Williams FW04

Williams FW04

Constructor:	Frank Williams Racing Cars
Designer:	Ray Stokoe
Predecessor:	Williams FW03
Successor:	Williams FW05
Technical specifications
Engine:	Cosworth
Weight:	591 kg
Tires:	Goodyear
Petrol:	Fina
statistics
Driver:	Arturo Merzario Jacques Laffite Lella Lombardi Renzo Zorzi Emilio Zapico Brian McGuire
First start:	1975 Spanish Grand Prix
Last start:	1976 Brazilian Grand Prix
Starts Victories Poles SR 10 - - -
World Cup points:	6th
Podiums:	-
Leadership laps:	-

The Williams FW04 was made in two copies racing cars of the British motorsport teams Frank Williams Racing Cars, which in the years 1975 and 1976 in 1 Formula World Championship was used. It was the last car the financially troubled racing team built before it was taken over and renamed Walter Wolf Racing. The FW04 appeared as a customer car until 1977 in the Group 8 Shell Sport Championship , a British racing class based on the Formula 5000.

background

Frank Williams Racing Cars, a forerunner of the Williams F1 team , which is currently involved in Formula 1 , was founded in 1966 by former racing driver and racing car dealer Frank Williams . In the first years of Formula 1 involvement, Williams was purely a customer team, using racing cars from Brabham , March and De Tomaso . In 1972 , the Politoys FX3 was the team's first own racing car. In 1973 and 1974 the Italian sports car manufacturer Iso Rivolta supported Frank Williams' racing team. During this time, Williams started with the Iso-Marlboro IR1 , the Iso-Marlboro IR2 and the Iso-Marlboro FW03 , three largely identical racing cars that were technically simple and increasingly poorly maintained due to financial constraints. After Isos went bankrupt in late 1974, the Williams team's financial crisis came to a head. Frank Williams retrospectively described the situation as "bad to desolate". During this time, the Williams FW04 was created, which was intended to replace the two-year-old models IR1 and IR2.

When it was designed, the FW04 would be used in the 1975 season and, in addition, the 1976 season. These plans became obsolete when Williams sold his team to Walter Wolf in late 1975. Wolf found the Williams material unsuitable and gave up at the start of the new season. Instead, he took over the Hesketh Racing team, which was in bankruptcy, its 308C model , which Williams and Walter Wolf Racing launched in 1976 under the name Williams FW05 .

In the following two years, the FW04 led a life of its own as a customer vehicle for several private drivers.

technology

The Williams FW04 was designed by the British engineer Ray Stokoe . The technology was based on the Iso-Marlboro-IR series designed by John Clarke two years earlier . The main difference was the newly designed monocoque, which was significantly narrower than that of the previous models. Stokoe was based on the body measurements of Williams' number one driver Jacques Laffite . As in previous years, the drive was an eight-cylinder naturally aspirated Cosworth engine (type DFV). Williams had two engines in 1975; one was rebuilt, the second was a used engine. The power transmission came from Hewland .

In spring 1975, when building the first FW04, the team used many individual parts of the now disused IR1, which had contested its last race in July 1974. That applied to the suspension, the steering and numerous other components. The front wing was a used part that had previously been used on a Hesketh 308 that Williams had bought from a junk dealer. With regard to the use of used parts, the quality of the FW04 as a new vehicle is occasionally questioned in the literature; some authors use the term again in connection with the FW04 in quotes.

production

In the older literature, the Williams FW04 is often described as a single piece. That is not true. In 1975 Williams built two copies of the FW04 with a time lag, but only one of them was used in a Formula 1 world championship run.

• The first example (FW04 / 1) made its debut at the Spanish Grand Prix in April 1975. It was used regularly until the summer of 1977.
• The second vehicle (FW04 / 2) was ready for use six months after the FW0471 at the US Grand Prix . It was reported there alongside the FW04 / 1, but ultimately did not start. For him there is one report in 1975 and five reports in 1977; in 1976, however, the FW04 / 2 was not driven in any race.

