Williams had debuted their own version of the computer controlled "active suspension" on the FW11 at the 1987 Italian Grand Prix, with Nelson Piquet taking victory in the system's debut (it was called "Williams Reactive Ride" by the team as Lotus had the copyright on the "active" name in F1). 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 though, the revisions had a detrimental effect. The main problem encountered by the team was that air was getting into the hydraulics and disturbing the computerised settings making the FW12's handling unpredictable, with both Mansell and Patrese pointing out on numerous occasions that the suspension settings were changing from lap to lap, and sometimes from corner to corner. Additionally, the onboard computer which was needed to run the system not only added weight to the car (approximately ), but also drew power from the car's engine to run properly (approximately 5%). This was acceptable when the team started using the system as they had the use of Honda's V6 turbo. In 1988 though the Judd V8, in its first year of F1 competition, was only developing some , which resulted in the car being sluggish, and accounted for its lack of straight line speed.