Latest news with #FrankWilliams
New York Times
05-07-2025
- Automotive
- New York Times
How Williams, F1's ultimate underdog, found success — and might again
The two-tone Williams pops at any Formula One circuit. The nose is covered in a deeper blue, called Heritage Blue, and as your eyes track the car towards the rear, it blends with a lighter blue, called Atlassian Blue — a nod to the past and present of the rebuilding team. Williams Racing is one of F1's classic teams. Only two other current constructors, Ferrari and McLaren, have been around longer. It's just two seasons shy of being on the grid for half of a century and boasts nine constructors' championships and seven drivers' titles, all of which took place in the 1980s and '90s. After years as a backmarker, Williams is entering a new era, one where points finishes are more consistent and infrastructure is improving. Advertisement But it's an era still rooted in its origins. Former Williams Racing deputy team principal Claire Williams told The Athletic her father, Frank Williams, 'scrabbled and fought for a decade to set his beloved team up.' During its most successful era, Frank fought for his life after a car accident that left him tetraplegic. 'It is a team that's kind of seen always as an underdog that punches above its weight,' Claire told The Athletic. Frank Williams didn't come from a rich family steeped in motorsports. He was raised in a single-parent household until the age of five when, according to Claire, he 'was sent to boarding school run by monks.' And that is where Frank fell in love with racecars. Because his mother couldn't pick him up on holidays, Claire said one of Frank's friends 'took pity on him.' The friend's father worked as a used car salesman and would take Frank out in one of the cars each time for a trip around the block. Claire said. 'From there, my dad just fell in love with cars, and he left school in his mid teens, and he started hitchhiking around the UK in order to get to see racing cars.' Money was tight — he'd climb under a track's catchfencing during the night, avoiding the circuits' admission fees. He eventually borrowed a car from his mother to go racing. Claire said Frank 'would scrabble together money here, there and everywhere — doing deals, selling old car parts, whatever he could in order to fund his racing. 'But he wasn't particularly great in the race car, so he decided to become a constructor, and that's when he set up his own Formula One team.' Back in the 1960s, privateer entries weren't unusual, and Frank Williams Racing Cars entered the 1969 F1 World Championship with a Brabham BT26A and Piers Courage at the wheel. That's the year Frank felt Williams Racing's history began, Claire said. Advertisement Frank Williams Racing Cars saw some early F1 success, like a second-place finish at the 1969 Monaco GP, but Courage suffered a fatal crash in 1970 during the Dutch GP. Multiple issues unfolded and crippled the team. Claire said her father, Frank, never really told her much about this first team, as he wasn't one to dwell on history, but she did know about the struggles. 'There was probably seven or eight people involved in it. Teams back then are very different to what they are now,' Claire explained. 'My dad, he didn't have any money. It was my mother that was bankrolling the team back in those days, because she had a bit of money behind her. They sold everything in order to keep that team going, and a lot of my father's employees weren't paid. They just did it.' To pay them, Frank would give his employees one of his watches or suits. Claire said, 'My father was really seen in not particularly favorable light, shall we say, by his fellow team principals in the paddock. I think he was seen as a bit of a joke, and the whole team was seen as a bit of a joke. But, you know, I think my dad really had the last laugh.' Canadian millionaire Walter Wolf took over as majority owner of the team in 1976, and Frank left the following year and formed Williams Grand Prix Engineering with technical guru Patrick Head. Head brought the technical brilliance while Frank brought the leadership and vision for the team. In 1978, Williams Grand Prix Engineering's first in-house car (the FW06) made its debut, and it was competitive, as it qualified in every race and reached the podium once, at the United States Grand Prix. Claire said, 'The competition were like, 'Wow, what has happened to Williams?'' It became a two-car team a year later, and Williams secured its first victory with its ground-effect FW07, which replaced the FW06 partially through the 1979 season. Clay Regazzoni stood on the top step of the podium at the British Grand Prix after teammate Alan Jones suffered an engine failure while leading the race. Advertisement Williams went on to win four of the next five races and finish the season second in the constructors' championship. That breakthrough year gave way to a dominant team working in harmony. F1's history is filled with moments like this, such as the recent Red Bull run or the Mercedes era in 2014-2021. For Williams, its moment began in the 80s — and it came at the right time. 'Up until that point, bailiffs were coming around weekly. There was no money,' Claire said. 