Races

The Williams FW04 was used in 1975 by Frank Williams Racing Cars in the Formula 1 World Championship and in some non-World Championship Formula 1 races. In 1976 and 1977 Williams left the cars to the Australian Brian McGuire , who used them in a British motorsport series and developed one of the vehicles into the McGuire BM1 in 1977 . Williams once also rented the FW04 to a Spanish private driver who wanted to take it to the start as Mapfre-Williams in a world championship run in 1976.

Williams

1975

Drove the first race of the FW04: Arturo Merzario

The first example of the Williams FW04 made its debut in April 1975 in Montjuïc at the Spanish Grand Prix. The car turned out to be fast enough, but very unreliable. As the season progressed, there was no money for necessary repairs and spare parts. As in the previous year, Williams used tires from the Ferrari team several times . This had a negative effect on the competitiveness of the cars. The mechanics also had difficulty understanding the car and the engines. For individual work on the car, the Williams mechanics sought advice from employees of Ken Tyrrell , whose racing team was a top team at the time.

The first driver of the FW04 was Arturo Merzario , who was the top driver on the team in 1974 and in the first races of the year. Merzario took part in the training in Spain and reached the 25th and penultimate starting position in the new, untested FW04. His best lap time here was 31 seconds to the pole time of Niki Lauda (Ferrari). Merzario did not take part in the race itself: In protest against what he believed to be the insufficient safety of the circuit, he and Wilson Fittipaldi gave up after just one lap.

After this race Jacques Laffite took over the FW04, while Merzario used the year-old Williams FW03 twice and then separated from the Williams team. Laffite, who had bought into Williams with the support of the Swiss company Ambrozium and had to pay the team an amount of £ 1,000 for each race, became the regular driver of the team in 1975, which was entered in the FW04 for nine Grand Prix. During his first outing with the new car in Monaco , like Merzario in the old FW03, he missed the qualification, but after that the participation in the races was secured. Laffite's best qualifying result was twelfth starting place at the Austrian Grand Prix , the worst 21st place at the US Grand Prix . Laffite only crossed the finish line twice in eight races. The gearbox collapsed three times, the engine failed once, and in Austria Laffite gave up because his car was inaccessible.

The best result of the FW04 and at the same time the best in the history of the team at a Formula 1 world championship run was achieved by Laffite at the German Grand Prix , which he finished in second place. Laffite started the race from 15th place on the grid. In the first nine laps of the race, an unusually large number of drivers dropped out as a result of tire damage and the resulting suspension damage: Jochen Mass , John Watson , Vittorio Brambilla , Emerson Fittipaldi , Carlos Pace and Jean-Pierre Jarier , all of whom had started before Laffite, had to End the race at the Nürburgring prematurely after tire defects , James Hunt and Clay Regazzoni also retired due to other defects. Laffite was spared technical problems in this race and crossed the finish line in second place with almost a minute ahead of third-placed Lauda. He drove in six world championship points for Williams, the only one that year and the only one that the FW04 scored.

Disregarded an engine failure in FW04: Lella Lombardi

For the last race of the year in the USA the second Williams FW04 appeared for the first time, which was supposed to replace the FW03, which Williams had rented to a total of seven paydrivers during the 1975 season . In Watkins Glen , the second car for the Italian racing driver Lella Lombardi , who had sponsorship funds from Lavazza , was registered. She should drive the new FW04 / 2. Due to a chain of unfortunate circumstances, none of the Williams drivers ultimately took part in the US Grand Prix. Laffite qualified for 21st place on the grid, Lombardi for 24th place. During the warm-up on race Sunday, a valve spring on Lombardi's Cosworth engine broke. The Italian did not notice the defect and continued her training round. The valve then 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 participating in the race. On the morning of the Sunday race, Laffite also dropped out: his wife mistook his eye drops for a cleaning fluid and mistakenly put a few drops of the cleaning agent in the driver's eyes. Laffite then had to be taken to a clinic and could not take part in the race. The attempt to bring Lombardi to the start in the now vacant Laffites car also failed: Lombardi did not fit into the FW04 / 1, which was tailored to the extremely slim Laffite. In addition, there was no time to change the engine.

