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Parent Category: Motor car History

Category: Britain

Frank Williams Racing Cars

From the U.K. in Cippenham (1968 to 1971) and  Reading (1972 to 1975)

Frank Williams Racing Cars was a British racing team that competed between 1968 and 1975 with different names in Formula 2 and Formula 1 . The predecessor of the team engaged in Formula 1 since 1977 Williams F1 . Frank Williams Racing Cars was closely associated with Piers Courage in the early years ; later, numerous lesser-known drivers competed for the British team.

History

From 1972 to 1975, Frank Williams Racing Cars constructed five different racing cars, of which a total of seven copies were made. The Williams FW05 does not belong in this series. On the one hand, it is not a self-construction of Williams, but merely a renamed Hesketh 308C ; On the other hand, regardless of its model name, the car was not used by Frank Williams Racing Cars, but by Walter Wolf Racing.

Frank Williams Racing Cars was founded in 1965 by Frank Williams . Frank Williams Racing Cars was based in Cippenham near Slough from 1968 to 1971, at the beginning of the 1972 season, the team moved to a 450-square-meter garage on Bennet Road in Reading , from which later Walter Wolf Racing also operated.

Williams had participated in numerous races until 1966 as an active racer, especially in Formula 3 . In parallel, he built in 1965 in London on a trade in racing car accessories. Two years later he began to sell complete racing cars. When a customer canceled the purchase of two Formula 2 vehicles at the end of 1967, Williams decided to use the cars with Piers Courage under his own name in the 1968 Formula 2 season. As early as 1969, the team rose to the Formula 1 World Championship. In the following years, the team entered into two alliances with Italian carmakers. In the first case de Tomaso deliveredThe racing car in 1970, while Williams organized the race; in the case of Iso (1973 and 1974), however, Williams also produced the cars themselves. During these years, the team was significantly underfunded and heavily in debt. Therefore, it often had to compete with used equipment and paying drivers .

 End of 1975, Frank Williams sold his team to the Canadian-Austrian industrialist Walter Wolf , who brought him from the Formula 1 1977 season under the name Walter Wolf Racing at the start. Frank Williams was initially employed by Wolf, but left the team in the late summer of 1976 and founded at the end of the year a new racing team, from 1977 initially under the nameWilliams Grand Prix Engineering , later as Williams F1 , again in Formula 1. Wolf Racing, however, gave up the end of 1979. The material was taken over by the competing racing team Fittipaldi Automotive , which was represented until the end of 1982 continue in Formula 1.

Frank Williams Racing Cars competed in its first Formula 2 season with two Brabham BT23C dark blue painted vehicles equipped with a Cosworth DFA engine. The regular driver was Piers Courage , who had been close friends with Frank Williams for several years. Courage drove some promising results for Williams. However, he could not participate in all Formula 2 races for Williams, since he 1968 had a regular place at Reg Parnell Racing in Formula 1. At term collisions, Jonathan Williams jumped for courage. Jonathan Williams scored the first victory for Frank Williams Racing Cars in Formula 2 at the Lotteria Monza. 

Parallel to the beginning of Formula 1 involvement Frank Williams Racing Cars came in 1969 again in Formula 2. Emergency vehicles were mostly still the Brabham BT23C, later a Brabham BT30 was added. Piers Courage, which was an integral part of Williams' Formula 1 program, rarely raced in Formula 2. Most of the races were played by Malcolm Guthrie , with the addition of other riders like Jacky Ickx , Derek Bell , Alistair Walker and Graham McRae or Franco Barnabei, The team could not win a victory this year. The best result was at the VI. Grote Prijs van Limborg reaches Zolder: Here Williams' riders took the placings two to four. Another second place reached Richard Attwood at the 31st Grand Prix of Germany on the Nordschleife of the Nürburgring .