'It was not like Formula One today. The very fact that Williams survived is probably thanks to my mother.' Powered by Alan Jones and Carlos Reutemann, Williams took the constructors' championship in both 1980 and '81, and the team's first drivers' world championship victory came from Jones in 1980, while Reutemann missed out on the 1981 title by one point. Ferrari, though, came roaring back the next two seasons, but Williams stayed competitive. Nigel Mansell came in 1985, the team's first British driver. Partnered with Nelson Piquet, they helped Williams win the constructors' championship the next two seasons. In 1986, Piquet and Mansell shared the podium seven times across 16 grands prix. But then McLaren lured Honda away the following year, leading to a downturn in performance for Williams ahead of what Claire described as 'one of the most standout decades for Williams.' 'The team completely dominated, and that was a case of punching above their weight,' Claire continued. 'Ferrari was in the sport, McLaren was in the sport, and Williams didn't have the same resources, certainly, but Frank and Patrick just created the most extraordinary team that literally just ate everybody else up.' Head brought a new name to the team in the 1990s: the now-legendary designer Adrian Newey. Together, they designed a car that kept Williams in its winning ways and capable of contending for a constructors' championship. The FW14B became one of the team's strongest challengers and 'introduced traction control and an improved cutting-edge active suspension system,' according to the team. Mansell and Riccardo Patrese secured all but one pole position in 1992 and won 10 out of the 16 grands prix en route to another championship, while Mansell won the drivers' title. Despite the success, the driver lineup changed heading into '93, with Mansell retiring and Patrese going to Bennetton. Three-time world champion Alain Prost and Damon Hill took over, and Prost thrived — winning his debut Williams race and securing 13 pole positions. The Prost-Hill partnership was as strong as Mansell-Patrese, and when Prost retired, Ayrton Senna stepped in, starting in 1994. But Senna died in a crash during the San Marino Grand Prix that year. Williams brought home its third consecutive constructors' championship. The team's dominance continued with two more constructors' championships, in 1996 and 1997. But things began to change, starting in 1998. Newey departed, and Renault left the sport at the end of the 1997 season. Williams endured two winless seasons to close out the decade. Advertisement Williams' two standout decades came at a difficult time for the family, as Frank suffered a spinal cord injury in a road car accident near Paul Ricard Circuit in 1986. According to Claire, her father 'should have died' in the accident, 'and he did die three times in hospital, and yet he came back, and he led his team to more success from a wheelchair than before the accident.' Building a successful team isn't simple or quick. Development takes time. You can spend weeks developing a part and it does nothing in the wind tunnel, which means the team goes back to the drawing board. Claire said, 'These race cars are made up of 20,000 odd parts and aerodynamics — which is the greatest, most single darkest art there is — and if you don't get it right, it is not the work of a moment to fix it. 'Aero, it is the result of more than 1,000 people working together in complete harmony. It's like an orchestra.' When someone messes up a note in an orchestra, the audience notices — and it's the same in F1, Claire said. She added, 'Unless every member of a racing team is operating at absolute peak performance all at the same time, you don't win races and you don't win championships, and if you get it wrong, you can get it really badly wrong, and it can take you an awfully long time to get back up.' Claire began working for the team in the 2000s, and privateer entries began phasing out, as major automanufacturers began investing. Williams brought back BMW as its engine partner, and, as Claire said, it should've worked. On paper, it looked strong. But 'there are a number of reasons why it didn't go in the way that I think either party wanted,' Claire said. They split by 2006, and the team began struggling. Williams jumped from engine partner to engine partner, like Toyota, Cosworth and Renault, and the 2008 global financial crisis impacted the sport, especially with sponsorships. As the decades progressed, different CEOs came in and out, and Head eventually left the team in 2011. Personnel and driver lineups changed, but it was never a matter of whether Williams would stop existing. Advertisement It wasn't the only team at the time that struggled. McLaren faced a downturn in performance as well but has since rebounded. Williams, though, hasn't recovered as quickly. But as Claire said, 'We had real instability.' From a financial perspective, the delta between the teams wasn't quite felt until around 2015 or so, at least in Williams' case. Claire took over as deputy team principal in 2013, and Williams partnered with Mercedes for its power unit a year later. This initially improved the team's performance. It secured multiple podium finishes in 2014, but the differences in spending power between the larger teams and smaller organizations, such as Williams, then impacted performance. Claire admitted the years leading up to her leadership weren't strong. But in her first four seasons, Williams climbed back toward the front. The team finished third in the standings, outracing Ferrari in 2014 and Red Bull in 2015, and held steady with back-to-back fifth-place finishes in 2016 and 2017. 'That was punching above our weight,' Claire said. 