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 think the problem is Stroll is deemed to have come into F1 not ready which everyone is very critical of until he starts being a consistent points scorer when that happens people will shut up and turn their pages if it happens sooner than later whereas Sirotkin probably deserves his shot at f1... and has at least down the hard learning of GP2

To be fair to Webber, he was a late bloomer in the sport but he did go through several routes to try and get into F1... I meant one time he might have been driving for Mclaren as part of the Mercedes young driver programme but he was at the time below the pecking of Heidfeld then Zonta to be honest
 
However good or bad Stroll is he'll never become a regular point scorer in the current Williams. Neither will Sirotkin, Kubica, Fangio or Penelope Pitstop. The Williams is just about better than the Sauber and Torro Rosso this year and I believe that might be put to the test the longer the season goes on.
 
well Piers Gasly seems to think Honda will get it right which will propel Toro Rosso further upwards and ahead of Williams. Traditionally Williams falls backwards due to the inability to maintain development to the other teams around it.

This looks like the worst car Williams will have since 2013 which ended with Mike Coughlan leaving the team.
 
However good or bad Stroll is he'll never become a regular point scorer in the current Williams. Neither will Sirotkin, Kubica, Fangio or Penelope Pitstop. The Williams is just about better than the Sauber and Torro Rosso this year and I believe that might be put to the test the longer the season goes on.
Yet you say Webber was a late bloomer, despite him lacking the funding for his career and thus having to move into sports cars and then once he reached F1 moved through the ranks from Minardi, Jaguar, Williams to Red Bull. He was lucky when he arrived at Red Bull, because they were a relatively new team with a huge financial backing. In his prime, he would have probably been more of a challenge to Vettel.
 
Rutherford lacking funding perhaps(I'd debate that) but backed by Flavio. Take a read of his autobiography it's quite an interesting read. I especially like the bit where he glosses over his close friendship with Lance Armstrong. Also that Williams seat was not 'working through the ranks' that Williams BMW was a potential race winning car and Webber was out classed by Heidfeld in it. The Jaguar wasn't without potential too. None of them bar the Minardi (and that's debatable in the current era) was as far back in the field as the current Williams.

Anyways off topic. Il_leone IMO Williams will be around for many many years to come as its a brand name that the powers that be love to have in the sport to the and give it some 'pedigree' - as long as they are not winning anything they'll be left alone.
 
The risk for Williams is when Sir Frank dies. So many teams have withered when the primary driving force has been lost that I worry the same will happen at Williams. Claire Williams may well be set to take over but if you look at how Frank got to where he is the drive is very different.
 
I'm sorry to say that I don't think it's the same Sir Frank these days and that he's not got the same grip on his team as he had in the heady days of the 80's and 90's.

Also, if you look at the periods when teams were hugely successful they generally had a dynamic duo driving the team ahead. Chapman and Warr, Todt and Brawn, Bernie and Murray and of course, Sir Frank and Patrick Head.

Williams need an engine partner to push them up alongside the manufacturer teams and there doesn't seem to be one of those coming along any time soon. They then need a designer who can produce the next leap forward in F1 such as they did when Newey produced the FW14. With the way the rules are, that is increasingly difficult to do.

As we have seen by the slide McLaren have been on, when you are down in F1 these days, you stay down. It is virtually impossible to engineer your way back to the top.

While F1 continues on its current path nothing will change that.
 
Also, if you look at the periods when teams were hugely successful they generally had a dynamic duo driving the team ahead. Chapman and Warr, Todt and Brawn, Bernie and Murray and of course, Sir Frank and Patrick Head.
Horner and Marko, Wolff and Lauda... ;)

Rutherford lacking funding perhaps(I'd debate that) but backed by Flavio. Take a read of his autobiography it's quite an interesting read. I especially like the bit where he glosses over his close friendship with Lance Armstrong. Also that Williams seat was not 'working through the ranks' that Williams BMW was a potential race winning car and Webber was out classed by Heidfeld in it. The Jaguar wasn't without potential too. None of them bar the Minardi (and that's debatable in the current era) was as far back in the field as the current Williams.

Mate, I don't remember Webber being outclassed by Heidfeld, they were fairly equal in the races with Webber being faster in qualifying, but that may have been down to the fuel strategy. Apart from a few occasions where they got lucky it wasn't much of a race winning car either.
I'd say he extracted most of the potential out of the Jaguar in comparison to his teammates who he dominated.
 
No I think you need to re-watch that season. That Williams car was pretty handy. To be honest with you that's when Williams really lost themselves as a team. If they'd continued their partnership with BMW then they would have hit the front either the season after or to season after that. Instead Williams sank to the back and BMW went alone and didn't know the ins and outs of running a race team so crashed out the sport when things went sour.

Yes you are right Webber did extract more out of the Jag than Pizzonia and Klein - if Justin Wilson had been given more time though I know who I would have bet on.
 
BMW wanted a controlling stake in Williams which Sir Frank wasn't prepared to give them and they looked elsewhere. Peter Sauber jumped at the chance to sell his team for the umpteenth time and the rest as they say....
 
RasputinLives I am not sure Williams can keep going like they are because sooner or later Lance Stroll and his Dad will take their money elsewhere for a race winning team

I am worried about Williams because when Frank was there you knew you don't mess with him. Currently it is matter of trying not to pi$$ off everyone to keep the team running

A factory engine deal should have been something Williams ought to have gone after. I don't know why they felt the need to ditch Renault for Mercedes .
 
Merc and Ferrari will prop then up like they did before. They need a name with prestige like Williams to beat to make themselves look good.
 
RasputinLives....sooner or later Lance Stroll and his Dad will take their money elsewhere for a race winning team....

Which race winning team? Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, Renault, Williams and McLaren are the only teams on the grid who have won a race and I suspect that only one of those will want Lance Stroll at any price.
 
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