After a one-year break, Frank Williams returned to Formula 2 with the financial backing of French lubricant manufacturer Motul . His team used several March 712M with Cosworth DFA engine. The regulars were Henri Pescarolo , who was at the same time for Williams in Formula 1 at the start, and Carlos Pace . Partly drove Derek Bell - he played the two inaugural race series in Bogotá - Andrea de Adamich and Max Jeanwho only competed in two French races. The season was unremarkable. The drivers achieved barely countable results. Exceptions were the race in Mallory Park, which won Pescarolo, and the Gran Premio Città di Imola, Carlos Pace for Frank Williams Racing Cars could win.

After this season, Frank Williams ended his involvement in Formula 2, to focus exclusively on the Grand Prix sport can.

Frank Williams Formula One 

1960s

The rise in the Formula 1 was for Frank Williams a logical consequence of the successful involvement in Formula 2. In a roundabout way, he managed a current Brabham BT26A obtain. It was built around spring 1968 BT26 / 1, which was used this year by Jack Brabham with a Repco engine and converted in the winter months of 1968/69 on a more powerful Cosworth engine . A structurally identical car put the BrabhamTeam in the Formula 1 World Championship. Brabham did not deliver any of the latest generation race cars to customer teams at this time, keeping competitive pressure low for the factory team. The BT26A / 1 had been sold in late 1968 to a British collector who had no Formula 1 ambitions. Frank Williams bought the car from him a few weeks later without any knowledge of the factory team. Jack Brabham commented on this additional competition with annoyance. 

Williams went in 1969 in Formula 1 with Piers Courage at the start. Courage had already completed a full Grand Prix season: In 1968 he had retracted with the private Reg Parnell team four world championship points and finished this year in 20th place in the drivers' standings.

For cost reasons, Williams left the first World Cup round of the year in South Africa and debuted only at the second round in Spain . Courage qualified for the eleventh place in the race in Montjuïc , to which only nine teams with a total of 14 riders registered. In the race, he fell out due to engine damage. In the following events repeated technical defects: In the Netherlands , the BT26 suffered a clutch damage, broke in France , the chassis, and in Canada there was a premature failure due to a fuel leak. Only at the Grand Prix of Germany a driving error Courages led to premature failure. During the year, Courage came five times, twice in the podium: at the Monaco Grand Prix , the team's second World Championship race, he only had to give Graham Hill the factory Lotus lead. More important was the second place in the US Grand Prix in Watkins Glen : Here he pushed Jack Brabham in the identical BT26 of the factory team in third place. Along with the results of other placings Courage finished the Formula 1 season with 16 championship points in eighth, ahead of Jack Brabham.

1970s

Given Williams' driver Courage Jack Brabham hit the same footing in 1969, Frank Williams could not expect Brabham to provide him with a competitive chassis in 1970 as well. Lotus and McLaren also did not provide any current chassis to customer teams, so the future of the Williams team did not seem secure at first. In the fall of 1969, however, there was the possibility of a connection with the Italian sports car manufacturer De Tomaso . The trigger for this was a Formula 2 race in which Piers Courage launched a constructed Formula 2 car from De Tomaso. Courage scored the pole position at the 1969 Gran Premio di Roma and impressed Alejandro de Tomasothrough his dedication in the race. De Tomaso planned to expand his motorsport commitment to Formula 1, but did not want to run his own team, but only provide self-constructed racing cars for existing teams. Frank Williams then entered into an initially one-year partnership with De Tomaso: De Tomaso delivered the race cars, while Williams brought them under his own name in the Formula 1 1970 season at the start.

The emergency vehicle was the De Tomaso 505 , designed by Giampaolo Dallara , a vehicle described as a "simple construction car" equipped with numerous British components and a Cosworth DFV engine. An integral part of the agreement was the use of Piers Courage, which de Tomaso greatly appreciated. Courage stayed accordingly at Williams and proposed for this commitment a contract offer of Scuderia Ferrari .

