Walter Wolf , a Canadian born in Slovenia made his fortune in the offshore oil business and came into racing, by first backing the ailing Williams team.
Then in 1976 he bought all equipment of the dissolved Hesketh Team and took over 60% of Frank Williams Racing Cars and kept Williams as manager.
Frank Williams was replaced by Peter Warr from Lotus and soon left with Patrick Head to set up Williams Grand Prix Engineering.
Wolf put together a strong team with Harvey Postletwaite as designer and Peter Warr to manage.
They had only one good season in 1977 with Jody Scheckter as the driver. They were lucky in Argentina in their first race, starting tenth, in a tremendous heat and most cars retiring with sick drivers. Scheckter hung in there and won. And then they won the Canadian and the Monaco GPÕs and another six podium finishes. Wolf got 4th in constructors championship and Scheckter was 2nd next to Lauda.
In 1979 Wolf did not score a single point and a tired Walter Wolf sold the team to Emerson Fittipaldi and dissolved its assets in Fittipaldi Automotive.
GPÕs contested: 48 1977 till 1979
Pole position: 1
Victories: 3
Fastest lap: 2
World Championship Constructors points
1977 4th 55pts
1978 5th 24pts |
