Current Williams

Williams Grand Prix Engineering

FIA Entry: AT&T Williams
Car 11: Rubens Barrichello
Car 12: Pastor Maldonado
Engine: Cosworth V8
Team Principal: Frank Williams
Director of Engineering: Patrick Head
Technical Director: Sam Michael
Race Engineer Car 11: Tony Ross
Race Engineer Car 12: Tom McCullough

Stats as of end 2010

First Entered 1977
Races Entered 539
Race Wins 113
Pole Positions 126
Fastest Laps 130
Driver World Championships 7
Constructor World Championships 9

Team History

The Early Years

Like many team owners and principals Frank Williams started life as a driver and mechanic. Realising his ability as a driver wouldn't allow him to reach the levels he hoped Williams set up Frank Williams Racing Cars and in 1969 entered a Brabham chassis for Piers Courage. Through to 1976 Williams entered customer cars from other manufacturers before settings up Williams Grand Prix Engineering in 1977 with Patrick Head.

Williams Grand Prix Engineering

In 1977 Williams GPE entered a March 761 for Patrick Neve. In 1978 Patrick Head designed his first Williams car, the FW06, driven by Australian Alan Jones The car scored it's first points at the South African Grand Prix and Jones took Williams first podium at Long Beach, finishing 2nd behind Carlos Reutemann in a Ferrari.

In 1979 the FW07 chassis debuted and Williams had grown into a 2 car team with Clay Regazzoni joining Alan Jones. Regazzoni scored Williams first Grand Prix victory at Silverstone and Jones took another 4 victories that season. Continuing with the FW07(in A and B spec) in 1980 Jones, now partnered by Carlos Reutemann, won 6 races (5 for Jones and 1 for Reutemann) with Jones winning the drivers title and Williams the Constructors Championship.

With the FW07 in C & D spec Williams won 4 more races and again took the Constructors Championship in 1981 but missed out on the Drivers Title. Continuing with Cosworth power in 1982 Williams moved onto the FW08, a car originally designed as 6 wheeler, and Keke Rosberg joined Carlos Reutemann. Reutemann retired 2 races into the season and Mario Andretti stood in for a single race before Derek Daly permanently replaced Reutemann. Rosberg only managed a single win at the Swiss Grand Prix 1982 but it was enough for him to win the Drivers Championship.

Having driven for Frank Williams back in 1974 and 1975 Jacques Laffite partnered Keke Rosberg in 1983. Rosberg won the Monaco Grand Prix with Cosworth power and by the end of the season Williams had moved to Honda turbo power and the FW09 chassis. 1984 continued the pattern of 1 win per season for Rosberg and the Williams team with Keke taking first place in Dallas.

The Honda Era

Nigel Mansell joined Williams in 1985 and the team, still with Honda turbo engines, won 4 Grand Prix. Piquet replaced Rosberg for 1986 and between them Mansell and Piquet won 9 of the 16 races and Williams the Constructors Championship. 1987 saw another 9 victories for the team and another victory in the Constructors Championship as well as Piquet winning the Drivers Title

The departure of Honda as engine supplier and Piquet as a driver in 1989 saw Williams move temporarily to Judd engines and Mansell, now partnered by Riccardo Patrese, had a very lean season with their highest finish only 4th.

Renault Power

Williams secured Renault V10 power for 1989 and the next 9 season proved to be Williams most successful. They won 63 Grands Prix, 5 Constructors Championship (1992, 93, 94, 96 & 97) and 4 Drivers Titles (Mansell 92, Prost 93, Hill 96 and Villeneuve 97). Other winners for Williams in this period of dominance included Riccardo Patrese, Thierry Boutsen, Heinz Harald Frentzen and David Coulthard. This period was also touched by tragedy when Ayrton Senna lost his life in a Williams car at the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola in 1994

The withdrawal of Renault from F1 in 1998 moved Williams into another barren spell as the cars were powered by ageing Renault engines produced by Mecachrome (98) and Supetec (99).