The Formula 1 season in 1970 was unsuccessful for the British-Italian team. De Tomaso's cars, of which three were made (505/1, 505/2 and 505/3), proved to be overweight, unreliable and problematic in handling.  The best result was third place in the Courage's not part of the World Championship BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone . In the subsequent World Cup runs Courage did not succeed in repeating this result. He did not finish in any of the first four Grand Prizes. In Spain , Courage got off the track and destroyed his car. He himself was unhurt. At the fifth race of the season in the Netherlandscrashed courage deadly. The magnesium body of the car caught fire. Most representations assume that courage burned in the car. According to other sources, the previous impact was already deadly.

Frank Williams, who had lost a close friend with Courage, skipped the following French Grand Prix to announce Brian Redman for the next two races . Redman missed the qualification on both attempts. For the Grand Prix of Austria he was Tim Give replaced. Giftgiving regularly qualified for the last series of races until the US Grand Prix ; However, he never came to the finish. Participation in the last race of the year, the Grand Prix of Mexico , Williams and de Tomaso renounced by mutual agreement. At the end of the year, their alliance was dissolved. Alessandro de Tomaso finally gave up his Formula 1 ambitions.

In the third Formula 1 season Frank Williams Racing Cars used a March as a customer vehicle. In the first race of the season in South Africa , it was still a March 701 (chassis number 701/6); at the beginning of the European races a March 711 was used.

The regular driver was the Frenchman Henri Pescarolo . He brought with him sponsorship money from Motul , which not only maintained the operation of the Formula 1 team, but also enabled the deployment of a two-car team in Formula 2. The results in Formula 1 were poor. Although Pescarolo won the Oulton Park Gold Cup , a non-World Cup race. In the World Championship races, however, he only achieved a fourth place in the Grand Prix of Great Britain and a sixth place in the Grand Prix of Austria .

At some races Williams put in a second car. This concerned the March 701. The drivers changed several times. They included Max Jean, Ray Allan , Derek Bell , Cyd Williams and Tony Trimmer . Usually these were races that did not have world championship status. One exception was the French Grand Prix , a World Championship race in which Jean Max competed alongside Pescarolo.

During the year, the team was financially and organizationally "on the verge of collapse," as Frank Williams later admitted. This was due to the excessive burden of simultaneous Formula One and Formula Two engagements. 

In the Formula 1 season 1972 Williams was a racing car designer. The trigger was the 1971 founding of the Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA), an association of the designers of Formula 1 vehicles. The membership, which was tied to the production of their own racing cars and denied to customer teams, brought some organizational and financial benefits: this included in particular the assumption of travel expenses. Since the founding of FOCA, Frank Williams has pursued the goal of joining her with his team. For this, Williams had to become a constructor from the customer team. The costs associated with building a car of its own could only be borne with the financial support of a sponsor. In the fall of 1971 Williams found with the Italian model car manufacturer Politoys a lender who supported the construction of its own car with a one-time payment in the amount of £ 40,000. Politoys in turn became name sponsor of the vehicle. In the following months Len Bailey constructed on behalf of Williams the Politoys FX3 , which was due to hesitant payment of the designer until June 1972, and thus with considerable delay completed as a single piece. The compact, uncomplicated car was used this year, however, only in a World Cup run: At the premiere of the FX3 Henri Pescarolo damaged him in an accident significantly. Because of financally reasons. retreated and the production of a second copy dragged on until the end of the year.

The Team Williams Motul called racing team actually contested the 1972 season, contrary to expectations, almost exclusively with customer vehicles from March. The regular driver was again Pescarolo. He received a designated as March 721 car. Unlike the name suggests, this March 721/3 did not correspond to the 721 models of the March factory team of the same name. Rather, it was a car that March had built from leftover parts of the 711 models and upgraded with individual components of the 721. Carlos Pace , who drove from the second race of the season for the Williams team, received the already used in the previous March 711/3.

