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.

 

[F1Brits_90]

agree Bill Boddy when i was watching i was like both ted & Patrick very sceptical because its hard enough to find to 1/2 sec never mind 3 or 4x that. but i guess we will have believe it when we see it

Lance Stroll is not helping himself. unfortunately i believe he was brought into f1 to early. i agree with him that Williams doesn't help ive said a few times that i believe it is the worst chassis by far on the grid. but he got to make the best of it because complaining aint going to make it any quicker. he's got to back & impress, smash his teammate because he aint going up the grid if he leaves Williams without using Alonso because he not exactly perfect but for as long as he is outperforming his car & teammate. they will allow it

 

[cider_and_toast]

Williams have outdone themselves this season. They have managed to produce yet another awful car.

 

[FB]

Having spent so many years making cars to battle at the front of the grid do you think there is now a competition between Grove and Woking to see who can make the worst chassis? Williams ahead by a neck at the moment but McLaren will be back next year with their Reliant Regal based challenger to throw some shade at the Grove team.

 

[cider_and_toast]

A Reliant Regal based challenger would still be in with a shout at Monaco.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Williams, points per race, The Mercedes Years.

2014 - 16.84
2015 - 13.53
2016 - 6.57
2017 - 4.15
2018 - 0.67 (after 6 races)

Can anyone spot the trend here?

 

[F1Brits_90]

Williams, points per race, The Mercedes Years.

2014 - 16.84
2015 - 13.53
2016 - 6.57
2017 - 4.15
2018 - 0.67 (after 6 races)

Can anyone spot the trend here?

As i said Williams have actually had terrible cars since 2015. Problem their Mercedes cars cant bail them out anymore

 

[RasputinLives]

Williams sack head of aero Dirk De Beer due to major aero flaw being the reason the car is so awful.

Williams: Head of aerodynamics leaves after disappointing start to season

Rumours De Beer applied for the job thinking it was working in a chocolate factory and has just been winging it ever since can not be confirmed.

 

[F1Brits_90]

I think that guy must have been on de beer during the design phase. & im sure williams management didnt call it disappointing. As car is so bad it makes 2011 & 13 cars look like world beaters. Although stating the obvious award goes to Williams. Saying they have discovered that a major aerodynamic flaw is responsible for the car's lack of pace this year. Yep we saw this after the 1st test

 

[Il_leone]

Staring into the abyss: Would a budget cap save the once mighty Williams team?

Well more problems for Williams I guess having realised they have poor downforce because of a serious design flaw with their car.

I guess their wind tunnel is not working properly then

According to Stroll , Williams are " Surviving not racing" now that does not bode well for the Grove team. That is why they seriously need an engine partner to become a works team and will happily accept to be one even if it was with Honda.

The situation of this once great team is very dire

 

[Il_leone]

As for Lance Stroll he should see it as a privilege he gets to drive an F1 car around Monaco and moaning to the team who are working very hard is hardly inspiring with comments like that. I wonder how many of those guys would really love to say " Go and take your millions and shove it up your Dad's a$$"

I am sure Kubica would not be making comments like that... the team are also warming to Sirotkin a bit more

 

[The Artist.....]

I’m not sure that this is evidence that the Williams wind tunnel is problematic; it’s very difficult to model the impact of tyres on the aero, particularly when it comes to turning a corner... (wind tunnel models will often have the wheels locked in a forward direction).

 

[The Pits]

I think Williams may have put the car in backwards....

 

[RasputinLives]

If I ran the Williams team (which apparently I don't despite turning up at the Grove all the time) then in order to preserve the business and the brand I would immediately withdraw from F1 stating that an independent team is unable to compete with the regulations as they are but we would reconsider re entry if this changes. Currently the team and name are big enough that this would create a stir and make people really sit down and discuss what's happening to F1.

To back that up I'd immediately announce entry into Indy Cars and Formula E. Both series would fall over themselves to get a defecting F1 team and Williams build some of the Formula E tech anyways. I'd also enter an F2 package and maybe even GP3. All of this could be achieved on the current F1 budget. Possibly even start building a car to run as a one off at Le Mans.

To finish all of this off I'd arrange for a documentary series to be made called "life after F1" which would follow the team as it tackles the new formula and discusses the difference between them and F1. I'd make sure Kubica was driving in one of them as well for extra focus.

My main reasons behind doing this would be to give F1 a shot in the arm and create a situation where a team like Williams can be competitive again.

 

[Il_leone]

RasputinLives I think Williams will collapse if the budget cap does not come into force in 2021

The only issue I have with that is Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes will resist any change where their resources are restricted as moaning Horner has already said that people will lose jobs if the budget cap came in.

Williams are a privateer team and need some serious investment but Frank Williams is not going to relinquish control of his team like he ought to

 

[cider_and_toast]

Unfortunately there's this theory that its better to be crap in F1 than brilliant anywhere else

 

[RasputinLives]

If Williams went to Formula E they'd prob hit the front quite quickly as they built the original batteries and it would certainly get a lot of publicity. Would cost them barely a fraction of the F1 budget too. Yes it's a step down but it keeps the team alive. They are heading down the Lotus/Brabham path right now.

I'll be honest I think McLaren are on the same path too just a decade behind Williams

 

[Galahad]

All of this could be achieved on the current F1 budget.

It could, but unfortunately you wouldn't have an F1 budget, or anywhere near it. Williams' income relies on F1 prize money payments, which you'd naturally lose; and sponsors, who aren't interested in Formula E until it gets some fans and tv viewers. Without manufacturer backing I expect Williams would be running two pay drivers in FE and getting similar results to F1.

 

[FB]

Aww crap!

https://www.planetf1.com/news/stroll-set-to-stay-at-williams-for-2019/

From the article:

“He has worked very hard to improve the points he had to improve,” Williams said.

Translation "His father has paid us considerable sums of money"

“He’s under a lot of pressure, getting criticism that is not deserved and I think he’s showing tremendous maturity in dealing with all of it.

Translation "His father has paid us considerable sums of money"

“I am very proud of the work he has done for us and I hope that we will soon be able to give him a car that will allow him to show his full potential.

Translation "His father has paid us considerable sums of money"

 

[Il_leone]

FB Double crap They are going to ask Oliver Rowland to do another test this summer and he might feel aggrieved if he proves he is significantly faster than both Stroll and Sirotkin

I guess Williams will be firmly rooted to the back of the grid with Stroll in one of their cars

 

[Bill Boddy]

From what was said on the Beeb commentary today Stroll is not happy and does not feel like racing. Maybe he would feel better driving elsewhere.