Wolf WR1

Lupus in fabula

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Introduction

It actually seems a fairy tale the story of a brand-new team, which enters a Formula One world championship and wins the first race at the wheel of a car which has just nothing revolutionary in it. Many, maybe too many, first ladies of a championship scarcely accustomed to break the established order, be white with anger seeing a newcomer comfortably go up the highest step of podium and drink champagne for victory, while people, who has been running for a good more time in the top class, are going on sipping canned drinks with gas. Those were also bubbles but caused by gastritis. It was just a fairy tale. But, then, not so much if you are going to put this episode into the extraordinary and mysterious life of a personage like Walter Wolf. So mysterious that its outlines got lost in the legend and to draw up a short biography of the "Wolf" isn't an easy job, partly because available information are poor and contradictory ones, partly because we find ourselves to scratch our heads and cry out: "But it can't be true !" By the end of 1976 Walter Wolf presented his team and spoke again about the love for his country: "Canada has been very good to me for almost twenty years and I'm very proud of bearing the Canadian standard. I respect this Canadian team and I'm the first Canadian to set up a Formula One team." But Walter Wolf didn't come from Canada; he was born in Graz, in Austria, in 1939. However, his family very soon moved to the south of Germany, where his father's job of bricklayer and the war didn't allow young Walter to spend a well-off childhood. He provided for paying school by collecting and reselling metal pieces and cartridge cases. He became an aircraft mechanic, but hadn't to be well off because when he was eighteen, aboard of an old steamship and with nine dollars in his pocket, crossed the Atlantic. If up to now it was foggy now there are also marshes: most migrants went directly to Canada, but it seems that Walter Wolf's first landing place was the USA, where he would have resumed his work of aircraft mechanic to pass later on to work for a geologic company in the Artic. Then he reappeared in Montreal where he became a ski instructor and in 1961 it was said that he worked as a technician at a Mercedes dealer. Attracted by sirens for 25 cents more wage, Walter passed from cars to building, finding time to enter the 1963 Innsbruck Olympic Games as a reserve for Canadian downhill team. In 1964, thanks to 25,000 dollars borrowed from a banker, his fellow skier purchased a building firm on the brink of bankruptcy. The building contractors was a highly profitable deal particularly together with Montreal Expo and in 1968 Wolf was already able to sell that business to adventure on the oil world, starting with off-shore drilling business and immersions. By the first energy crises in 1973 his business was also extended to the trade of oil surplus thanks to good relations with Royal Court of Saudi Arabia. It seemed he had also friendly relations with Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and German Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. However his relations with political world didn't stop there, because in 1970 he married the Montreal Mayor's daughter. In 1975 Wolf made his first foray in the motor sport world, buying a share of the Lamborghini Company. In the same time he entered Formula One world through engineer Gian Paolo Dallara, who introduced him to Frank Williams: the Englishman was very enthusiastic but short of money, after having separated from sponsor Politoys and later from Iso Rivolta. Wolf gave first aid to the English team manager by buying some Cosworth engines. There were rumours in the paddock about a possible 1976 project involving Wolf, Williams and Lamborghini Company. Jacky Ickx would have also joined them, he who had separated his destiny from Lotus at half season 1975 and was in search of a wheel. The project had been actually carried out but without Lamborghini participation, whose shareholders considered such an ambitious project too risky, on account of the already bad finance status of the company. Wolf and Williams set up a company and recover material from Hesketh and Embassy - Hill, whose top personnel had been tragically killed in an air crash. From Hesketh also Harvey Postlethwaite joined the company, the bright technical director of the eccentric Lord's team and designer of the 308 single-seater, successful in 1975 with James Hunt at its wheel. Wolf had also wanted to sign up with the English driver, but Hunt had been already engaged by McLaren, that will bring him the title in 1976. It was drafted a very ambitious program, but also rather expensive for the Canadian multimillionaire, who had also to pay Frank Williams' outstanding debts: it was mentioned a couple of million dollars in exchange for part of his team and his name written in gold on a dark blue livery. A lot of money also for a man who declared he was worth a hundred million dollars. We can well believe that a person, who was as successful as Walter Wolf in such a striking and quick way, could have great ambitions for a project in which he had to waste so much money. Things started well and came to a bad end: 308C renamed FW05 was a car showing interesting solutions as the side pods and the location of radiators, but it isn't certainly irresistible as for performance. Then we have to add a quite chaotic management from Williams' team, not to mention the crowd of drivers who were at the wheel of the car: Jacky Ickx, Michel Leclere, Chris Amon, Arturo Merzario, Warwick Brown, Hans Binder and Hasami Kuwashima. Wolf didn't take a lot time to fire the English team director and set up the team again: the Formula One challenge was so complicated and charming that a winning man like him couldn't help being attracted.

