Williams FW12

Williams FW12
Car Information
Manufacturer	Williams and Judd
Engine	Judd CV 3.5 V8
Engine displacement	3,496 cc (213.3 cu in)
Weight	500 kg (1,100 lb)
Designer	Patrick Head (Technical Director) Frank Dernie (Chief Designer)
Tyres	G Goodyear
Formula One World Championship
Years active	1988
Constructor	Canon Williams Team-Judd
Drivers	Nigel Mansell Martin Brundle Jean-Louis Schlesser Riccardo Patrese
Grands Prix	16
Wins	0 (0%)
Podiums	2
Poles	0
Fastest Lap	1
First Race	1988 Brazilian Grand Prix
Latest Race	1988 Australian Grand Prix

The Williams FW12 was a Formula One racing car used by the Williams team for the 1988 season. An updated version, the FW12C, was used for 12 of the 16 races of the 1989 season. The FW12 was Williams's first naturally aspirated car since the FW08 and FW08C used in the 1982 and 1983 season.

Season Report

In its original guise the FW12 featured a Judd CV 3.5 V8. In 1988 the car was unsuccessful for Williams after two years of domination with the FW12's predecessor, the FW11 and FW11B, through use of the all-powerful V6 Honda turbo engine. Williams actually had an existing contract to continue using the Honda engines in 1988. However, the team's refusal to dump Nigel Mansell and replace him with Honda's test driver Satoru Nakajima for the 1986 season, as well as Honda being reportedly unhappy with Williams management for allegedly not honouring the number one driver status of Nelson Piquet's contract which contributed to both Piquet and Mansell losing the 1986 Drivers' Championship to McLaren's Alain Prost, saw the relationship between Honda and the team sour and the Japanese giant pulled out of the contract, announcing at the 1987 Hungarian Grand Prix a three-year deal to supply their engines to McLaren from 1988.

Early in the season the FW12 was described by both Nigel Mansell and Riccardo Patrese as being pathetically slow in a straight line. The facts backed up the drivers' claims. In qualifying for the opening race of the season in Brazil, despite Mansell qualifying a surprising second on the grid, the FW12 was only timed at 265 km/h (165 mph) on the Jacarepaguá circuits 900 metre long back straight. This compared to the over 290 km/h (180 mph) recorded by McLaren and Lotus with their Honda turbo engines. That speed deficit, along with trouble from the reactive suspension system, saw only one point scored before the mid-season British Grand Prix, when Riccardo Patrese finished 6th in Monaco. For his part, Mansell - who had won 11 races though 1986 and 1987, more than any other driver - failed to finish the first seven races of the 1988 season.

Williams had debuted their own version of the computer controlled "active suspension" on the FW11 at the 1987 Italian Grand Prix, with Nelson Piquet taking victory in the system's debut (it was called "Williams Reactive Ride" by the team as Lotus had the copyright on the "active" name in F1). Williams made revisions to the system in the off-season, deciding to use it on the FW12 with the hope it would be an advantage over the other non-turbo cars and put it on a more equal footing with the more powerful turbo-powered teams. Unfortunately though, the revisions had a detrimental effect. The main problem encountered by the team was that air was getting into the hydraulics and disturbing the computerised settings making the FW12's handling unpredictable, with both Mansell and Patrese pointing out on numerous occasions that the suspension settings were changing from lap to lap, and sometimes from corner to corner. Additionally, the onboard computer which was needed to run the system not only added weight to the car (approximately 25 kg(55 lb)), but also drew power from the car's engine to run properly (approximately 5%). This was acceptable when the team started using the system as they had the use of Honda's 1,000 bhp (746 kW; 1,014 PS) V6 turbo. In 1988 though the Judd B8, in its first year of F1 competition, was only developing some 600 bhp (447 kW; 608 PS), which resulted in the car being sluggish, and accounted for its lack of straight line speed.

It was at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix that Williams Technical Director Patrick Head decided to dump the reactive suspension system for a more conventional one. This was a process that Head had previously stated could not be done without a great deal of development and work, but at the team's home Grand Prix, a race it had won the previous two years, the situation was desperate as Mansell had finished the first qualifying session 13th while Patrese was 30th, some 14 seconds slower than the final starting position of 26th. Overnight after Friday qualifying the team worked tirelessly to convert the cars. While Head admitted it was a bodge job done on the fly and would have to be re-worked later, both Mansell and Patrese expressed delight with the car, Mansell qualifying 11th while Patrese improved by 18 seconds to start 15th. The race was also a boost for Williams as Mansell drove his car in heavy rain to a hard fought 2nd place, his first points of the season, setting fastest lap along the way (one of only two non-turbo fastest laps of the season).

It's a bodge frankly. We've put steel mechanical springs and dampers on. We've changed the front struts into dampers, designed some new bits and pieces which we machined up overnight. We did some new pistons for the front struts... it's a bit of a bodge as I said.

—Patrick Head talking about the overnight changes to the FW12 in an interview on the morning of the British Grand Prix.

Mansell was forced to miss the Belgian and Italian races because of chickenpox and was substituted by Martin Brundle and Jean-Louis Schlesser consecutively. Brundle had previously driven F1 for Tyrrell and Zakspeed from 1984-87. Schlesser drove in what would be the only World Championship F1 race of his career. He had previously driven a RAM-Ford Cosworth to 6th in the non-championship 1983 Race of Champions, then unsuccessfully tried to qualify the car a week later for the French Grand Prix and had not driven an F1 car since.

Despite a long and successful career which has included twice winning the Paris-Dakar Rally, Schlesser will forever be remembered for his drive at Monza, as it was his clash on lap 49 of 51 with race leader Ayrton Senna in the McLaren-Honda at the Variante de Rettifilio chicane which took Senna out of the race. This was McLaren's only loss of the season, and handed Ferrari's Gerhard Berger and Michele Alboreto an emotional 1-2 result only a month after the death of Enzo Ferrari.

The FW12 proved competitive for Williams in the last few races of the 1988 season. Despite both Mansell and Patrese retiring from the Portuguese Grand Prix (Round 13), better was to come at the next race in Spain with Mansell finishing 2nd behind the McLaren of Alain Prost, while Patrese finished 5th (the race was also Mansell's second and only point scoring race for the season after finishing runner up in both 1986 and 1987). Mansell was then to retire from the last two races of the season in both Japan (accident with the Lotus of Nelson Piquet) and Australia (brake failure), ending his first run with the team after four seasons and 13 wins, while Patrese would finish 6th and 4th in both races.

After winning the Formula One Constructors' Championships in both 1986 and 1987 and the Drivers' Championship with Piquet in 1987, Williams dropped to 7th in the standings in 1988, scoring only 20 points for the season in a year when the Honda powered McLaren MP4/4's of 1988 World Champion Ayrton Senna and his team mate, dual World Champion Alain Prost, won 15 of the season's 16 races in the single most dominant season in Formula One history.

Complete Formula One Results

Year	Driver	Tyre	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
1988
	Nigel Mansell	G	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	2nd	Ret	Ret	ILL	ILL	Ret	2nd	Ret	Ret
	Martin Brundle												7th
	Jean-Louis Schlesser													11th
	Riccardo Patrese		Ret	13th	6th	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret	8th	Ret	6th	Ret	7th	Ret	5th	6th	4th

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