'That was the underdog and taking the fight to the bigger teams, and being not even the best of the rest, but being better than some of the top teams of the time. But it did become much harder from that 2017 season onwards, when the differences in spending were quite considerable.' Williams began slipping in performance from 2017 on, top 10 finishes becoming an exception rather than the standard. Come 2020, Claire faced the 'heartbreaking' decision of selling the family team to Dorliton Capital, but she said it was sold to someone 'who had the resources' and who 'respected its legacy.' Even with a new owner, the Williams name has stayed, something that's important to Vowles. 'It's paramount for me as an individual,' he said to The Athletic. 'I want to honor what was created before me.' Advertisement Jenson Button, who raced for the team in 2000 and returned as an ambassador, described Williams to The Athletic as 'the same as it always has been.' The family feel remains with Vowles at the helm. He holds periodic lunches with eight to 10 people from different departments across the company, regardless of hierarchy, and it has been a way not just for Vowles to speak with the team beyond the team-wide chats, but also for the departments to speak more to one another. It creates a communication channel that might not have been there otherwise, he said. It may just be one of the ways that he's managed to revive the team. Williams is working to update the infrastructure and bring Williams back to the front of the midfield fight. Vowles is focused on laying the foundation for a stronger future. 'I think Williams in some ways was definitely set in its ways,' Button said. 'It's probably wrong, but it takes someone like James to come in and say, 'Look, we're going to try and do it like this.' And people believe in him, and people trust. He's confident, very eloquent, and he's also been with the best.' Button won his world championship with Vowles at Brawn, and said he knows the work ethic he brings to the job. But to turn a team around, 'it doesn't just take one man, obviously, (or) one woman. It's a group of people,' Button said. 'I think there's a lot of very talented people here. Some of them really needed a bit of help in direction. 'And I think having Alex Albon as a team leader is key as well.' Albon joined the team in 2022 and signed a multi-year extension last spring, which will run until at least the end of next season. Throughout his tenure with the team, he's scored a vast majority of its points (42 points out of Williams' 55 so far this year and sitting eighth in the driver standings heading into the British Grand Prix weekend).' 'I know he had a lot of very good offers, but he felt that this is the team that could give him what he wants in the future,' Button said. 'It's not about tomorrow. It's about new regulations, 2026, and fighting for the world championship after that.' Williams made the decision to not update the 2025 car, pulling it from the wind tunnel on January 2, and instead focus on next year's challenger. The regulations change next year, giving teams like Williams the chance to jump ahead in the pecking order. 'Next year is basically a clean sheet of paper — you can redraw everything,' Vowles said. 'There's no carryover.' Advertisement Yet, Williams leads the midfield battle heading into round 12, with a comfortable 19-point buffer over Racing Bulls. It has faced its fair share of reliability issues. Albon scored points across four consecutive race weekends before suffering three straight DNFs. One of the big questions is when the rest of the midfield will catch up to Williams, as other teams haven't halted their development yet. Vowles told The Athletic last year that 'the development rate in Formula One is so enormous that you can see a team move from as we did, towards the back to the top end of the midfield within the space of four or five months, if you do the right decisions and the right development.' Vowles has long put an emphasis on 2026, because it's a moment when Williams can 're-establish itself.' He views it as a starting point for the medium and long-term goals he has for the team. '2028, we're not winning championships, but we're definitely pushing ourselves into a state where we're recognized as being one of the top contenders for the future,' Vowles said. 'And then beyond there is just how quickly we can make sure we get our process systems, assets in place to be competing at the highest level. There's still opportunity before then, but it's not something that you switch on overnight. 'It's a journey that you have to embark on.' Top image of Alex Albon and Frank Williams:,
The Guardian
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Hill review – compelling story of formula one star Damon Hill's trials on and off the racetrack