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Introduction

History

Formula for do it yourself

To guarantee a competitive team, Wolf convinced designer Harvey Postlethwaite to follow him in his new adventure and took away loyal Peter Warr from Colin Chapman. The Englishman was the man to whom was given the daily direction of Lotus team, but in the last two seasons things didn't go properly and Colin agreed to his precious adjutant's departure. When Peter wanted he would have been free to go back to Lotus, as he actually did. To coincide with the 1976 Monza GP it exploded the bomb of Jody Scheckter signing up for the astronomical figure of 100,000 pounds. Someone started considering Walter Wolf an eccentric multimillionaire who was flooding the market with petrodollars: obviously a behaviour that didn't like to everybody. As a matter of fact, the 100,000 pounds were a real toll story, a rumour started up by a certain press because, as the millionaire explained later on, Scheckter's contract was an index-link system based on his results: the more he won, the more he earned. If then the world championship would have gained by him. Wolf made sure that Jody would have been the richest driver in Formula One. However the choice on the South-African driver was a hazard: certainly he had much matured with respect to his debut at McLaren, when everybody was positively surprised at his speed performance but as much as negatively shocked at his behaviour on track that was at least reckless. During his career he collected four wins, the last of them at the wheel of Tyrrell P34, the revolutionary six-wheels, but everybody was still wondering whether his maturity was sufficient to allow him to strongly fight for the world championship. On Scheckter side, as a single driver of the team, he had found himself to support the responsibility for a large part of the score gained on track, not in a position to rely on a team mate's aid, either on race or during the single-seater development: considering that the Wolf company was a newly born organization, and the South-African driver also undertook a good portion of risks. Jody had to work hard to earn the money promised by the Canadian oil man. The new team made by about thirty men started working with alacrity and on the 8th November 1976, in London Royal Lancaster Hotel, the press could finally admire the new single-seater named WR1. After getting used to Colin Chapman's Pindaric flights, Ferrari continuous experimentations, or more publicity stunts than technical ones of some less important teams, Postlethwaite's new creature was unanimously defined by one only word: conventional. The chassis was monocoque with magnesium borders, constructed with a lot of titanium to limit the weight and with a characteristic wedge-shape, the front part higher and larger than the rear one and the sturdy arc roll bar behind the driver's head. Traditional Cosworth eight-cylinder was mounted on the monocoque (the best engine in the world without the direct support of automobile factory) with its 485 hp at 10500 rpm started being really short of breath with respect to Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Matra 12-cylinders. Matched with the English engine there was a Hewland FGA400 six-speed manual reverse gearbox and a Borg & Beck clutch. The front suspension was double wishbones, coil springs over outboard dampers, while the rear suspension has a lower wishbone with upper hanger, outboard dampers and anti-roll bars: nothing that could give us the shivers with admiration for the inventiveness shown. Front disk brakes placed outboard, Girling, with single calliper, while the rear ones were supplied by Lockheed and were placed inboard, by the sides of gearbox. Streamlined shape had been studied 12 hours in the wind tunnel of M.I.R.A. Institute on the research and development of the English automotive industry with the aim to intensify the single-seater top speed in order to compensate for the engine low horsepower. The result was precise, as a philosophy closer to Ferrari T series than McLaren M23 or Lotus cars over the last few years; The car body was large and soft line shaped, in search of a negative lift from surfaces; a chisel shaped nose that, hollow at the sides of the body and high at the ends to hide the front wheels, housed also the small oil radiator. The water radiators, on the contrary, were housed longitudinally, slightly inclined, before the rear wheels in order to minimize the advancement resistance. The front was very precise, in the