Walter Wolf Racing was a Formula One constructor active from 1977 to 1979, which won the first race the team entered. It was owned and run by Slovenian-Canadian Walter Wolf. The team was based in Reading, UK but raced with a Canadian licence.

In 1975, the Slovenian naturalized Canadian businessman Walter Wolf had started to appear at many of the F1 races during the season. A year later, he bought 60% of Frank Williams Racing Cars while agreeing to keep Frank Williams as manager of the team.

Simultaneously Wolf bought the assets of Hesketh Racing who had withdrawn from F1 due to financial issues and bought some equipment from Embassy Hill after they shut down their F1 team following a plane crash that killed six people including team owner Graham Hill and his driver Tony Brise.

The team was based in the Williams facility at Reading but used most of the cars and equipment once owned by Hesketh Racing.

The Hesketh 308C became known as the Wolf–Williams FW05 and soon afterwards Harvey Postlethwaite arrived as chief engineer. Jacky Ickx and Frenchman Michel Leclère were hired to drive. The team, however, was not very competitive and failed to qualify at a number of races during the year. Leclère left after the French Grand Prix and was replaced by Arturo Merzario while Ickx failed to perform and was dropped after the British Grand Prix, to be followed by a string of pay drivers.

wr1, wr2, wr3 & wr4

The Wolf WR1 was a Formula One car built for the 1977 season by the Walter Wolf Racing team. Four examples of the car were produced. The first, completed well before the start of the season, was the WR1. Another two identical cars were built: WR2, finished ahead of the first race; and WR3, ready in March 1977. At the end of the season, a fourth car, WR4, was produced with slight adjustments, and WR1 was remodeled in similar fashion for 1978. The original car was driven exclusively by South African future 1979 World Champion Jody Scheckter in 1977. WR3 and WR4 were also driven by fellow future World Champion Keke Rosberg in the 1978 season.

With the arrival of ground effect in 1978, the car became obsolete, even in its remodelled WR4 configuration, and was used only in some of the races. WR3 and later WR4 were given to Theodore Racing for their new recruit Keke Rosberg, who finished just one of his races in the car, at the 1978 German Grand Prix. Scheckter scored one more podium finish in WR1 at the 1978 Monaco Grand Prix. Halfway through the season, the WR1 design was replaced with the new Wolf WR5.

wr5 & wr6

The Wolf WR5 was a Formula One racing car built for the 1978 Formula One season by the Walter Wolf Racing team. The second Wolf F1 design was a wing car following the ideas of the Lotus 78. The WR5 had wide sidepods containing inverted wing sections, and an "up and over" exhaust system to streamline the airflow under the car.

Thanks to Peter Wright's wing tunnel discoveries, the Lotus 79 employed a venturi effect to generate downforce, instead of the inverted aerofoil section used on the Lotus 78. The designers who copied the ideas of the 78, Tony Southgate at Shadow and Arrows, Postlethwaite at Wolf, and even Ralph Bellamy at Fittipaldi, had backed the wrong horse. Postlethwaite would start from scratch with the Wolf WR7 for 1979.

A further example of the model was built, and was given the chassis number WR6.  Wolf was unable to repeat their competitive performance of 1977, taking just three podium finishes with the WR5/6.

wr7, wr8 & wr9

1979

The Wolf WR7 was a Formula One car built for the 1979 season by the Walter Wolf Racing team. Three examples of the car were produced. The first was WR7. A second car, WR8, was built to the same specification, while a slightly modified car, WR9, first appeared at the British Grand Prix.^[3] The cars were driven by 1976 champion James Hunt and Keke Rosberg. The engine was a Ford Cosworth DFV.

The car was designed by Harvey Postlethwaite, previously responsible for the Hesketh 308 in which James Hunt won his first race. Wolf's former driver Jody Scheckter left the team at the end of 1978, going to Ferrari, where he would win the World Championship.

The cars proved unreliable and uncompetitive, with Hunt only finishing one of his six races in WR7 and WR8.

At the end of the 1979 Formula One season, Walter Wolf, owner of the team, pulled out of Formula One and sold the assets of his organisation to Wilson and Emerson Fittipaldi for the use of their Fittipaldi Automotive team. The WR7 cars were raced as Fittipaldi F7s in the early part of the 1980 Formula One season by Emerson Fittipaldi and Rosberg.

In 1979 Postlethwaite designed the WR7 which ran with Olympus sponsorship. The car was not very successful and retired more than 7 times during the first half of the season. The WR8 soon followed. In mid-season Hunt decided to retire and Wolf quickly hired Keke Rosberg to replace him. The appearance of the WR9 did little to change the team's fortunes and at the end of the year Wolf grew tired of his F1 adventure and sold the team to Wilson and Emerson Fittipaldi, who merged its assets into Fittipaldi Automotive.