Williams Racing …..the end of the road……..

With the news this week that Frank and Claire Williams are stepping down from their team after the 2020 Italian Grand Prix after selling the team to Dorilton Capital a few weeks earlier, I felt it appropriate to pen a few words of reflection of one of the biggest teams in the sport.

After a couple of initial ventures into the sport in the form of Frank Williams Racing Cars and briefly Wolf-Williams Racing the more recognisable team that we know today was formed in 1977 – Williams Grand Prix Engineering Limited.

The team achieved world championship drivers and constructors titles across a period of 20 years, taking Alan Jones, Keke Rosberg, Nelson Piquet, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve to the drivers title and winning an additional nine Constructors titles as well.

Williams cars powered by Ford V8’s, Honda V6’s and Renault V10’s are synonymous with the sharp end of the grid in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and the team last won a Formula One race in 2012 when Maldonado took the chequered flag at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Whilst Frank has been involved since day one, his daughter Claire was appointed deputy Team Principal in March 2013. Aside from Formula One the team have seen success at Le Mans (with BMW), British Touring cars (with Renault) and through Williams Hybrid Power and Advanced Technologies a whole host of other innovations.

The 1994 season was clearly an incredibly testing one; losing their driver Ayrton Senna at the San Marino Grand Prix was clearly devastating, as was the road accident in 1986 which has left Frank tetraplegic, but the Williams story is one of incredible hard work and an incredible level of success.

There have been a number of significant , iconic moments through their racing history; first points, first race win, first drivers championship…..and near misses with Mansell suffering a tyre blow up in Adelaide 1986, Damon coming to blows with Schumacher at the Australian Grand prix in 1994.

However one of my favourite moments in their history was during the 1988 season; having lost Honda power to McLaren the team used Judd V8 engines for the season whilst working on a deal for a works engine replacement. Neither the FW12 car or Judd engines were going to propel Nigel Mansell and Riccardo Patrese to the sharper end of the grid (and in fairness the drivers suffered numerous retirements during the season) but typical English weather at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone levelled the playing field.

Having suffered seven consecutive race retirements prior to the British Grand Prix neither Nigel nor the team would have been thinking that a top six, let alone a podium finish might be possible at their home race. The team had been developing reactive suspension for their cars through these first few races, but at Silverstone the drivers were struggling on the first day of qualifying. Mansell was 13th, but Riccardo was 30th, looking like he wouldn’t make the race!

Patrick Head, the teams Technical Director made the decision to change the suspension for a more conventional set up, and overnight new parts were machined back at the factory in preparation for the second day of qualifying. In revised cars the team qualified 11th (Nigel) and 15th (Riccardo), both far more comfortable than they had been on Friday.

Sunday saw the heavens open and the race become a wet one. Nigel was soon fighting for third, with Gugelmin (March) and Nannini (Benetton), and third became second when the Williams overtook Berger on lap 50. Second behind Senna was how the race finished, but in the process Nigel managed to set the fastest lap of the race and achieve his joint best result for the entire season. He only finished 2 races and came second in both!

Even some 32 years later its hard to say how much of the result came down to Nigel (who was an incredibly quick driver), the weather or the changes to the car made by the team. Either way 2nd was an incredible result for a team which had won the drivers championship the year before, and a deal to run Renault engines in 1989 led to another successful period for the team.

Its not the most important chapter in the history of the team, and their active suspension played a massive part in the early 1990’s success, but for me a team seemingly on the ropes scoring a podium finish feels like a far more interesting chapter than winning races when your car is the class of the field…..but again that’s my romantic memory of, in my opinion, a far more interesting period of Formula One.