lower part of the chassis, where surfaces had been hollowed and shaped to clean the air flow. Strangely there was no air scope and the engine breathed freely through special filters. The body was constructed by compounds and Kevlar reinforcements and that's was the only factor where we can shout at the revolution: technicians assured that its weight was only 9 kg, just the half of a fibreglass body. Therefore the total weight was 575 kg (without fuel and driver) allowing nothing to the chassis torsion stiffness and, on the contrary, intensifying its handling qualities. Also on the new car they proposed a black livery with gold Walter Wolf Racing letters, already present the year before on Williams cars and that, at that time, got the Canadian oilman the only F1 constructor to sponsor himself. For the time being no other sponsors weren't envisaged and only the stickers with a Canadian flag were allowed placed on the wings. The decision against the immediate fitting out a second chassis perplexed everybody: if Scheckter should compromise the WR1 in an accident during practice, he would be left in the lurch, unless a real miracle performed by technicians. The WR1 was also developed with the assistance of Chris Amon, the New Zealand driver, entered into partnership with the Canadian multimillionaire in the Amon-Wolf program for Can-Am. Since December the car had been appearing with a nose complete different from the one seen on the presentation: eliminated the complicated chisel structure, which was by then falling into disuse, replaced by two traditional wing contours. The oil radiator was now cooled by a small rettangular air-box on the new nose and the air was discharged through a wide opening placed higher, in line with the solution already adopted by Lotus 77 in 1976.

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Two years to dream

In January there was the official start of 1977 world championship and the Wolf didn't either appear among possible challengers to the title. All eyes were fixed on the McLaren world champion with James Hunt, the always loved and old M23 waiting for the M26 and on the Ferraris 312 T2 driven by Lauda and Reutemann. Brabbam Alfa BT45B with Pace and Watson and Lotus Mk78 with Andretti and Nilsson were the possible outsiders. Practice and qualifying tests in Argentina, first world round, seemed they did nothing but confirm expectations: Hunt on pole beside John Watson. Scheckter was only eleventh with an engine that had difficulty in coming up to normal Cosworth 10500 revs per minute, stopping at 9600. Postlethwaite located the problem in the fuel pump position, normally sloping down the engine and he decided to transfer it behind the unit. The leader in the race was the stifling and intolerable heat that will play an important role in the drivers' physical force and in the tyres. "Wattie" flashed past Hunt at the start and managed to fly away to take the lead of the race. Scheckter got easily rid of Tom Price's Shadow and with a regular step marched up to the top of classification. Tyres soon started wearing out under the hot conditions and the first ones were the drivers who showed the effects of it and going faster in first rounds: Watson, Hunt, Andretti, Lauda, Reutemann… Only Carlos Pace's Brabham and Jody's Wolf didn't seem to suffer: the Brazilian at the wheel of Brabham took the lead, while Scheckter went on progressively, favoured by some retires. The two drivers were inevitably at loggerheads, but Pace was losing his strength due to the very hot conditions and opened the single-seater door of the South-African, who, incredulous of the incredible result he was going to obtain, flew sure and fresh like a rose to the finishing line, winning 43 seconds ahead of Brazilian's car and Reutemann's Ferrari. The race conditions had been so selective that only seven cars were classified and just for that reason the Wolf exploit wasn't taken seriously. It was said that fortune and favourable circumstances had supported an unexpected and adventurous win. And, in fact, in confirmation of this rumour, on following Brazilian GP, Scheckter "paid duty", badly qualifying on the fifteenth place on the grid, he was betrayed by his engine during the race. Wolf's exploit seemed definitively filed. But in South Africa the wolf started again uttering his terrible howl: while Hunt signed his third pole of the season. Scheckter finally got a decent qualification on the fifth place. At the start of the race Jody took Lauda's train, he started as a thunder and flashed past