The car showed promise but more problems followed when young driver Riccardo Patrese crashed at the start of the 1978 Italian Grand Prix in an incident that took the life of Lotus driver, Ronnie Peterson. Patrese was barred from taking part in the US GP though he was never officially blamed for the incident. Through the following years the team ran in the mid-pack and picked up a few points, the A3 chassis design being relatively successful. A major high point was Patrese's pole position at Long Beach in '81.

The switch back to normally aspirated engines in 1989 dropped the team back down the grid and the team began looked for new sources of funding after long-time sponsor USF&G pulled out of F1. Japanese Wataru Ohashi provided the much needed cash and in return the team ran under the name of his company, Footwork starting in 1990 but the many changes proved to be too much for the team to work around and the season netted just two points. With the new injection of capitol the team negotiated an exclusive supply of Porsche V12 engines for 1991 but the design was flawed and the program a complete disaster. By the time a decision was made to abandon the Porsche engine program and return to the old Ford DFR units, the lack of points meant the team were forced to pre-qualify for many races and only managed to make the grid at ten races.

Aguri Suzuki joined the team in 1992 as part of a deal to run Mugen prepared Honda V10's and the team managed some respectable finishes, but 1993 was a disappointment and at the end of the season Footwork withdrew their sponsorship, though Ohashi still owned shares in the team. The team also lost the supply of Mugen engines and was forced to revert once again to Ford V8 power. The 1994 FA15-Ford was however, reliable and the young pairing of Gianni Morbidelli and Christian Fittipaldi scored points on several occasions despite the shoestring budget.

Morbidelli returned for 1995 and was paired with Japanese Taki Inoue, who brought much needed sponsorship money for the first half of the season but when the Italian couldn't bring in more backing, he was replaced with Max Papis. The dire financial situation led to Jackie Oliver and Alan Rees buying back Wataru Ohashi's shares at the end of 1995 and brokering a deal to sell a majority interest to Tom Walkinshaw - who had big plans for the team - early in 1996.

The 1996 season was a transition year for the team with the well supported pairing of Jos Verstappen and Ricardo Rosset doing the driving, but both drivers made numerous mistakes which were compounded by a lack of mechanical reliability. Late in the season Walkinshaw made the surprise announcement that he had signed the current World Champion, Damon Hill to drive in 1997 together with Pedro Diniz (who brought enough sponsorship to pay for Hill's salary!). With two new drivers, a new Brian Hart-designed Yamaha V10 engine and a switch to Bridgestone tyres, the team struggled early in the season but almost took their maiden win at the Hungarian GP. After qualifying third Hill led for a great deal of the race before a throttle linkage broke with one lap to go, dropping him to second. It proved to be the only bright spot of the year and Hill left at the end of the season.

The team retained the services (and sponsorship) of Diniz for 1998 but lost the backing of Yamaha, the engines being rebadged as "Hart" after their designer and prepared by the team. Experienced Finn Mika Salo got the second seat but neither had any success and both left the team after the season ended.

To be continued...