Williams FW11-07 Honda

1986 Williams FW11 Formula One racing car on display in the National Motor Museum.

Key facts

Year

1986
Country

Great Britain
Capacity

1,494cc
Cylinders

V6
Valves

Double overhead camshaft
Output

800-1,200bhp at 12,000rpm
Maximum speed

Over 200mph
Performance

0-60mph 2.6 seconds
Price new

Not marketed
Loaned by

Private Owner
Manufacturer

Williams Racing, Grove, Oxfordshire

The FW11 was the Williams team’s challenger for the 1986 F1 season. Their main rival was the dominant McLaren MP4/2. The turbo-charged 1.5 litre Honda V6 engine was, at the time, the most powerful in F1, developing 800bhp in race trim and a staggering 1,200bhp for qualifying. The team’s drivers that year were Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell.

The 1986 season developed into a four-way battle between Piquet, Mansell, Ayrton Senna (Lotus-Renault) and Alain Prost (McLaren-TAG), who between them won all but one of the season’s sixteen races. The championship was decided at the last race in Australia. A blown tyre on Mansell’s Williams, while doing 180mph on the sixty-fifth lap, handed Alain Prost his second consecutive World Championship. Nine wins (five for Mansell, four for Piquet), out of a total of nineteen podium finishes, secured the Constructors’ Championship for Williams.