During the season, Pace was twice in the points: he was sixth in the Spanish Grand Prix , and at the Grand Prix of Belgium in Nivelles , he finished fifth. The three World Cup points achieved were the only ones for Williams this year. Henri Pescarolo, the Williams had intended the role of the top driver, fell several times as a result of driving errors.

For the Grand Prix of Great Britain , the first Politoys FX3 was completed. While Carlos Pace entered the race with the old March 711 as 13th, Pescarolo qualified in the FX3 with a gap of 5.2 seconds to the pole time for the 26th and last grid position. In the race he covered seven laps. In the eighth round Pescarolo came off the track and collided with the side boundary. There are different representations of the causes of the accident. Some reports point to an alleged accident severity Pescarolos and assume that also in Brands Hatch a driving mistake of the French led to the failure. Other observers assume a technical defect ("Apparently something was broken").  As a result of the collision, the car was so badly damaged that it could not be used at first.

Pace finished third in the drivers' standings with three points at the end of the year, Pescarolo had scored no points.

For the Formula 1 1973 season Frank Williams entered into a connection with the sports car manufacturer Iso Rivolta from Bresso near Milan . Similar to de Tomaso three years earlier, Iso also wanted to use Grand Prix racing as a promotional, sales promotion platform for his luxury class vehicles. Iso acquired the right to provide the racing cars with their own name. A further technical commitment Isos did not exist. In particular, Iso did not participate in the design or construction of the race cars. Iso published for advertising purposes, numerous photos showing their own sports cars in addition to the Formula 1 vehicles. In addition, Iso put on a limited special series of Lele .

In the first three races of 1973, the team, which was reported as Frank Williams Racing Cars , put two Politoys FX3 models, which were given the designation Iso-Marlboro FX3B with regard to the new sponsors . For the European races of the Formula 1 1973 season, some changes in the technical rules came into force. They primarily concerned the crash safety of the cars and prescribed among other things a better protection of the driver and the fuel tanks in side collisions. While some designers were able to adapt their racing cars to the new rules, this was not possible at the Politoys designed in 1971 with relative effort, so that Frank Williams decided to develop new cars.  Then the came Iso-Marlboro IR1 and the largely identical IR2 . Both vehicles debuted at the Spanish Grand Prix . Even when they appeared they were not considered competitive racing cars; In the opinion of observers, they merely served "to fill the starting field" 

On the driver side Williams had initially set again on Carlos Pace; the Brazilian changed but at the beginning of the 1973 season to Team Surtees . Instead, Williams signed New Zealander Howden Ganley driving the IR2. Ganley qualified for every race; the best result was 10th place in the Grand Prix of Monaco . After three failures, each of which was technical, came home in Sweden for the first time. He finished eleventh, four laps behind. After that he achieved a finish in half of the races. As a rule, he had been outclassed by the leader two, three or four times at the finish. One exception was the Canadian Grand Prix, Here he came with only one lap behind in sixth place and secured his team after Gijs van Lennep sixth place in the Netherlands (on IR1) the second World Cup point. In training for the German Grand Prix Ganley crashed after at his Iso-Marlboro had failed the brakes. Since a repair of the badly damaged car was not possible until the race, the New Zealander had to do without the start. From Austria , he had a newly built chassis available, which retained the previous name.

The IR1 was initially given to Nanni Galli , who was favored by Iso Rivolta. Gallis commitment was linked to the commitment of its sponsors to financially support the Williams team. When the promised payments failed to go until May 1973, Williams replaced the Italian for the Grand Prix of Sweden by the Danish racing driver Tom Belsø , who in turn promised sponsorship payments. Belsø qualified for the last place on the grid. Since his sponsors did not pay by race Sunday, Williams did not let the Danes take part in the race. In France and Germany drove Henri Pescarolo the second Iso-Marlboro. In his home race at the Circuit Paul RicardHe was canceled due to a technical error, at the Nürburgring he finished tenth. In the United Kingdom Williams announced Graham McRae for the IR1. The New Zealand debutant qualified for the 28th and last place on the grid. At the start he stopped at the end of the field. After a serious accident at the end of the first round, in which nine vehicles were involved, the race was initially canceled. After 90 minutes of interruption, the race was resumed. McRae lined up with 18 other drivers to reboot. Even on the grid, his car suffered a clutch failure, so that the IR1 did not move from the spot. McRae then had to finish the race.