1976

In the 1976 Formula 1 season, the ownership structure of the racing team changed: Walter Wolf was now the owner of the team, Frank Williams was his employee. The team largely contested the season with the Williams FW05, which was a reworked Hesketh 308C. The FW04 only appeared again for the first race of 1976, the Brazilian Grand Prix held in January . The driver was Renzo Zorzi , who had already contested a race for Williams in the FW03 last year. Zorzi, registered as the second driver next to Jacky Ickx , reached 17th place on the grid in the FW04, while the experienced Ickx in the FW05 was half a second slower and started the race two places behind Zorzi. Zorzi finished ninth, one lap behind. It was the third and final finish of the FW04 in a Formula 1 world championship race.

Mapfre-Williams

→ Main article : Mapfre-Williams

In the spring of 1976 Frank Williams rented the FW04 / 1 for a race to the Spanish touring car driver Emilio Zapico , who, with the support of the Spanish insurance company Mapfre, registered it for the Mapfre-Williams team. Mapfre-Williams was formally an independent team; in fact, the car was looked after on the race weekend by Team Wolf, led by Frank Williams, who also prepared the factory FW05 for Jacky Ickx and Michel Leclère . The use took place without the knowledge of the owner Walter Wolf. Frank Williams used Zapico's commitment to give Walter Wolf personal freedom. Zapico contested all training runs for the Spanish Grand Prix in the Williams FW04, but did not qualify. His best lap time was 1:22:22 minutes. He was 3.7 seconds above the pole time of James Hunt in the McLaren and 0.7 seconds above the time of Larry Perkins , who finished 24th and last on the grid in the Boro .

Brian McGuire

Australian racing driver Brian McGuire rented the Williams FW04 / 1 in 1976. With him he contested ten races in 1976. In 1977 he began to develop the FW04 / 1 into the McGuire BM1 . While working on the BM1, McGuire drove six races with the structurally identical FW04 / 2, which he had also taken over in spring 1977.

Shell Sport Championship

He contested ten of 13 races in the Group 8 Shellsport Championship, a British racing series in which Formula 5000 and Formula 1 vehicles were allowed. McGuire dropped out eight times and finished twice. At the sixth championship run at Brands Hatch on June 20, 1976 he was third behind David Purley and Damien Magee , the tenth run on September 12, 1976 in Thruxton he won ahead of Damien Magee and Val Musetti . At the end of the year McGuire finished eighth with 34 points in the championship, which David Purley won with 188 points.

1977 McGuire went again in the Shell Sport Championship to the start. In the first four races he drove the FW04 / 1, after which he switched to the FW04 / 2. McGuire contested seven races in the series this year. He crossed the finish line only once: at the eighth run of the year at Oulton Park , he finished fifth; in all other races he was canceled due to technical defects.

formula 1

McGuire reported the FW04 to two rounds of the Formula 1 World Championship, but did not take part in any race. He filed a report for the British Grand Prix but did not appear for training. A year later at the Grand Prix of Great Britain he failed in the FW04 / 1 converted to the McGuire BM1 at the pre-qualification. A month later, he died during private test drives in his car on the Brands Hatch circuit.

