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 to say that for all Mr. Button's obvious attributes and exceptional talent, I don't think he's a square peg for this round hole.

He's never driven around problems, and the 2007 Earth Car scarcely improved until that generation of cars ended.
 
Why did Williams go downhill from 2004 onwards? Well, it's very simple - bad car design and the fallout with BMW! The Walrus car was never going to win anything, and with BMW looking for an out, the team was never going to get full support.... I suppose that I can understand FW not wanting to sell out to the Munich concern, but a share of equity wouldn't have been a bad compromise!
 
I think I posted a link to an article about it on Joe Saward's blog on the Williams Next Season thread and it was suggesting that maybe Pastor could be out the door yes.
 
I have also read another thing about PDVSA, their contract with Williams means they can have a list of drivers which Williams can choose from, but it can only be from that list, and it's only for one of the Williams seat not both.
 
I'm not sure that Button would have made the 2005 car any faster, nor prevented the split with BMW, which is (IMO) a lot more to do with the mess Williams are currently in than any driver decisions they've made.


I meant Button would have better in the 2004 Williams definitely than sulking Montoya or Ralf "My name is " Schumacher "so pay me $20m"

2005 Williams given Button missed two races and got disqualified from another he still finished on the same points as Webber .

So I'd think Button would have been less accident prone and got higher up in the points

It was not Button who decided he had to stay at BAR ..it was the Contracts Recognition Board even though Button was told by his manager then to go head and sign the Williams contract in 2004 because apparently his BAR contract was not binding if Honda were not committed

Yes Button signed it for 2 years I think it was when Frank said he had his services for 2006 as well but in doing so Button basically took himself out of any other deals that might have been available at Ferrari, Renault or Mclaren
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As for Williams decline... I sympathise with Frank on this because BMW thought they had the superior engineering and thought Williams engineers were inferior. BMw wanted to own Williams outright ..off course Frank was never gonna to surrender his team ownership

Had BMW been still at Williams it would have been similar to what Mclaren/Mercedes relationship where it was a 50-50 joint decision but after a while BMW would have wanted to run a team like Mercedes did with BRawn anyway
 
I have to say that for all Mr. Button's obvious attributes and exceptional talent, I don't think he's a square peg for this round hole.

He's never driven around problems, and the 2007 Earth Car scarcely improved until that generation of cars ended.


How about last week with no KERS or faulty kers

No one could have achieved anything with the hideous Earth car but Button did show glimpses of his abilities in it with memorable performances

Nurburging when he was steaming through the field before going off at turn 1
Monza 8th place in the dry
Magny Cours 8th place in the dry and only 2 seconds behind Alonso's Mclaren
Turkey 13th from 21st
China 5th
Japan qualified 6th and was running well in the early part of the race without a front wing
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Will Williams ever return to their glory? Coughlan should push the team up closer to the midfield as he was a decent designer
 
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/96380

is this Rubens talking up the team in hope they'll resign him or is he genuinally confident next years car will be much better?

Interesting to hear him talk about a lack of leadership in the team
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Its never a good thing for key people to leave as it causes massive disruption during the middle of the season ( so
those people who think certain people should be sacked is the answer need to see the big picture unless they all do a Flavio)

Basically both Frank and Patrick have overstayed at the new Williams team and Parr wants to shove them out of the door asap for his new team and let everyone know he is in charge

Sam Michael leaving obviously means a lack of direction on the technical front as well.

Rubens is really clutching his straws because if I was Parr I don;t see any reason to keep him if he is revamping the team
Is Ruben's dig meant to be at Cosworth or he is hoping Renault show a bit more loyalty and offer more help based on past history
 
A crappy end to a crappy season for Williams. "Monster Munch" Maldonado retired and Rubens, despite qualifying well, drifted home in 14th. This must be the worst season for Williams since WGPE was created in 1977.

Patrick Head's last time at a Grand Prix as team technical director, if only it could have been a better day. Fingers crossed the new tie in with Renault and the revamp of the technical department has a positive effect on the team for 2012. It will be interesting to see which drivers end up in what must be one of the most famous names in F1 - let's hope more pay drivers is not the way forward for WGPE.
 
Certainly it's the worst season in all the time Patrick Head has been involved. Personally it's cast quite a shadow over the season as a whole.

It was poor design that got them into this mess and it will be good design that gets them out of it - but the clock is ticking. Loterham, HRT and Virussia won't be terrible forever, so Mr. Coughlan needs to produce the goods fast. Dropping out of the top 10 teams would be a hammer blow.

The Renault deal is a positive move providing they can afford it (I imagine one customer deal is much like another these days) and I'd like to think they can still employ at least one driver on talent grounds. Of course, sometimes talented drivers also come with money, and that might be where Adrian Sutil comes in - I have reservations about him, but he's about as good a driver as they deserve at the moment, possibly better.
 
Certainly it's the worst season in all the time Patrick Head has been involved. Personally it's cast quite a shadow over the season as a whole.

It was poor design that got them into this mess and it will be good design that gets them out of it - but the clock is ticking. Loterham, HRT and Virussia won't be terrible forever, so Mr. Coughlan needs to produce the goods fast. Dropping out of the top 10 teams would be a hammer blow.

It must be a serious worry for Williams that Kovi was only just over 4 tenths off Maldanado in Qually and that was a car that still wasn't running a KERS system. With at least Loterham (great name by the way) having a KERS system and all of that Red Bull DNA next year it really is a worrying time for Williams if they can't come up with the goods.
 
However.... I do have faith in Williams to turn things around - they'll have Mike Coughlan on board - and he's not a shabby technical director - they'll have a year of experience with a tiny gearbox, and they'll have decent Renault engines!
 
I don't know whether it's because the Brazilian track is really short or not, but the 6 usual slow cars weren't that far off at all.
 
So Hulkenberg scors 22 points, 7 points scoring finishes and 1 pole and is shown the door.

Pastor gets 1 10th place the whole season and gets a second year.

Sad day for Williams

"its all about the money money money"
 
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