From the Grand Prix of the Netherlands Gijs van Lennep took over the IR1 three times. In his home race at the Circuit Zandvoort , in which Roger Williamson had a fatal accident, van Lennep came sixth in the finish. He scored the first World Cup point for Williams as a designer. In Austria and Italy , van Lennep was no longer in the points. In Canada, Tim Schenken drove the IR1. He was five laps 14th at the last race of the season in the US eventually drove with Jacky Ickxan established and experienced pilot for Williams. Ickx had been a regular driver for Ferrari in the first half of the season but had left the team in the summer because he was dissatisfied with the Scuderia's lack of competitiveness. In qualifying he was half a second slower than his teammate Ganley. He qualified for starting place. He finished the race in seventh place.

Williams finished the season 1973 with two points on rank 10 of the Constructors Championship.

In the Formula 1 1974 season, Frank Williams continued his relationship with Iso Rivolta, even if the Italian company had in the meantime run into financial difficulties and his payment obligations were limited. A gradual distancing was made clear by the fact that Williams changed the name of the Iso-Marlboro models with the elimination of the previous addition IR in FW 01, FW 02 and FW 03 (FW for Frank Williams).

As in the previous year, Williams went double-track in 1974: One of the vehicles was reported to a regular driver during the entire season, while the second vehicle was leased to alternate pilots. Initially, the IR2 was the vehicle of the main driver, while the IR1 was awarded to various Paydriver . After the introduction of the largely identical Iso-Marlboro FW03.In the spring of 1974, the IR2 / FW02 took over the role of the rental vehicle. The cars were due to financial difficulties of the team only insufficiently maintained and patchy repaired. As the season progressed, there was no need for necessary repairs and spare parts. In some races, broken plastic parts were joined together with adhesive tape; From the summer of 1974 Williams used multiple used tires of the Ferrari team. This had a detrimental effect on the competitiveness of the car. 

The trunk cockpit was in 1974 to the former Ferrari driver Arturo Merzario . Merzario qualified for third place in the Grand Prix of South Africa . His qualifying time was only 0.2 seconds over the pole time of Ferrari driver Niki Lauda . This positioning was the best starting position of a Williams in a Formula 1 World Championship race. Merzario finished sixth in the race. In Spain debuted the FW03. Merzario reached with him the sixth starting position in Belgium , otherwise he started mostly from the seventh or eighth row. He came with the FW03 in nine attempts only once the finish: the Grand Prix of ItalyMerzario finished fourth in Monza. At all other Grands Prix he retired prematurely. Two races he finished prematurely after a driving mistake; where he damaged the car in Monaco so significantly that the FW03 failed for two months. The other losses were due to technical reasons. Three times there were defects in the engine or in the engine environment, including in the field of gasoline supply. The throttle linkage and power transmission were also isolated; the Grand Prix of the United States could not finish Merzario due to a defect of the fire extinguisher. 

The second cockpit, available from the South African Grand Prix , was once again provided to a number of paying drivers: in South Africa , it was Tom Belsø. While Merzario qualified for third place on the grid in FW02, scoring the best result ever for a Williams-reported car, Belsø's time in FW01 was only 27th on the grid. Belsø did not make it past the first lap. After a few hundred meters, the clutch broke, so he had to give up prematurely. BELSŐ was in the second car also to the Grand Prix of Spain and the United Kingdom ; Here he missed each qualification. For theGrand Prix of the Netherlands was reported to the FW01 as last year for Gijs van Lennep, and for the subsequent race in France , the debut Jean-Pierre Jabouilles was foreseen in the FW01. Both drivers missed the qualification. From the Grand Prix of Germany , the French debutant Jacques Laffite took over the second Iso. He drove the car at each of the remaining races. He managed to qualify regularly, but he came at any race of the year to the finish. In the penultimate race in Canada, he dropped out prematurely due to a puncture, but was rated as 15th, since he had traveled a sufficient distance before his failure.

