Piquet dropped to eighth after a rough start but fought hard to regain position. He landed in fifth by the end of the first lap. ­Reutemann “just went backward,” Garton says. At the start, Jones jumped into the lead at the first corner and accelerated away, “leaving Reutemann to be swamped by Villeneuve, Prost and Giacomelli,” Alan Henry wrote in his post-race report for Motor Sport.

Race day brought warmer temperatures-and a turnabout.

“Of the three of them,” Garton says, “Reutemann just looked completely in control.”

Piquet, still smarting from the boxing-grade massage, qualified fourth, and Laffite was down in 12th. On Friday, amid unseasonably cool weather, Reutemann put his Williams on pole, with teammate Alan Jones just 0.174 second behind. Defined by miles of familiar concrete and fencing, the Caesars course was perhaps the least flashy thing ever to have been built in Las Vegas.