I have watched Formula 1 teams lose races, points, front wings and occasionally their common sense. But I never expected to read that Williams had lost an entire Formula 1 car.
Not a wheel. Not a gearbox. The whole car.
The missing Williams FW23 was raced by Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya during the 2001 season. Only nine were built, and this particular car later became part of Williams’ heritage collection.
Then, in 2015, Williams loaned it to Autotech Performance in Telford as a display car. In 2021, Williams asked for it back. According to the legal case, the response was basically the automotive version of leaving somebody on read. Autotech later went into liquidation, and the car apparently vanished from the story.
I am sorry, but how does a Formula 1 car simply disappear?
If I borrow someone’s lawnmower, they expect it back. If a garage borrows a rare Williams F1 car worth around £750,000, I imagine the owner may send slightly more than a polite reminder.
Williams is now taking legal action against former Autotech director Peter Thorpe. The team wants the FW23 returned or compensation of more than £1 million. Williams alleges that the car was removed and that Thorpe claimed ownership during the company’s collapse.
Thorpe denies owning or taking the car. His legal team says he has no idea where it is and that memory problems following a stroke affected his recollection. They also dispute the car’s valuation and argue that it was an engine-less show car rather than a working race machine. The case has not been decided, so this remains a legal dispute rather than a finished mystery.
Still, the mental image is impossible to ignore.
Somewhere, Williams may have made a phone call saying, “Hello, could we have our historic Formula 1 car back please?”
And somewhere else, somebody may have replied, “Which one?”
The FW23 is not just an old racing car. It connects Williams to Ralf Schumacher, Montoya’s first F1 season and an important part of the team’s history. Even if it was used only as a show car, it still represents a time when Williams was fighting at the front and producing cars that looked fast before they even moved.
I genuinely hope Williams finds it. Not only because of the money, but because heritage should not require a detective, a courtroom and possibly a very large missing-car poster.
Williams has spent years trying to rebuild its future. Now it is being forced to search for its past.
F1 teams are supposed to lose races, not entire cars.
aKi Malik
No Comment! Be the first one.