BMW Williams

Williams changed to BMW V10 engines in 2000 and returned to the winners circle in 2001 with Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya at the wheel. The partnership with BMW continued until 2006 with Williams winning 10 Grands Prix and were runners up in the Constructors Championship in 2002 and 2003. Ralph Schumacher drove for Williams for 6 season and was partnered by Alex Zanardi, Jenson Button (debuting in F1 in 2000) and Montoya with Mark Gene and Antonio Pizzonia making occasional appearances as stand in drivers. BMW's final season with Williams saw Mark Webber and Nick Heidfeld taking podiums but able to not challenge for wins.

Toyota Customer

A season of Cosworth power in 2006, with Mark Webber joined by F1 new boy Nico Rosberg, proved very unsuccessful and in 2007 Williams became customers of Toyota. As one of the few truly independent teams still competing in F1 Williams struggled to compete with the factory supported teams and were probably best categorised as "the best of the rest". Webber left at the end of 2007 and Rosberg, initially partnered by Alex Wurz and then by Toyota "works" driver Kazuki Nakajima, managed a highest finish of 2nd in Singapore 2008 with Williams finishing 4th, 8th and 7th in the Constructors Championship whilst using Toyota power.

In 2009 Williams sold a minority share in the company to an Austrian investment company led by Toto Wolff.

Williams Cosworth

In 2010 Williams returned to Cosworth engines and signed up Rubens Barrichello and Nico Hulkenberg to drive for them. Hulkenberg took a surprising pole in changeable weather conditions in Brazil to give Williams their first such grid position since Nick Heidfeld in 2005. Although regular points finishers Williams weren't challenging for wins and finished the season 6th in Constructors Championship.

2011 sees Rubens Barrichello retain his seat at Williams with GP2 Champion Pastor Maldonado alongside him. They will continue with Cosworth engine power.
 
I have my doubts about Hulkenberg making an enormous difference to Williams. Yes, he might well have done better than Maldonado but the car simply is not good enough. They seemed to be number two Mercedes team but after one good season they have dropped back into the pack and are currently nine points behind Force India.

With Hulkenberg and less money the likelihood is that they would be in a worse position now.
 
I think he might have done better job than Massa as well and probably the competition between him and Bottas would have been worth watching
 
RasputinLives It would be nice to see another Brit on the grid so after a solid season that Lynn had last year and beating Gasly I thought he was the best of the Brits to graduate from GP2 into F1 but his season has been very disappointing and his career progression has lost momentum. He made the right call for himself to leave Red Bull's junior programme but has not made most of his opportunities

So many things wrong with this. Once again I will point out to you that Lynn did not LEAVE the Red Bull Junior programme he was dropped before being snapped by Williams. Secondly both Lynn and Gasly has very average first years in GP2. They were evenly matched but below where they should be, especially if you think they were driving for DAMS who have historically been the best in series.. Despite Gasly improving this year he is still not seen by Red Bull as being good enough so it's quite clear from Lynn's performance that he wasn't going to get a seat.

As for 'another Brit on the grid' and Lynn being 'best prospect'. There is a chap called Oli Rowland who was WSR 3.5 champ in 2015 and has driven the wheels off a back end car in GP2 this year who has always been a better prospect.
 
RasputinLives

Depending how it was spun to the press one version they say he was dropped and another article it is said he reached an amicable agreement to leave the scheme because he saw opportunities were better elsewhere

It was not like he was given the brutal boot like Da Costa

Lynn confirms Red Bull exit after securing move to Williams

Alex Lynn not bitter over Red Bull departure - F1i.com

GP3 champion Alex Lynn joins Williams F1 team as development driver

Lynn on paper with a season under his belt and staying with the best team should have been amongst the series contenders for the title but he has not been consistent enough. Had he won GP2 or been a much more consistent front runner then it would have been hard not to ignore him so I don' begrudge Williams considering other drivers and my own preference was Button given he would have been good for the team with what he brings

Gossip (Sky Sports)

I'll put my hand up not knowing a lot about Rowland before the start of the season and actually saw him first time on the SKy F1 review this week and being tied to Renault .. there is very little chance Williams could prise him even if he had a great GP2 season. Off course Sky were going to ask Rowland whether he was in contention for the Renault seat with Ocon
 
I think if Williams had wanted Rowland they would have got him. My point was though that Lynn is not the most talented British driver out there trying to get in F1 (not even top 3) and wasn't really a contender. Stroll is much quicker than Lynn.

