Early in the season the FW12 was described by both Nigel Mansell and Riccardo Patrese as being "pathetically slow in a straight line" and speed trap figures backed up their claims.

That speed deficit, along with trouble from the computer controlled Reactive Ride suspension system, saw only one point scored before the mid-season British Grand Prix, when Riccardo Patrese finished 6th in Monaco.

Williams made revisions to the system in the off-season, deciding to use it on the FW12 with the hope it would be an advantage over the other non-turbo cars and put it on a more equal footing with the more powerful turbo-powered teams.

Unfortunately however, the revisions ended up having a detrimental effect, something that was masked by it actually working OK in the first race in Rio with observers of Mansell's "high downforce" qualifying lap saying that his FW12 looked easily the most stable car on the track.

In 1988 though the Judd V8, in its first year of F1 competition, was only developing some 600 bhp (447 kW; 608 PS), which resulted in the car being sluggish, and accounted for its lack of straight line speed.

[7] It was at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix that Williams Technical Director Patrick Head decided to replace the reactive suspension system for a more conventional one.

We did some new pistons for the front struts... it's a bit of a bodge as I said.Mansell was forced to miss the Belgian and Italian races because of chickenpox and was substituted by Martin Brundle and Jean-Louis Schlesser consecutively.

[11] Patrese, who had his best season to date after consecutive 2nd-place finishes in Mexico, Phoenix and Canada, followed by a 3rd in France, also scored the car's only pole position at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Eventual race winner Mansell in the Ferrari was also past a couple of corners later, and by the beginning of lap 55 Patrese had fallen to 5th when he pulled off at the end of the pit exit with a dead engine.

The main reason for the late appearance of the FW13 was that it had originally been designed for the Williams Reactive Ride system and it had to be re-designed and tested with normal or 'passive' suspension with Patrick Head deciding to iron the bugs out before debuting the car, and even then TV commentators were reporting at both Jerez and Suzuka that the handling of the FW13 was still slightly 'off' according to its drivers.

He had a secret test at the Paul Ricard Circuit in December 1989 and set competitive times, but eventually decided against returning to the cockpit and remained with BBC TV in 1990.