| rdfs:comment
| - Following the conclusion of the 1980 Formula One Season, Formula One was in political turmoil. Since 1978, the FOCA teams, which primarily consisted of the engine customer teams of the Ford Cosworth DFV had increasingly managed to gain ground over the engine constructor teams. The revolution of ground effect in 1978 had seen a massive improvement in speed, where team's such as Lotus, Williams, Brabham and Ligier had proved in previous seasons that a powerful engine was not an essential requirement to be the fastest in Formula One.
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| abstract
| - Following the conclusion of the 1980 Formula One Season, Formula One was in political turmoil. Since 1978, the FOCA teams, which primarily consisted of the engine customer teams of the Ford Cosworth DFV had increasingly managed to gain ground over the engine constructor teams. The revolution of ground effect in 1978 had seen a massive improvement in speed, where team's such as Lotus, Williams, Brabham and Ligier had proved in previous seasons that a powerful engine was not an essential requirement to be the fastest in Formula One. During 1980, manufacturer teams like Ferrari and Alfa Romeo had struggled to compete against the ground effect cars, despite having more powerful engines. The Formula One governing body, the FISA had decreed at the end of 1980 that "skirts" which were the added component on a car that produced the ground effect would be banned for the 1981 season due to safety reasons. This caused an uproar among the FOCA teams, FISA and its President Jean-Marie Balestre had always been considered in favour of the manufacturer team's. The move was considered by FOCA chairman and Brabham team principal, Bernie Ecclestone as a move designed to assist the manufacturer team's to return to winning. Ecclestone and FOCA proposed a breakaway series titled the "World Federation of Motorsport", which was to run outside the jurisdiction of the FIA. As the new year of 1980 hit, the FIA was desperately trying to negotiate with the FOCA in order to keep Formula One alive and to not lose the majority of the teams. This political turmoil meant what was meant to be the opening race of the year in Argentina and the second race in South Africa had to be reshuffled. This was not a problem for the Argentinian race, however the organisers of the South African Grand Prix had already been marketing the race for its original date of the 7th of February, not its newly designated date of 11th of April. Despite the pleas of the organisers to host the race on February 7th, the FIA refused stating if it wished to remain a part of the Formula One championship it had to abide by its reassigned race of April 11th. Bernie Ecclestone instead proposed to the organisers to run the event under the new breakaway series regulations instead of FIA rules. The Kyalami race organisers agreed and South Africa was meant to be the first race of the championship of the new Formula One under the World Federation of Motorsport. Despite the banning of skirts by the FIA for 1981, all the attending teams participated in the race with the skirts still attached. Ecclestone saw one major blow to his new championship, the continental team's would not attend the race. The only non-British team's attending were the German ATS and Brazilian Fittipaldi team, both notably still Ford-Cosworth customer teams. The major manufacturers of Ferrari, Renault, Alfa Romeo as well as smaller teams such as Ligier and Osella failed to attend the race.
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