Depailler and Pace to gain the third position. Meanwhile, Hunt fought against Niki's Ferrari for the first position, but he had to yield to his rival's evident superiority that seemed uncontrollable. On the 18th lap also Scheckter decided to take action and attack the Englishman on the first bend after the finish (Crowthorne Corner): Hunt took it badly and opposed it decisively not hesitating to collide the black Wolf with his wheels, but decidedly it wasn't a lucky day for him and he had to bow to Jody's will. Lauda scored the first place; Scheckter was second, even if with some anxiety in the final part of the race for a dangerous rush of Depailler in his six-wheel "scooter". During the race Tom Pryce died in a dramatic accident in which he ran over an imprudent marshal running across the track to help Zorzi's second Shadow. A few days after Formula One also Carlos Pace, was victim of an aeroplane accident. With anguish in the heart for the two drivers who had died, the Circus went back to the American continent to run Long Beach Grand Prix where Scheckter scored the third place on the grid behind Andretti and Lauda. During practice the South African unawares envisaged his future in advance as he stopped at Ferrari's pit, closer than his, to have his car wheel nut checked. At the start pole man Lauda made a mistake and the South African driver took advantage of it, but he couldn't manage to outdistance the American in the Lotus that was continuously tailing him. The Ferrari's driver maintained a crafty behaviour behind them, waiting for some event to clear the situation. The image of two black cars running one after the other will remain in the Californian citizen among the most famous in the circuit history and will arouse the USA interest in Formula One, also and above all because the winner will be Mario Andretti, the Italian-American idol. It was a real hoax for Scheckter, who after dominating the race with the professional maturity we finally expected from him, at few laps to the end he was with the front right tyre slowly losing pressure due to a small puncture and with the engine smoking worryingly. In a moment the Lotus driven by Andretti took advantage of such opportunity to take the lead of the race, followed by Lauda who got his chance patiently waited for served on a "silver dish". However Scheckter was third and found the courage to admit that "All the same Mario is a great driver and deserved to win. He was on my heels and I wasn't able to outdistance him more than 50 m. Bravo Mario!" The following Spanish GP was less glorious for the South African driver, but equally fruitful. Finally they had the new chassis WR2 (the number given by the team didn't consider the model but only the chassis number) featured by a slight longer wheel base of the frame so as to contrast the chronic WR1 under steering. The solution didn't appear very successful, because during practice Wolf revealed a poor drag, which obliged Jody to a spectacular drive, having the car sideways on every bend, but little effective as per a time trial: by the end he scored fifth time while pole was gained by Andretti in a Lotus that seemed to take flight in a sudden and unexplainable manner. Against the Italian-American's racing car there was nothing to do either on race and only a few crumbs were left to the others: Scheckter maintained fourth place, squeezed between a wild Watson and Jochen Mass, and as a whole it could suit him seen his tyres wear. But impetuosity played a nasty trick on "Wattie" who lost control of his Brabham for a moment giving the third place to Scheckter, position that the South-African had to defend from the attacks of the McLaren driven by Mass, by showing his claws and what's more quarrelling over a clutch that was drawing to an end. During the days of Monaco Grand Prix we didn't know where to find the gaming table, whether in the city casinos or on the asphalt strips that were drawing the most famous circuit in the world. The first GP uncertainty was given by the appearance of the very new Cosworth Mag engines with elements in magnesium: on paper the new unit weighed 16 kg less and has some more horsepower, but it was difficult to think it sufficient to fill the gap between 12 cylinder engines of Matra, Alfa Romeo and Ferrari. For instance, Wolf didn't believe in it and went on with the old engine. After all, we could also consider that a higher horsepower wasn't so important for a Monaco citizen in comparison with a well balanced car with a high aerodynamic load and drag…In fact, Watson, in