Just as Damon Hill played second fiddle at Williams Racing to Ayrton Senna, this film follows in the wake of Asif Kapadia's 2010 high-octane, high-tragedy single-name documentary Senna. Where that film was all raw, experiential cinematic chicanery, Alex Holmes's film is more traditional, rooted in interviews with Hill and his wife Georgie. However it has quieter, but equally profound, lessons to impart in its emphasis on the driver's need to live up to his roistering father Graham, and on the real meaning of victory in the most alpha of environments that is Formula One. 'It's almost like I was trying to get back to the start again – get back to the place where it all went off the rails.' That's the quasi-mythological racing line taken here; Hill is referring to the premature death in 1975 of his championship-winning dad aged 46 in a plane crash, which also financially ruined his family. But his redemption doesn't go smoothly. After Hill sidles into the sport by becoming test driver for Nigel Mansell, team principal Frank Williams constantly doubts that he has the right stuff. Consigned to the support driver slot when he finally makes the team, more ruthless operators, Senna and Mansell included, are always circling. So the film is a compellingly intimate duel with fear and failure. Hill struggles with the intensity of F1 in his early seasons. He comes within a whisker of beating Michael Schumacher in the 1994 season before the latter appears to sabotage him in the climactic Australian grand prix. Their rivalry psychologically destabilises Hill in 1995, when he is goaded into a series of angry crashes. His team-mate Senna's death the year before also still looms, with the Englishman internalising it as motivation to secure the championship for Williams. Holmes makes a few deft visual touches to convey the psychological pressure cooker that Hill inhabited, intercutting between footage of Senna's and his father's funerals and employing swirling-vision filters on traumatic childhood footage. And, concluding that he cannot rewrite the past, Hill finds an escape hatch. Sidelined again by Williams before a pivotal Japanese grand prix, racing purely for himself, there's an almost Matrix-like moment of inner liberation when Hill feels higher forces are in control of the car. When he finally wins the championship in 1996, it almost seems secondary; the film chronicles the self-doubt that was his real starting grid and shows the podium isn't the only place it can be cured. Hill is on Sky and NOW on 2 July.
Daily Maverick
08-06-2025
- Automotive
- Daily Maverick
Williams on track to reclaim Formula One glory, one race at a time
It's a long-term goal that won't be accomplished soon, but the future is starting to look far more promising than in recent years. Williams Racing is one of the most significant teams in Formula One. The British outfit, founded by grocery salesman Frank Williams and engineer Patrick Head in 1977, is the second-most-successful team in the sport's history. Only Italian team Ferrari (16) has won more constructors' championships. The team was dominant throughout the 1980s and 1990s, earning its nine constructors' championship titles in that period. Australian driver Alan Jones won Williams its first drivers' world title in 1980. Clay Regazzoni had earned Williams its first points a year before. In the following decade Williams achieved more success with the likes of Alain Prost, Keke Rosberg, Nelson Piquet, Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve becoming Formula One champions in its stable. Decline and change The turn of the millennium brought a decline in Williams' performances, and it only worsened as the years went by. The team earned a single point in 2019, finishing at the bottom of the 10-team constructors' championship after 21 races. To highlight just how poor Williams performed, first-placed Mercedes collected more than 700 points that year. Fans of the team who were still holding on to the golden era of the Eighties and Nineties would have been forgiven for thinking it could not get worse. They were mistaken. Williams performed even poorer in the 2020 season, concluding it without a single point. It was a horrid period for the once influential Formula One outfit. The only positive result from that annus horribilis was the Williams family deciding to sell to Dorilton Capital towards the end of the season because of financial difficulties. 'I'm delighted that we found a buyer like Dorilton, which has a passion for Williams and getting that team back to where we all want to see the team in Formula One – being successful,' Claire Williams, the team's former deputy team principal, told PlanetF1 in 2024. 'I'm just incredibly happy that it's got that future and it can now thrive. That's what I wanted to see. 'Towards the end I saw how difficult it was for everybody at Williams that they weren't able to be successful, despite enormous efforts on their part. We didn't have the budget, we didn't have the money to enable these great people that we had working for us to do the job that we were asking them to do. 'That wasn't fair. Selling at that point was the right thing to do because Dorilton has now armed those people with the money to get the job done.' Heading in the right direction Williams is now in better financial standing and heading in the right direction. Though it is still not on solid ground financially, recording an £84-million deficit in 2023, the new owners have invested significantly in the team. They are focused on the future and restoring it to its former glory. Some promising displays so far this season from drivers Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz Jnr have seen Williams performing strongly. The team has already collected 54 points, compared with a paltry 17 last season. 'It's been a very promising start to the 2025 season. We've produced some really strong results and scored a huge number of points compared with recent seasons,' Albon told SB Nation. 