Race results (Formula 1 World Championship)

team	driver	No.	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	16	17th	Points	rank
Automobile World Championship 1975																				6th	9.
Frank Williams Racing Cars	A. Merzario	20th				DNF
	L. Lombardi															DNS
	J. Laffite	21st					DNQ	DNF		DNF	11	DNF	2	DNF	DNF	DNS
	I. Scheckter								DNF
Automobile World Championship 1976																				0	-
Walter Wolf Racing	R. Zorzi	21st	9
Mapfre-Williams	E. Zapico	25th				DNQ
Brian McGuire Racing	B. McGuire	41									DNQ
Automobile World Championship 1977																				0	-
Brian McGuire Racing	B. McGuire	45										DNQ

Legend
colour	abbreviation	meaning
gold	-	victory
silver	-	2nd place
bronze	-	3rd place
green	-	Placement in the points
blue	-	Classified outside the point ranks
violet	DNF	Race not finished (did not finish)
	NC	not classified
red	DNQ	did not qualify
	DNPQ	failed in pre-qualification (did not pre-qualify)
black	DSQ	disqualified
White	DNS	not at the start (did not start)
	WD	withdrawn
Light Blue	PO	only participated in the training (practiced only)
	TD	Friday test driver
without	DNP	did not participate in the training (did not practice)
	INJ	injured or sick
	EX	excluded
	DNA	did not arrive
	C.	Race canceled
		no participation in the World Cup
other	P / bold	Pole position
	SR / italic	Fastest race lap
	*	not at the finish, but counted due to the distance covered
	()	Streak results
	underlined	Leader in the overall standings

literature

• Adriano Cimarosti: The Century of Racing. Cars, tracks and pilots. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9 .
• Maurice Hamilton: Frank Williams. The inside story of the man behind the Williams-Renault. Macmillan, London 1998, ISBN 0-333-71716-3 .
• David Hodges: Racing cars from A – Z after 1945. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-613-01477-7 .
• David Hodges: A – Z of Grand Prix Cars. Crowood Press, Marlborough 2001, ISBN 1-86126-339-2 (English).
• Pierre Ménard: La Grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1st 2nd edition. Chronosports, St. Sulpice 2000, ISBN 2-940125-45-7 (French).

Web links

• Racing history of the Williams FW04 on the website www.oldracingcars.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Maurice Hamilton: Frank Williams. The Inside Story of the Man behind the Williams-Renault. 1998, p. 35.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Adriano Cimarosti: The century of racing. 1997, p. 266.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} David Hodges: Racing Cars from A – Z after 1945. 1994, p. 264.
4. ↑ Maurice Hamilton: Frank Williams. The Inside Story of the Man behind the Williams-Renault. 1998, p. 52 f.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} Pierre Ménard: La grande encyclopédie de la Formule 1. 2000, p. 558 f.
6. ^ ^{A b c} Maurice Hamilton: Frank Williams. The Inside Story of the Man behind the Williams-Renault. 1998, p. 45.
7. ↑ Racing history of the Iso-Marlboro IR1 on the website www.oldracingcars.com (accessed on October 17, 2013).
8. ^ David Hodges: AZ of Grand Prix Cars. 2001, p. 240.
9. ↑ Racing history of the Williams FW04 on the website www.oldracingcars.com (accessed on October 17, 2013).
10. ↑ See Maurice Hamilton: Frank Williams. The inside story of the man behind Williams-Renault. 1998, pp. 50 and 68 f.
11. ↑ Adriano Cimarosti: The century of racing. 1997, p. 263.
12. ↑ On the history of the US Grand Prix in 1976. Maurice Hamilton: Frank Williams. The inside story of the man behind Williams-Renault. 1998, p. 52.
13. ^ "Frank's way of breaking out of his unhappy partnership with Wolf": Zapico's biography on the website www.f1rejects.com (accessed on October 13, 2013).
14. ↑ Statistics and season overview for the Shellsport Championship (Shellsport International Series) 1976 on the website www.silhouet.com (accessed on October 17, 2013).
15. ↑ Statistics and season overview for the Shell Sport Championship (Shellsport International Series) 1977 on the website www.silhouet.com (accessed on October 17, 2013).