A historic Formula One car once driven by Ralf Schumacher has vanished after being loaned to a garage in England, leaving Williams in a £1 million High Court fight over what happened to it.
The FW23 was part of Williams’ 2001 Formula One campaign and is one of only nine examples built by the team.
Williams says it loaned the car to Autotech Performance Ltd in Telford in 2015 so it could be displayed at the garage. Years later, the team asked for it back. That is when things became complicated.
Williams says it contacted the company in 2021 to inspect the car and end the loan agreement, but received no response.
Autotech later went into liquidation and was eventually dissolved. The car has not been seen by Williams since. The Formula One team is now taking legal action against former Autotech director Peter Thorpe, seeking either the return of the car or compensation that could exceed £1 million.
Williams alleges that Thorpe claimed the car belonged to him during the liquidation process and that it was later removed from the garage.
Thorpe denies that account. His lawyers say he never claimed ownership of the vehicle and does not know where it is now. They also say he suffered a stroke in 2018 that left him with memory problems. Thorpe says the car was still at the premises when he last visited in August 2021.
What happened after that remains disputed. Williams says the FW23 formed part of its carefully controlled heritage collection and argues that the car was never intended to be sold or transferred. The team values it at around £750,000.
Thorpe disputes that figure as well, arguing that the vehicle was a show car without an engine rather than a complete race-ready Formula One machine.
Williams raced the FW23 during the 2001 Formula One season with Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya. Schumacher won three races that year, while Montoya took his first F1 victory at the Italian Grand Prix. Williams finished third in the constructors’ championship.
