 Hunt was dropped at the end of 1978 in favour of Lotus's Ronnie Peterson, but when Peterson was killed by a crash at the Italian Grand Prix, John Watson was signed, instead.No improvement occurred in ; Coppuck's M28 design was described by Mayer as "ghastly, a disaster" and "quite diabolical" and the M29 did little to change the situation.Tambay scored no points and Watson only 15 to place the team eighth at the end of the year.