There were irritations at the Swedish Grand Prix . Instead of the diseased Merzario Williams reported the British Richard Robarts , the second car should go again Tom Belsø. Belsø qualified in qualifying for grid position 22, but damaged the car in an accident, so his car was not ready for the race. The inexperienced Robards, however, failed already at the prequalification. In order to at least start with a car in Anderstorp, Frank Williams gave Robarts' car for this race to Belsø.

Overall, Williams finished the season, which was associated with significant financial burden, with four championship points as tenth in the Constructors' Championship. This Williams could leave the team of John Surtees behind.

1975 and the end of Williams

In late 1974, Iso Rivolta was dissolved as a result of bankruptcy. The partnership with Williams came to an end. Also Marlboro retired largely from Frank Williams' team, which then had to contest the Formula 1 season in 1975 without the financial support of a major partner. The largest contributor to the team budget was contributed by Jacques Laffite, who was promoted to the regular driver and supported by a Swiss company called Ambrozium,  who had to pay £ 1,000 to the team for each race.  Additional funds came from Paydrivern to which Frank Williams, as in previous years, rent his second car.

The team initially started with the two-year-old FW02 and the one-year-old FW03, whose model name had changed from Iso-Marlboro to Williams at the start of the season. The FW01 was not used anymore. Taking advantage of its components built Williams in the spring of 1975, the first copy of the Williams FW04 , a further development of the Iso-Marlboro constructions, which was characterized primarily by a narrower, tailored to the thin Laffite cockpit. After his debut in Spain , where it was still driven by Merzario, Laffite took over the new car, while the FW03 was the rental car for the Paydriver. At the last race of the year, the second FW04 was completed; but the car was no longer used.

Laffite missed qualifying in his first FW04 campaign in Monaco , but then the race participation was assured. Laffite's best qualifying result was the twelfth starting position in the Austrian Grand Prix , the worst 21st place in the US Grand Prix . Laffite came in eight races only twice the finish. The transmission collapsed three times, once the engine failed, and in Austria Laffite gave up because of the car's inaccessibility. The best race result in the history of the team in a Formula 1 World Championship race reached Laffite at the German Grand Prix, which he finished in second place: Laffite went from the 15th starting position in the race. In the first nine laps of the race, an unusually large number of riders lost due to tire damage and subsequent suspension damage: Jochen Mass , John Watson , Vittorio Brambilla , Emerson Fittipaldi , Carlos Pace and Jean-Pierre Jarier , all of whom had started from Laffite, had to Race at the Nürburgring to end prematurely after tire defects, also fell James Hunt and Clay Regazzonidue to other defects. Laffite was spared technical problems during the race and came in second with almost a minute advantage over third-placed Lauda. He clinched six World Championship points for Williams, the only ones this year and the only ones scoring FW04.