I look forward to seeing Lynn over in Formula E but maybe let's not hate Stroll on the basis that somehow he bought out Lynn's seat from under him.
 
I will eat humble pie if Stroll performs and shows real talent... I don't have anything against Stroll he seems very level headed from reading his initial response to the fact that he is going to be driving for Williams and having a billionaire Dad comes with a bit of pressure

The only issue is how the press introduce - would it be Lance Stroll - Euro F3 champion and 2nd youngest f1 debutant or Lance Stroll - son of a billionaire who made his name in the Fashion world

From reading when Lynn stock was high after winning Gp3.. certain press/ journalists did make it out that Lynn had plenty of potential and Red Bull were promoting the wrong drivers
 
Lance needs his own thread. If I had time I would write it but it's that time of the year for me. Something caught my eye; Canada is obviously the country most interested in Stroll at this time, but look who's second ... getting nervous about a little competition? :)

Google Trends for lance stroll - Worldwide, Past 7 days - Google Trends
 
The only issue is how the press introduce - would it be Lance Stroll - Euro F3 champion and 2nd youngest f1 debutant or Lance Stroll - son of a billionaire who made his name in the Fashion world

As I said before, the only person talking about him as son of a billionaire around here is you, and you've been doing it since the very first rumour of him signing. To be honest I've watched him race on and off for the last two years and only found out his Dad was a billionaire when you posted about it.

From reading when Lynn stock was high after winning Gp3.. certain press/ journalists did make it out that Lynn had plenty of potential and Red Bull were promoting the wrong drivers

The drivers promoted instead of Lynn we're Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz. Prob very embarrassed journalists now.
 
RasputinLives I am not a journalist for a start and it depends who Williams have as their 3rd / development to add pressure for him to perform


If its Lynn or Di Resta then he has not got that much pressure from within the team

He's certainly made good connections... I wonder how long will it be before he will be driving fro Ferrari?

An interesting stat I posted earlier on about the last Williams two young drivers take about 10 years to be world champion

and the one is world champion elect
 
FB Well I did not see this coming but there were denials Paddy was going to rejoin Mclaren but Mercedes if they have Allinson could almost be unbeatable.. does that mean Alonso might think about going to Mercedes

Going back to Paddy Lowe ...remember he actually was going to join Williams before Toto suddenly switched his affiliations to Merceds and took Paddy with him
 
Mercedes if they have Allinson could almost be unbeatable

I wouldn't be so sure about that. He's not really achieved a great deal for some time. In fact, after re-joining Ferrari the teams performance got worse. Obviously you can't blame all of that on Allison but I wouldn't put him in the same game changing bracket as someone like Adrian Newey.
 
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Greenlantern101 Problem with Newey at Mclaren was because he did not have the same autonomy like he did at Williams or Red Bull now

He burned his bridges by agreeing to join Jaguar and then u -turned but the leak really did damage his relationship with Mclaren
 
I wouldn't be so sure about that. He's not really achieved a great deal for some time. In fact, after re-joining Ferrari the teams performance got worse.

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I have to disagree there. 2015 was the first proper James Allison Ferrari car and it certainly was a vast improvement. In fact Ferrari's downturn in fortunes over the last year pretty much coincided with the tragic loss of Allison's wife which effectively put an end to his involvement with the team. Once he was no longer thre in the day-to-day running of team affairs the team almost instantly appeared somewhat rudderless.

You also have to remember how Lotus were doing in the 2012/13 while he was there, especially at the tail-end of 2013 when they were pretty much Red Bull's closest rivals on a shoestring budget. I don't think his credentials were ever in question tbh.
 
Incubus which is why I think Mercedes could be unstoppable so what made Paddy move to Williams in all this ? Unless it was too much commuting to Brackley which is further north than Didcot
 
LOL

If a man who spends the bulk of the year flying around the world doesn't want to put a few more miles on his car it would be a hell of a funny reason to leave a team.
 
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