his 12 cylinder Brabham, gained pole before Scheckter. All and the contrary of all: at the start the herd of horses stirred up by his foot, a bit exuberant overtook the Scotsman. His Brabham rear wheels slipped furiously while by then Jody was ahead, Watson will react sticking like a stamp on the rear wing of the Wolf, knocking, imploring and swearing in order to find a way that Jody refrained from opening. At the end it was the gearbox that definitively betrayed generous "Wattie", while Scheckter could take flight to the finish line and win, in spite of some anxiety at the last minute, about the petrol pump playing up and the engine gasping dangerously. In the post war period someone approached the South-African driver and asked him a hard question: what will be his Wolf performance on fast circuits which are waiting for him to go on the championship? Innocent like a cherub Jody answered like that? "Our car is new and therefore we don't know how is performance when goes fast". On the other hand, Robert McNamara, the historic secretary of Ministry of Defence under Kennedy's and Johnson's government, taught: "Never reply to the question that they ask. Answer the question that you would like it was put to you". Just then someone said: "Well, not bad this Wolf!!!" and started being interested in the phenomenon, the situation was taking a turn for the worse. The weather lorded to Zolder: at the start it rained and Watson flashed past pole man Andretti, but both were out in the Lotus that ran into Brabham. Scheckter was first, leaving from the second row, tailed by the Lotus of Nilsson. It stopped raining and paths which were drying obliged drivers to pit for new tyres: Wolf scored the third place behind Lauda and a wild Mass. When rain started again falling on the Belgian track, Checker played his card on a change of tyres, but unsuccessfully, because his petrol pump started being mad. On the 63rd lap the South African driver was obliged to raise white flag. In Swede Scheckter was fourth qualified, but this time his race lasted even less: Wolf was in third place behind Andretti and Watson: The Italian-American couldn't be overtaken, but the Scotsman's Brabham looked like to be within reach and Jody managed to overtake it on the bend before the finish line: he chose the most inner curved path and made a "lunge" (forward moment), but his front wheel hooked the rear wheel of Wattie who didn't realize the damage caused to him and he maintained the normal line. While Brabham was spinning right round, Scheckter found himself with a broken suspension, paying for his impetuosity. In view of the French GP, on the circuit of Dijon, an air box was tested and experimented, which exploited the wide roll bar as an air inlet and closed the engine bonnet by a rounded and tapered shape, but this innovation wasn't immediately used. Jody was classified eighth: he couldn't manage to go back on top during the race. His racing ended on the 67th round after being crashed by Brambilla's car: the South African was probably mistaken about putting into gear and the car suddenly slowed down, fully bumped by the Surtees of the Italian. It was still nil at Silverstone for the English Grand Prix and this time it was the engine's failure, while the Wolf was holding out to defend a hard-earned fourth place. By the way, Autosprint's comment was rather laconic: "Wolf is a good car but not as exceptional as we may believe in a season start which has been very benevolent. Here it has been used a version with a long wheelbase, but also in this way the single-seater has kept his over steering features, which have been a "Rosolio" liquor for those who loves acrobatics shows, but certainly not for those who had to drive it." At this point it remained only to hope in the experimental Cosworth engines, but a despairing research for more power seemed to give the only result of a good set of failures, which often denied the teams continuity disposing of the famous 8 cylinder engine. On the occasion of the Grand Prix of Germany Wolf entered in excellent form, so as to make pole. However, there was a trick: Jody took advantage of the trail left by Ian brother's March, launched on the straight. On the start Scheckter kept the position, but behind him he found two bad clients like John Watson and Niki Lauda. The Austrian remained faithful to his fame of the accountant of Formula One, showing a prudent behaviour: he understood that Jody was squeezing his Wolf like a lemon and allowed Watson to go on pushing his engine to its limit like