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.
 
They tried to do Olympic park Andyoak but the residents complained. Then Bernie did some nice political playing and they were forced to agree to not race there anymore. Things like that will happen organically as the series gets bigger - as will the less 'micky mouse' nature of the tracks. The series is far from being a world leader as of yet but it's entertaining and it's getting there. I'd love to see the Williams name - and Mclaren for that matter - in the sport. As you correctly say they've both been building the tech from day one anyways
 
I doubt you've remember anything but sure you googled it ;) - Plus they didn't lose the contract Formula E stepped up to phase 2.

Google a little more you'll see Williams are the technical Partner to the Panasonic Jaguar team and are still very much involved
 
for me i always think when the racing is good. everything pales into insignificance. i always say when we were having that great spell of races in middle of last season from Canada to Italy (excluding france obviously :sleeping:) the battles between Verstappen v Leclerc, Verstappen v Hamilton, Leclerc v Hamilton. same with Formula E they might be tight circuits but they always give entertaining racing. im rarely disappointed & it fills there brief of bringing racing to the people in city centres

i like the hypocritical complaints that F1 going down the drain & yet FE is going to overtake it because F1 is standardising a few more parts that we will never see or have an effect on the team to make far better racing with rules devised by Ross brawn whose been in F1 27yrs working with cars that have won 8 drivers titles & 8 constructors titles with 3 different teams but thats boring. but Formula E who all cars have same chassis, battery, brakes & tyres. only difference is the driver & the power unit. is going to be the new pinnacle of motorsport :dunno:

but anyway to get it back on topic i thought now we got the sustainable series that shouldve helped Williams. because the budgets arent going to extremes when 7 teams in last 8yrs have either gone bust, nearly bust, or talk about leaving because of costs. but we know in many companies are around the world have been hit massively with this crisis
 
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F1Brits_90 said: only difference is the driver

THAT is the huge difference. In F1 all that is proven is which of the two teammates is the better, as there is no comparison between the performance of the cars.
 
F1Brits_90 said: only difference is the driver

THAT is the huge difference. In F1 all that is proven is which of the two teammates is the better, as there is no comparison between the performance of the cars.

it is but if F1 went down the route of the only difference being driver & engine. there would be uproar considering how people for some reason dont like little things being standardized. but FE racing in all but identical cars is fine. its extremely hypocritical to criticise F1 for doing the same thing on much minor scale that your praising FE for
 
Funny you should say that because I am pretty sure all the big car companies are trying crack the Electric car market so FormulaE is no doubt a good marketing place for all of them. Going back to Williams - they exist only solely to compete in F1 but Claire Williams mentioned about strategic direction which says they can't compete in F1 alone and need another income stream so Formula E would be a good place if they get a manufacturer to support them. I think Frank would have never agreed to it though. As for F1 - I think Latifi buying the team will be bad news and ditto with Nissany. They wont stick around long enough unless Williams get some manufacturer support. Is the Merc engine deal still valid then given it was a 7 yr contract?
 
Williams are kind of the last hold out team aren't they? Could have been BMW. Could have been bought by Toto Wolff. Could have been bought by Lawrence Stroll. Now here they are with barely anything to sell. F1 is a very different beast than it used to be.
 
True as William's are essentially a privateer but the goal posts in F1 have moved so much they did make the most of the first year with a Merc engine. Once Toto jumped ship to Mercedes they have not had clear direction
 
I think they would have been Mercedes if they'd let Wolff do that (and Brawn hadn't suddenly become an opportunity).

Thinking even further back they probably could have become Renault of they'd sold out back then too.
 
I'm not sure that Renault ever really seriously wanted to buy Williams - in fact, they seemed very happy as just an engine supplier, until they won everything, and then withdrew.

The first genuine talk of a buy-out was when BMW wanted to buy part of Williams to make it the works team; Frank said no, so BMW went to Sauber...
 
Frank sold his first team to Walter Wolf, given how that turned out I'm not surprised he hasn't been keen to repeat it.

He could indeed have sold to BMW in around 2004, and many called him a fool for not doing so, but the Bavarians had pulled out of F1 before the decade was out so what Williams would look like now is debatable to say the least. Manufacturers will come and go as it pleases them, and quite often leave a bloody mess in their wake. This will happen even to the fine folks in Brackley some day.

But then Williams is the last of that generation who ran racing teams for the love of racing (in F1, I mean). Will anyone still be talking about Lawrence Stroll or Gene Haas in five years' time? I rather doubt it myself.
 
But Renault bought out Benneton who they also had an engine partnership with.

that probably had more to do with Williams signing a contract with BMW in 1998 - just after Renault had announced their departure from F1. There was never any real prospect back then of Renault buying Williams.

Yes, renault bought Benetton, but that was a very different relationship (and probably a cheaper team to buy back then)..
 
Manufacturers will come and go as it pleases them, and quite often leave a bloody mess in their wake. This will happen even to the fine folks in Brackley some day.

But then Williams is the last of that generation who ran racing teams for the love of racing (in F1, I mean). Will anyone still be talking about Lawrence Stroll or Gene Haas in five years' time? I rather doubt it myself.

this is more about budget cap that Williams. but this is why ive always budget cap has been huge necessity. because for me manufacturers are the owners (of any sporting team) & privateers are the fans. you dont build plans around the owners who are temporary. you build it around the fans who are always there

i hope this brings back a few more privateers. & what F1 misses is the teams like a Minardi or a Manor. people who are always at the back but trying their heart out & get there day in sun 1 in while
 
Fingers crossed they will find a title sponsor (this article mentions Colgate) and start to move forwards.

If Colgate brush up on their sporting sponsorship that could really give Williams some teeth next year. A fresh start could make them a mint. Instead of just filling a slot on the grid they could start to bridge the gap to the front.
 
Some good news, Williams have the budget for 2020 - Williams Announces Extremely Positive News for 2020

Fingers crossed they will find a title sponsor (this article mentions Colgate) and start to move forwards.

I can’t believe that they messed up the joke... they meant aquafresh!

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