History
SWR
Motorsport is Steve Waudby
Going
Way Back
Starting from 1977 Steve Waudby was
involved in racing Formula Fords for four years and had 18 wins in this time,
designing a new suspension for his car he then quickly triumphed with 6 more wins.
The next ten years followed with many more successes including the Honda CRX Championship,
Renault Turbo UK Championship and Clio European and UK Cup.
UK
& European Successes
In becoming a partner and team manager in
Harlow Motorsport Steve was able to develop the Renault Clio further to allow
the likes of Kenny Brack, Jan Nilsson and John Bintcliffe and many others to enjoy
successes in the UK series. Engineering and testing the difficult Renault 19 touring
car for Nigel Albon in 1994 with a class win was another triumph. Steve also has
travelled throughout Europe driving, advising and preparing race cars for single
seaters, circuit saloons, single make championships and many different formulas.
World Wide Successes
In 1995 the team travelled to Thailand with their design of engines, suspension
components and SADEV gearboxes for Volvo in the Thailand Touring Car series achieving
great success once again. Under the Malaysian flag the team supported Nigel Albon
and Hamman in the Ferrari 355 in Sicily in 1997 and again in Hong Kong in 1998
at the Macau Grand Prix meeting. A second place was won in Sicily competing against
other Ferraris that had come from all around the world to compete at this prestigious
event and a commendable third place in Macau despite a deficit of 200 horse power
and competing against GT2 cars.
New
Challenges
In April 2000 Steve started his own venture, SWR Motorsport,
which serviced and rebuilt the engines and gearboxes for Renault UK for the new
state-of-the-art Formula Renault 2000 and Renault Clio 172 in the 2000/2001 season.
2001: We continued the partnership with Renault
to look after and service the Formula Renault and Renault Clio gearboxes as they
use the Sadev sequential units.
We also started a partnership with Team Jota
for Steve to engineer and driver coach a two car team with the formidable Renault
Clio V6 and to race in Europe as the teams / drivers aspirations are to driver
prototype cars in the future and hopefully to race at Le Mans. We had great success
throughout the year even with the drivers relative inexperience one of the highlights
was a 3rd place at Spa with the arena of professional's drivers that were competing
that year.
2002: We continued the Renault
partnership with the cars increasing speed year after year.
Steve continued
the partnership with Team Jota and took on a new challenge with one of the teams
aspirations a Pilbeam SR2 prototype to be run in the European series and very
nearly won the championship in the first year.
2003:
A continuation with the Renault partnership as the past years have been so successful
withe the Formula Renault and Clio UK series.
Steve continued a 3rd year partnership
with Team Jota engineering the Pilbeam SR2 and anted to win the championship in
2003 but even though wins throughout the year this was is most competitive year
and it down to the last race at Spa, the team drivers were winning comfortably
but mechanical problem arose and did not finish this final race, this put us second
in the championship.
An association with RAW Motorsport to engineer and driver
coach with his Renault Spider race car, Robbie Watts being the driver and team
owner, Robbie won most of his races and won the championship.
Steve found time
to engineer a Ginetta for Alex Liversley.
2004:
A continuation with the highly successful Formula Renault and Renault Clio for
the UK.
Steve had another engineering challenge with Team Jota their aspirations
were getting closer the team bought a new Zytec LMP1 prototype car this would
be the one to take them their Le Mans, we out qualified one of the works Audi
R8 cars at Silverstone and also the Japanese run Audi this is the one that won
Le Mans in 2004, a good start with the LMP1.
Steve went into Asia to engineer
a Porsche 996 to be raced around the notorious Macau circuit for Nigel Albon,
Nigel had not competed for a couple of years so we had a lot to do but came away
with a well deserved 5th place within 6 tenths of the winner.
2005:
The fifth year as a Renault partner looking after the Formula Renault and Renault
Clio gearbox units.
Steve had the opportunity to go to engineer the Porsche
996 for Porsche Singapore with Nigel Albon as the driver, Nigel was very competitive
throughout the season finishing 5th in the championship.
2006:
Going into our 6th year with Formula Renault and Renault Clio.
Steve once again
got the bug to go to Asia and take on the best from around the globe with the
brand new Porsche 997 GT3 car with Nigel Albon at the wheel sponsored by Vertu,
Nigel had problems working with the new braking system and the sequential gearbox
but still managed to get a podium finish, he managed 5th in the championship.
2007:
The 2007 season brought a new Renault Clio to the UK circuits with the new Renault
/ Sadev 6 speed sequential gearbox, with the Formula Renault body update, and
into the seventh year of association with Renault.
The contract for the Vertu
Porsche 997 GT3 car was in its second year with Nigel Albon behind the wheel once
again Nigel got to grips with car a little better and again stood on the podium,
the championship came down to the last race at Macau of all places and the battle
for the top four were all up for grabs, Nigel finished the race in 3rd and fourth
in the championship.
SWR took on the support of a new championship in the UK
this is called V de V a sport prototype car all with Honda K20A engines with two
thirds of the field using a Sadev 6 speed sequential called the SL75-14.
2008:
So a good few challenges over the years and we are waiting for the next one to
come along, I believe Asia will be an attraction once again, let's see and I will
keep you all posted.