a madman behind the South African. Unexpectedly it wasn't the eight cylinders to die, but the more powered 12 cylinder boxer Alfa Romeo, that on the 9th lap left poor "Wattie" without his car. Lauda pushed himself forward to a Wolf with tyres which were by then at the end, and on turning into the second chicane he overcame him without that the South African could offer any resistance. He remained with the consolation of the second place and precious scores which allowed him again to strengthen his position, more and more critical in the championship. If he wanted to set his hopes on fighting for the title he had to take on again the rate of the season start. Unfortunately, the Austrian GP was the ground for another glaring mistake: in a day in which the rain had shuffled several cards and many competitors were reduced by Cosworth engines failure, Jody threw everything by his mistake in trying to overtake the March driven by Patrick Neve. Jody and Walter Wolf were aware that to be in the running they had to win at all costs: at Zandvoort things started getting worse because the single-seater showed some brake trouble and the South African driver was relegated to the 15th place on the grid. The way was all uphill, but luckily before him everything happened: Hunt, who was in the lead, hooked the Tarzan up with Andretti and he found himself in trouble with a broken suspension. The Ital American paid for the lapse with the umpteenth engine failure. It was the beginning of a long list of "desaparecidos": Jabouille, Mass, Watson, Jarier, Keegan, Regazzoni, Peterson, Depailler, Jones, Reutemann. Jody got back on top slowly and at the end he gained the fourth place behind a fantastic Tambay, at his third race in Formula One. Fortune was benevolent to the South African pilot and at the last lap the Ensign driven by the Frenchman remained without petrol, giving the lowest step of podium to the Wolf. At Monza Jody started like a cannonball from his second row and took the lead, but he could nothing against Adretti's Lotus. Once again, it will be the engine to cause the Wolf to be offside. At Watkins Glen, under a downpour, Scheckter won the third place and by a twist of fate just behind the South African, in the day in which Niki Lauda gained the world championship definitively. But there was still scope for a Jody's victory, just on the Canadian circuit of Mosport, in Walter Wolf's adoptive country. To tell the truth Jody seemed to be destined to a fourth place behind Hunt, Andretti and Mass. The first two were running at a frenetic rhythm, unreachable by all the others, struggling between them for a leadership. They ran so fast that Hunt arrived behind his team mate Jochen Mass, third, and Hunt was preparing to lap him, when a misunderstanding between them caused their single-seaters to clip: Hunt crashed against a guardrail and Andretti would have found a door open towards the win if his Cosworth… Once again a broken engine was added to the long list of that season. Scheckter was first in spite of some trouble: "My car didn't run so badly: it under steered at the beginning and got a little worse towards half race, but it wasn't so strong. The failure of the exhaust pipe didn't really make a great difference, but I was a bit worried about it." Only Japan was left, however a Grand Prix "nothing exceptional", with the sixth qualified and the tenth in race, the worst placing in the season. Scheckter ended the 77's championship behind Lauda the winner, while the Walter Wolf Racing had to be content with the fourth place in the constructors' championship: not too bad for a racing team that decided for running with one only single-seater, and all the same always before a team like Tyrrell or Brabham. All in all Autosprint gave judgement on the Wolf which seemed flattering enough with respect to what had been often written and said during the season: "Together with the Lotus 78, the WR1 has been the "monoposto" revelation of the past season, of traditional conception and original realization". It seemed clear by then that the Wolf car was considered as the one of the utmost forces in the F1 championship and considering what happened in the apprenticeship year, some unsuccessful events were expected for the following season. But at the same moment when expectations were sky-high, the "wolf" vanished in the shadow, hibernated in winter rigours, and when at the beginning of the 78's world championship ices were melting, incredibly nothing seemed changed: same driver, same team, and same car. The trouble