Walter Wolf was a Canadian oil Magnate who had a passion for F1. In 1975 he was a part sponsor of Team Williams and at the end of the year paid an estimated 450,000pounds for Team Hesketh's equipment and plant. He then also took a 60% share in Team Williams(dam, but try doing that in todays world). In 1976 Marboro was a sponsor and with malboro the drivers were Jacky Ickx and Michel Leclere but the car was a complete disaster and soon Ickx was sacked after he failed to qualify for the British Grand Prix. Leclere saw the writing on the wall and jumped ship, this brought to the Team Arturio Merzario and Warick Brown to the Team, but reliability was not to be found and in September Frank Williams was fired from his own Team(now thats embrassing). Walter now made the desision to start the 1977 season with a new one car team to be driven by Jody Scheckter and so was born the Walter Wolf Racing WR-1.
We all know Niki Lauda won the World Championship in 1977, but I bet you didn't know that 2nd in the race to the Title was Jody Scheckter in the WR-1(compere that with Team Bar today). Jody had 3 wins in 1977 and finished on the podium 6 more times. Sadly for Walter this was to be his best year in F1 for in 1978-79 the Team failed to come to grips with the ground effects revolution and Walter decided to Quit Formula One Racing by agreeing to a merger with Team Fittipaldi for the start of the 1980 Season.
Drivers
Jody Scheckter
Bobby Rahal
James Hunt
Keke Rosburg
Jody Scheckter 1978 Monaco Grand Prix
Wins
1977 Argentina Grand Prix
1977 Monaco Grand Prix
1977 Canadian Grand Prix
The Wolf Team colours were Dark Blue and Gold Trim.
The 1977 Win at Monaco was the 100th Grand Prix win for the Cosworth Ford Engine
A Tribute To Harvey Poslethwaite
Harvey Designed the cars for Team Hesketh in 1975 and when that team was brought out by Walter Wolf Harvey joined the Team to continue development on the car which was not a success. For the 1977 Season Harvey designed an all new car the WR-1. This car was an immediate success by winning on its debut, and never suffering a single mechanical failure of the chassis. To me this was undoubtably Harvey's most successful design in F1.
Harvey went on from Wolf to work for many Formula One Teams in the furture including two separate stints for Ferrari. In 1999 Harvey was a working for Team Honda in Preparation for their return to F1 as a Factory Honda Team in the year 2000, but sadly Harvey passed away in early 1999. Team Honda have since announced that they will only supply engines for the coming seaons to Team Bar and also the Mugen Honda to Team Jordan.