'We have started the season strongly and we're delivering on the opportunities we're creating. We just need to ensure we don't get complacent and get the very maximum from what we have.' Leading this Williams resurgence is team principal James Vowles. With more than two decades in Formula One in various roles, the former Mercedes strategy director has been charged with bringing back the glory days of the British team. He was instrumental during Mercedes' dominant Formula One run between 2014 and 2021. Before that he played a pivotal role at minnows Brawn, where he oversaw the race strategy that resulted in Jenson Button securing the 2009 Formula One drivers' title and the team shockingly taking the constructors' championship. Key hires Vowles has been clear about his long-term vision and commitment to building the team 'from the ground up' since his arrival in 2023. At this point, the most important thing is fostering a competitive culture. Then, hopefully, the results will follow. 'If you want to win there is only one way to win: you can't get caught in the now,' Vowles told reporters at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. 'We were in a mess because we were short-termist all the way through the last 20 years. Some of it was financially driven, some of it driven by other elements. 'It's hard for fans to understand why we're doing this, but our targets are actually around the introduction of infrastructure, technology systems, how long it takes to build a front wing, how expensive it is. 'If I said to you our goal this year is to finish eighth, who cares? We'll probably beat that, but that's a moment in time. What we're defining here is a pathway that leads us back to winning.' In addition to Vowles, Williams has roped in a number of key people to bolster the technical team, including respected and experienced Pat Fry as chief technical officer. This move is aimed at strengthening its technical departments, particularly in aerodynamics and design. Williams may not reap the rewards any time soon, especially with its rivals also aiming for improvement after each race. However, for the fans who have followed the team through its ebbs and flows, the results so far will provide some hope that Williams can one day reclaim its spot at the summit of Formula One. DM This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Beckley Common Council opts to set new lease for East Park non-profit, before voiding current lease
BECKLEY, WV (WVNS) — Beckley Common Council opted not to cancel an existing lease for a non-profit organization which operates from a city-owned building in East Park. The Southern West Virginia Multicultural Museum and Community Center has operated from a Washington Street building in Ward 3 since 2011, offering classes, summer day camp and literacy programs, according to one of the founders. Council members have said the non-profit should pay utilities, according to the terms of the 2011 lease agreement. Baldur's Gate 3: The Original Gish However, Ward 3 Councilman Frank Williams, who began directing the community center several years ago, said the city had paid utilities for years and that he had no knowledge of the 2011 lease terms. Council members have discussed a new lease agreement in order to clarify the terms. City Attorney Bill File told Council members on Tuesday, May 27, 2025, they could vote to cancel the current lease and to set a new lease within 30 days, but Council unanimously decided not to do so. 'A new lease needs to be completed prior to us cancelling this lease,' said Ward 5 Councilman Janine Bullock. How many missing persons are found? At-Large Councilwoman Sherrie Hunter agreed with Bullock. 'I would rather the terms of the lease be presented to us first and then rather than waiting and not having a lease,' said Hunter. 'We know how leases have, unfortunately, worked out before.' Last year, the owner and founder of Fruits of Labor Cafe moved out of a city-owned downtown building after operating there for around two years. City officials came under fire for having invited the Fruits of Labor owner into the building without first entering into a binding lease agreement. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
BBC News
21-03-2025
- Automotive
- BBC News
F1 legend Claire Williams named as Make a Difference Awards judge
Formula 1 legend Claire Williams has joined BBC Radio Berkshire's Make a Difference Awards as a ran the Williams team, founded by her father Sir Frank Williams, between 2013 and 2020, and is now a main contributor on the Netflix series Drive to will judge the volunteer category for this year's awards, which celebrates people who give their time voluntarily to help judges include Basingstoke actor James Bye, who will judge the fundraiser category, and former Reading manager Steve Coppell, who will look after the active category. Berkshire-born Williams sold the Formula 1 team in 2020, and said it still felt "surreal" five years on."Formula 1 was everything to our family, we were in it for many, many years," she said."[But] to be able to watch it occasionally from the comfort of my sofa is also nice."She said she was "really excited" to be judging the award."There are so many people in this county who do so many extraordinary things voluntarily to give their time to others, and I'm sure I'm going to be met with countless stories," she continued."I think it's just going to be fascinating."But she joked that choosing a winner could be "harder than running the [Williams] team"."How do you differentiate between all these incredible people that do amazing things in their communities?" she said."I'm really looking forward to it but I think it's going to be a difficult challenge." You can follow BBC Berkshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