was that the rest of the world had frenetically gone on. More or less everybody was racking his brains to dominate and apply the aerodynamic phenomenon used by the Lotus 78, by that time known as ground effect. Not to mention the outburst of the fierce war made for tyres between Good Year and Michelin, which in 1977 had introduced tyres with radial carcass: practically another planet. The only Wolf novelty was the new team logo: the red and gold W letter with the outline of the wolf animal sitting in the foreground. As a matter of fact the designing of the new model with ground effect was taking up most of the team technical energies and there was no space to modify the WR1. There was even some talk of a possible agreement with the Schnitzer factory to construct a turbocharged 4 cylinder engine on BMW basis. It's rather odd to remark that in the first part of the 1978 season the more updated two chassis (WR2 and WR3) with slightly longer wheel base were abandoned in favour of the first model, the most in use and the one which gained three wins in the previous championship. The season started in Argentina and Scheckter was immediately in deep trouble to succeed in scoring the tenth position, but in Brazil he did even worse and Autosprint made sharp comments on the event: " Poor Scheckter, he did all one could. A collision with Tambay obliged him to delay and then consequences suggested him to stop, not to risk having trouble with the warped steering." We can swear that the South African was heartily cursing the famous and incontrovertible contract signed with the Wolf, which prevented him from accepting Ferrari's courting. In South Africa it could be seen some signs of revival: in practice qualification Jody struggled hardly against insoluble problems with the setup, they were probably enlarged by the new 15"radial tyres made by Good Year, and which were not worth the Michelin ones. But in the race, with a fantastic spring the Wolf passed from the fifth position and placed behind Andretti and Lauda. The Brabham driven by the Austrian could hold out only for a while and let the rival overtake after a few laps. Scheckter could dash in pursuit of the Lotus driven by Mario, even if tyres started deteriorating and the single-seater becoming over steering. At the end of the straight Jody slipped behind Andretti and took the lead of the race, but then he was obliged to give ground to Patrese, Lauda and Adretti's return. Scheckter settled at the fourth place and it would already be a good result if the engine had not failed. In the USA race, on the Long Beach circuit there was another sad retirement but at Monaco the Wolf WR1 brought again to Scheckter a podium. The practice in qualifying wasn't so bright with the ninth place on the grid, but as usual the South African started like a cannonball. After first round Watson was ahead of Depailler, Lauda, Andretti and Scheckter. While he was managing to threaten Mario's fourth place, Jody was obliged to look at the rear-view mirrors and check the dangerous presence of Alan Jones and Ronnie Peterson, with the addition of Gilles Villeneuve. The fight for the fourth place became one of the main parts of the Grand Prix, but halfway of the race the group suffered from the first losses: Andretti was forced to a pit stop to repair a petrol duct; Peterson was left with the gearbox knocked out. Villeneuve crashed under a tunnel because of a tyre that was losing pressure and, ahead, Watson forced to abandon the lead of the race for some problems to brakes. And that's how the third place was gained, the last important score of the WR1. By that time, the new WR5 model was ready and concerned a complete different car, inspired by the research on ground effect. Besides Harvey Postlethwaite had proved he could understand something more than so many colleagues of his: Cosworth exhausts blew high not to disturb the air flow under the body, but above all the car presented the innovation of movable boards sliding inside lateral boxes. Not even the Lotus geniuses could manage to do it; in fact they will copy the solution on the new Mk79 single-seater. The career of the WR1 got on in the championship for a few months. Teddy Yip, the man who ruled over the half of Macao, bought the WR3 and WR4 (which never ran under Wolf's flag) to launch his Theodore Racing Hong Kong team and a new talent: Kete Rosberg. The Finland driver had so much to do to take out something good of the chassis, but poor results didn't stop the career. The Wolf again entered the GP of Canada with the