Daytona star Taylor to race Wolf WR4 F1 car at Monaco
Multiple Daytona 24 Hours winner Wayne Taylor will make a return to the cockpit 10 years on from his last race aboard an ex-jody Scheckter Wolf Formula 1 car at the Monaco Historic Grand Prix next month.
Taylor, who has won Daytona twice as a driver and four times as a team owner, purchased the 1978 Wolf-cosworth WR4 last year to fulfil the twin ambitions to race an F1 car and to compete at Monaco. A full restoration has been completed ahead of the South African-born driver’s racing return at the age of 67 on the streets of Monte Carlo on 11-12 May.
“When I set out as a racing driver, my ambition was to get to F1,” said Taylor, whose single-seater career peaked with victory in the 1986 South African
Formula 2 Championship. “This kind of closes the book: I still wanted to drive an F1 car and thought I’d like to own one, and then go to Monaco.”
Taylor described a Wolf driven by Scheckter as his “perfect car” because he grew up next door to the 1979 F1 world champion’s elder brother, Ian. “I remember before the 1977 season, when Jody joined Wolf, he and [team owner] Walter Wolf came over to Ian’s house for a barbecue,” he said. “I was climbing up the fence to peak a look at them.”
The car has been restored by Hudson Historics in New York State and was given a shakedown by Taylor at Putnam Park in Indiana in February before a first proper test this week at Daytona. Taylor insisted that he will be taking a cautious approach when he competes in the ‘Gilles Villeneuve’ event for F1 machinery built between 1977 and 1980. “I don’t think
I am going to be really racing; I won’t be taking risks,” he said.
The WR4 was the fourth example of the first proper Wolf F1 car designed by Harvey Postlethwaite. It was raced by Scheckter at the 1978 Argentinian Grand Prix and was subsequently run by the privateer Theodore Racing for another future F1 conqueror, Keke Rosberg.
In the hands of David Kennedy and
Desire Wilson the car then won Aurora British F1 Championship races.