
