2018 Preview : Willows Racing

Once upon a time, the Midlands-based team were rookies to the series having joined when the FF1M phoenix rose from ashes. Nowadays, they are an established and experienced name, not just on track, but also in the commentary box with his energetic voice… almost the exact opposite of Shake ‘n’ Bake’s Courtney Cass. Their success levels have been varied over the seasons, but there have been moments of invincibility.

Best Season: 2014

At the start of the modern engine formula, Willows were one of five teams to become an engine manufacturer, the least experienced team to do so. They were tasked with developing the Ilmor engine and combined with a car that had been heavily developed during a difficult 2013 season, they got off to a very strong start with pole position for Fernando Alonso and a podium finish for Nico Rosberg. Alonso should’ve won that race but suffered an enormous crash caused by front left suspension failure, while Rosberg wasn’t far off of eventual race winner Lewis Hamilton. At Sepang, Willows made his commentary debut and would be delighted by Rosberg winning after benefitting from a technical issue for Hamilton. Despite a double DNF at Estoril, Willows were still highly competitive and went through a purple patch with Alonso winning at Monaco and Road America, the latter result producing a 1-2 finish.

Having built up a lead in the Teams Championship, the second half of the season proved much trickier for Willows as other teams had caught up and in some cases, overtaken them in terms of raw speed. It seemed as if they were concentrating more on reliability during the second half, and their cautious approach seemed to be working as Alonso reached the chequered flag in all remaining nine races with only two non-scores, while Rosberg failed to finish just three times. Going into Singapore, their lead in the Teams Championship was just 13 points ahead of the much faster Gojira AutoSport, but a timely 1-2 finish in an ill-tempered race put them on the verge of championship glory. Suzuka was a tough meeting, but an engine failure for Shake ‘n’ Bake’s Daniel Ricciardo meant that Willows couldn’t be overhauled for a deserved Teams Championship, despite neither driver being in realistic contention for the Drivers Championship.

Worst Season: 1994

Willows’ success in the classic format has been modest with one win in the 1992 Portuguese Grand Prix courtesy of Thierry Boutsen, but they had managed podium finishes in every season since 1989. That trend ended in 1994 however with a largely uncompetitive car with the root causes being a Mugen Honda engine not being particularly powerful and limited aerodynamic budget from the high profile signing of Mika Hakkinen. Even with extra works power in qualifying, Hakkinen was only able to qualify in the top 10 once all season, while Martin Brundle had a worse average than the customer Mugen Honda powered Jos Verstappen. The one highlight in an otherwise horrible season came at Spa, where Hakkinen was able to hold off Heinz-Harald Frentzen for the final point.

Present day

Willows are currently enduring a lean spell with their last podium finish coming in the 2015 Italian Grand Prix. They abandoned their status as a manufacturer and took on customer Judd engines for 2017 where results only improved modestly. Stoffel Vandoorne’s bad luck during 2017 was almost criminal with constant reliability problems while Max Verstappen himself lost a certain podium finish at Hockenheim. For 2018, Willows have gone for another completely new chassis and have a very strong driver line-up in Verstappen and Romain Grosjean, but will the WR-18 be up to scratch?

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