Hesketh Racing had made its name as an audacious privateer outfit in the mid-1970s, running James Hunt to his first Formula One victory at the 1975 Dutch Grand Prix in the 308B. After Hunt's departure to McLaren — where he won the 1976 World Championship — the team continued in a reduced capacity, developing successive variants of the 308 chassis. The 308E was the final evolution, a conservative design built around an aluminium monocoque chassis, the ubiquitous Ford Cosworth DFV engine, and a Hewland gearbox. There was nothing radical about the engineering; the 308E was a workmanlike privateer car intended to keep the team on the grid.
In 1977 the 308E gained a notoriety that had nothing to do with its lap times. Hesketh secured sponsorship from Penthouse magazine and cigarette paper brand Rizla, and the resulting livery featured a large graphic of a scantily clad Penthouse Pet embracing a Rizla packet on the car's bodywork. The image was impossible to ignore in the pit lane and generated considerable press attention — not all of it welcome in the paddock.
Rupert Keegan drove the car throughout 1977 and demonstrated consistency in getting the 308E through qualifying at every race entered. Results were modest: the best finish of the season was seventh place at the Austrian Grand Prix, a single championship point in an era where points were awarded down to sixth place in a less crowded format. The car was rarely in contention for higher finishes, but it was reliably present.
For 1978 Hesketh replaced the controversial sponsorship with backing from the Olympus Corporation, returning the car to a more conventional appearance. The season proved less dependable even by the modest standards of 1977, with qualifying and results becoming more inconsistent as the privateer teams found it increasingly difficult to compete against the better-funded constructor outfits.
At the end of 1978 Hesketh withdrew from the Formula One World Championship entirely. The team had run for several years largely on enthusiasm and limited resources, and the escalating costs of top-level motor racing had made continued participation impossible to justify.
Following Hesketh's withdrawal, the surviving 308E chassis were not simply retired. Several continued racing in the British Aurora AFX Formula One championship, a series that used Formula One cars outside the World Championship calendar and gave backmarker F1 machinery a competitive outlet in domestic British racing through the late 1970s and into the 1980s. The cars thus remained in active competition for some years after their World Championship career ended.
The Hesketh 308E occupies a small but distinctive footnote in Formula One history. Frank Dernie, one of its designers, went on to become a respected aerodynamicist at Williams and other major teams. The car itself is chiefly remembered through the lens of its 1977 livery — a product of an era when Formula One sponsorship operated with far fewer constraints on imagery than would be acceptable in later decades.