Interview: First-ever PWP champion “overjoyed” with title

Launched at the start of the 2022 Formula 1 season, Pit Wall Predictions is our free-to-play game that gives fans the chance to prove they know what they’re talking about.

Ahead of each Grand Prix, we tasked our fans with making eight predictions, all about the Williams Racing team. Each correct prediction would earn five points and at the end of the season, there could be only one winner.

So it’s time to introduce our first-ever Pit Wall Predictions champion, Andy Wolfenden!

Andy’s 355-point haul secured him the inaugural PWP title with two rivals finishing just five points behind as joint-runners-up.

We thought we’d catch up with our new champion to see just how he managed it.

First up, we congratulated Andy and made him aware that he beat thousands of fellow fans to become our first-ever Pit Wall Predictions champion. It was fair to say that he was pretty chuffed.

“I was overjoyed that I had won,” our new champ said.

“I had no idea how many people were playing, and my position fluctuated constantly, but I was always in the Top 5.

“When I opened the app after the last race, I held my breath and scrolled down. I aways looked at my predictions before my position.

“I wasn’t sure if I had won until I looked at my position on the leaderboard. There was an audible yelp when I saw P1!”

If it wasn’t for a certain someone in his life though, Andy may never have even played Pit Wall Predictions, let alone become the inaugural winner.

“My wife found the game in the Williams app,” he continued.

“She then challenged me to play against her. At first we saw this as an in-house challenge. This was fun in its own right, but as I saw my position getting better, I started to look more at the bigger picture.”

Andy is a proper Williams Racing fan, and has been with the team through the good times and bad.

“I have followed Williams as a team for a long time,” he explained.

“I’m an engineer and follow the team more than the drivers. Williams is a local team to me - I live in Grove - and I have followed them through thick and thin.

“I love the fact that many of the drivers have a background with Williams. It makes me proud to support such a great home-grown team.”

This love for the team was often at the forefront of Andy’s predictions, so it’s no surprise that some of his best-scoring weeks came when we did well.

He picked up 25 points at each of Zandvoort, Monza and Miami, where we were either in the hunt for, or in the points.

“I always tried to be optimistic with my predictions,” he told us.

“This attitude might have helped.

“I was keen for [Nyck] de Vries to have a good first F1 race [at Monza] and thought as a wildcard he would be an unknown quantity to the rest of the field.

“My predictions reflected that.

“I know [Alex] Albon has the potential to be very good, so I looked at how he had been doing and predicted according to how I thought he and his team might play the race. I guess I was lucky!”

At the French Grand Prix, Andy scored a whopping 35 points from a possible 40 - his best result of the season - and it was at this moment that he became aware that he was in a title race.

“It was about this time I realised that I was doing well in the rankings and I started to think that I might have a chance of finishing near the top,” he said.

“So, I took more interest in exactly how the team were performing in the previous races, what type of track it was and what the weather conditions have been there previously.”

All title-winning campaigns invariably suffer the odd blip though and this was the case for Andy at the Mexico City Grand Prix, where he bagged nil points for the only time this season.

The reason was fairly simple, and we’ve all been there…

“I missed getting in my predictions that week,” he admitted.

“I was lucky I didn’t plummet down the rankings!”

In terms of strategy, Andy made sure to do his homework but didn’t plough hours and hours into research, and modestly acknowledged that good fortune played a part.

“I put my predictions in early and stuck with them,” he explained.

“Sometimes I was luckier than other times.

“I think it was more luck than good judgement; I tried to take account of the shape and length of the circuits and if the corners had run offs, plus, if in 2021 it had been particularly wet or hot.

“But mainly it was just a gut feeling.”

Nevertheless, in an unpredictable sport like Formula 1, predictions are nigh on impossible and consistency is so difficult to find.

Despite this, our champion still managed to score a very solid 20 points or more in half of the 22 races in 2022.

While his instinct was important, there was still a clear method to Andy’s process each time he submitted his predictions.

“I didn’t look at the data from previous races as I’m not sure if that would have helped given the cars and drivers change every year and other teams would affect outcomes,” he mentioned.

“Weather is an important factor. For example, Japan has previously been very wet, so it is reasonable to assume it would be wet again and that gives an idea for the correct tyre choice.

“The difference between and long and short circuits will change the number of normal pit stops, but other than that, it really was just how I felt the team were performing and what I believed they could get out of the cars on any specific weekend.”

Andy also reflected on his interest in F1 and how PWP added an extra dimension to his enjoyment of the sport in 2022.

“In general, I’m not a sports fan, I am more of a fan of good engineering,” he told us.

“I have always liked fast, competitive racing, and F1 encapsulates this for me. I have seen F1 cars up close several times, including at the Williams Heritage Centre.

“The engineering and styling of the cars are amazing and in a class of their own. To me this means that all races are good from an enjoyment perspective.

“When watching F1, this [PWP] gave us another interest as we were willing another pit stop, or a change of tyres, or for it to stop or start raining!

“The Pit Wall Predictions game enhances my experience of motor racing.”

Finally, just like all of us, Andy is keeping his fingers crossed for a positive 2023 and beyond for Williams.

“Williams scoring points is the icing on the cake.

“I look forward to seeing much more of Alex next season and to see what Logan [Sargeant] can bring to the team dynamic.

“I can’t wait to see Williams back as a front runner.”