original version of the WR1 for Boby Rahal, the future star of the American motor racing, and then the owner of the team with the same name, but the Canadian driver's adventure ended with a retire after only 16 laps. On the other hand the attention was all fixed on Gilles Villeneuve, who scored the first win in that year just in his home GP. At those days a single-seater, no longer valid for Formula One, had still a last chance: the Formula Aurora in England. The WR3 chassis appeared at the end of the 1978 season, and in David Kennedy's hands proved to be a winner immediately, being successful in Budweiser Trophy at Snetterton. In 1979 Kennedy himself entered the championship with the WR4, with a "plunder" of three wins (Zolder, Oulton Park and Mallory Park) and many placing positions, but towards the end of the season he passed to the fastest WR6 with ground effect. The WR4 ended in Val Musetti's hands and then in Geoff Lees's who gained the third place at Silverstone. In 1980 also the old WR3 reappeared, but it was still the WR4 to gain the most sensational victory, driven by Desirée Wilson, scored the win in the Evening News Trophy at Brands Hatch, mocking at the Lotus 78 with Norman Dickson, the Williams FW07 with Eliseo Salazar and the FW06 with Giacomo Agostini. The lady with the "heavy foot" was still second at Thruxton and third at Mallory Park, but at this point the Wolf began growing too old even for the Aurora series. The decline of Walter Wolf Racing was oddly running parallel to the one of its first model: the 1978 season was fairly good, but certainly far from the excitement and exploit of the year before and it ended with Jody Scheckter's leaving the team; he had finally managed to free himself from the contract with the Canadian team to run in a world champion Ferrari. He was replaced by James Hunt, demoralized by a bad season at the wheel of a McLaren and even more demoralized by realising his false step taken when he changed the team. At Monaco James was already fed up to the back teeth, but not only with the Wolf but also with motor races: he made for the door and disappeared from F1. He was replaced by young Keke Rosberg, but from the technical point of view the team had really reached rock bottom, and at the end of the season Walter Wolf "switched off" the car engine to sell the material to Fittibaldi, and let the carioca driver commit a financial suicide. What about the relations with Lamborghini? After dropping the chance to see that Company play an active role in his project for Formula One, Wolf went on the private developing of the Countach with the skill technical assistance of Giampaolo Dallara, who brought him between 1974 and 1987 to buy chassis numbers 7, 148, 202 and 1001, of them only the first in the standard version: in fact already in the second chassis he managed to install the V12 engine with 5000 cu cm instead of the one with 4000 cu cm, the Pirelli P7 with 205 on front and 345 on rear always on 15" rims, which obliged Dallara to enlarge the wheelhouses, a front spoiler and a movable rear wing, brake discs with 8 callipers and a double clutch plate and steering wheel of Formula One type. The third chassis was like the second one but they studied an electric system which permitted the adjustment of the rear wing in the cockpit. Finally the fourth chassis, which up to today has been considered as the first model of lp400S, exhibited at the 1978 Geneva motor show: besides the features above mentioned it was equipped with an adjustment system of braking directly from the cockpit, like it had already happened on the third chassis for the rear wing. In three years Formula One has been changed very much: few hours of the wind gallery were sufficient to design the WR1, but with ground effect these hours have been multiplying with a series of difficulties in keeping its technology under a proper control. Costs were going up accordingly and in the last years also Wolf, the only one and proud self-financing man, had to go round to ask for money and a sponsor with whom to make both ends meet. It wasn't a life for a multimillionaire like him. The adventure in Formula One was over. Walter Wolf made its exit and even if in life statistics isn't all, we would unlikely remember him and WR1 if Jody Scheckter had not won that Grand Prix of Argentina, just at his team's debut.

Stefano Costantino

Acknowledgments to the Museum of the Automobile "Carlo Biscaretti di Ruffia" for historical documents put at our disposal.

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