The second Williams was leased in 1978 to eight different drivers. In Spain, Tony Brise drove the car that made his Formula 1 debut in Montjuïc . He qualified for grid position 18. Two laps to go he collided with Shadow factory driver Tom Pryce . Both drivers failed. But since Brise had covered 27 of 29 laps, he was ranked seventh. Breeze then moved to Team Embassy Hill . His successors at Williams were Damien Magee , Ian Scheckter , François Migault , Ian Ashley , Jo Vonlanthen and Renzo Zorziwho each bought into the team for a race. Scheckter, Magee and Zorzi came in their missions each outside the points to the finish. The best result of them scored Scheckter, who finished twelfth in the Netherlands . He had been overtaken five times, Zorzi was six laps behind in Italy. The rest of the drivers suffered from the technical unreliability of the FW03. Migault, who was registered for the French Grand Prix , qualified for grid position 24, but could not compete in the race. Before the start, the Williams mechanics failed to start the engine. The Swiss Jo Vonlanthen missed the Grand Prix of AustriaAlmost eight seconds back on pole time qualifying. But as the pre-placed Wilson Fittipaldi and Mark Donohue could not participate in the race due to accident, Vonlanthen moved into the rank of qualifiers. After 15 laps he improved from 25th to 20th. Then he failed prematurely due to a motor failure.  Ian Ashley suffered an accident during training for the Grand Prix of Germany in the section Pflanzgarten , in which he broke several hand bones. He could not participate in the race. Vonlanthen also drove the FW03 at the Swiss Grand Prix, a non-World Cup Formula 1 race, which was held in the week after the race in Austria at the French Circuit de Dijon-Prenois . He qualified for the 15th and penultimate starting place; his gap to the pole time of Jean-Pierre Jarier (Shadow) was 2.5 seconds.  The race went for Vonlanthen "full of problems",  so he crossed the finish line with a gap of nine rounds and was not classified.

For the last race of the year in the United States appeared for the first time the second Williams FW04, which should replace the FW03, which Williams had rented in the course of the 1975 season to a total of seven Paydriver . In Watkins Glen , the second car was announced for the Italian racer Lella Lombardi , who received sponsorship from Lavazzapossessed. She should drive the new FW04 / 2. Due to a chain of unfortunate circumstances ultimately none of the Williams drivers took part in the US Grand Prix. Laffite qualified for position 21, Lombardi for 24th. During the warm-up on race Sunday, a valve spring on Lombardis Cosworth engine was broken. The Italian did not notice the defect and continued her practice lap. As a result, the valve fell into the cylinder and tore the engine block. Since Williams did not have a replacement engine for financial reasons, Lombardi was initially excluded from the race participation. On the morning of race Sunday, Laffite also fell out: his wife mistook his eye drops with a cleaning fluid and mistakenly gave the driver a few drops of the cleaning agent in the eyes. Laffite then had to be taken to a clinic and could not participate in the race. Even the attempt to bring Lombardi in the now vacant Auto Laffites at the start, failed: Lombardi did not fit into the tailored to the extremely slim Laffite FW04 / 1. In addition, there was no time for a change of engine.

In December 1975, Frank Williams sold his team to Walter Wolf. Wolf had previously taken over the remnants of the Hesketh team and now pooled the resources of Hesketh and Williams. The team should compete in future under the name Walter Wolf Racing . As such, it was reported regularly from the 1976 Spanish Grand Prix .

The assignment of the Formula 1 season 1976 is not uncontroversial in motor racing literature. Some authors statistically expect the year to the team Frank Williams Racing Cars, which corresponds to a relocation of the debut of Walter Wolf Racing on the year 1977 . Mostly, however assumed that Frank Williams Racing Cars played his last race at the US Grand Prix in 1975, so that all races of 1976 incorporated already in the statistics of Walter Wolf Racing. However, the entry lists lead the team from 1976 as Walter Wolf Racing. 

Even after the takeover by Walter Wolf repeatedly appeared old Williams vehicles in Formula 1 races. The 1973 produced Williams FW03 took over the Ticino Loris Kessel , who had it rebuilt in Italy by Giacomo Caliri and reported under the name Apollon-Williams FW03 for the Grand Prix of Italy in 1977 . He could not qualify with the four-year-old car. The FW04 appeared in spring 1976 at the Spanish Grand Prix for the customer team Mapfre-Williams . Then it was sold to Brian McGuire who significantly rebuilt it and as McGuire BM01 to the Grand Prix of Great Britainreported. McGuire could not qualify. A short time later he suffered a fatal training accident at Brands Hatch .