By Graham Duxbury
Formula One from the Inside
Williams revitalised
Felipe Massa’s pole position at this year’s Austrian Grand Prix,
backed by team mate Valtteri Bottas’ place on the front row of the
grid, is a clear indication that the Williams team is in revival mode.
That this dominant 1-2 qualifying display was not converted into
a race win was down to a series of small, yet disappointing errors
including slow pit stops and tyre issues.
Graham Duxbury is a former
racing driver, champion and TV
commentator. He is featured in
the Hall of Fame at the Daytona
Motor Speedway in the USA.
Here, in 1984, he made history
by winning the famous 24-hour
sports car race in an all-South
African team, partnered by Sarel
van der Merwe and Tony Martin.
N
evertheless, the Oxfordshire-based
team’s first pole position since 2012
- only the fourth since the 2005
season – was significant in that it broke the
Mercedes-Benz stranglehold on the top
qualifying spot this year.
Of course, Williams is no stranger to the
front row of the grid having claimed a
significant 128 poles since its establishment
in 1977 – along with 114 race victories.
Why then, the decade-long dry season?
Founded by Sir Frank Williams and Patrick
Head, the Williams team’s first race was
the 1977 Spanish GP, where the new
organisation ran a March chassis for Patrick
Neve. Williams started manufacturing
its own cars the following year. The first,
dubbed the FW06, was designed by
Head and financed by a portfolio of Saudi
sponsors.
Going from strength to strength, it took
just two years before the team won its first
race, the 1979 British GP, with Switzerland’s
Clay Regazzoni – an experienced exFerrari driver - at the wheel. In 1980,
Australian Alan Jones became the first of
seven Williams’ drivers to win the F1 world
championship.
Williams also won its first constructors’
championship that year, scoring almost
twice as many points as the second-placed
Ligier team. It went on to capture a total
of nine constructors’ championships (in
partnership with engine builders Cosworth,
Honda and Renault) between 1980 and
1997.
Head’s pioneering design work with active
suspension and other ground-breaking
innovations, refined by Adrian Newey,
helped the team produce some of the
fastest F1 cars of all time in the form of the
Williams FW14B and FW15. Each captured
dominant drivers’ and constructors’
championships in 1992 and ‘93 in the hands
of Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost.
Oatley and Frank Dernie, being numbered
(along with Newey) as honoured alumni.
Many famous drivers have claimed titles
in Sir Frank’s cars. In addition to Jones,
Mansell and Prost, they are Keke Rosberg,
Nelson Piquet, Damon Hill and Jacques
Villeneuve.
Notwithstanding the occasional high
points, the team has been unable to get
the better of champions McLaren, Ferrari,
Renault, Brawn (now Mercedes-Benz) or
Red Bull with any regularity. The last time
a Williams driver stood on the top step
of a podium was in 2012 when Pastor
Maldonaro won the Spanish GP - some
eight years after Juan Pablo Montoya took
top honours in the 2004 Brazilian GP.
Sadly, one of the all time greats, Ayrton
Senna, tragically died in a Williams car from
this era, during the San Marino GP at Imola
early in 1994.
Unfortunately, Maldonaro’s win proved to
be a ‘flash in the pan’ as the Venezuelan
ended 2012 a lowly fifteenth in the title
standings.
The team recovered well from adversity,
with Hill stepping in to play a steadying role.
He won the driver’s title in 1996 which many
team insiders saw as just reward for his
earlier efforts.
Now, change is in the air. A fortuitous
switch from Renault to Mercedes-Benz
power for the 2014 season and the new
V6 turbo F1 era has lifted the team.
The signing of Massa, an experienced
ex-Ferrari pilot, mirrors that of Regazzoni’s
appointment all those years ago. ‘Regga’
played a supporting role to Niki Lauda at
Ferrari as did Massa to Fernando Alonso.
However, Damon’s shock sacking soon
after this victory – he was unable to agree
terms for the following season with Frank cast a pall over the team and prompted the
departure of Newey, today recognised as
the world’s most successful F1 engineer, for
pastures new. Nevertheless, his design went
on to capture the ’97 constructors’ and
drivers’ titles for Williams and Villeneuve.
Since then, despite a history of significant
technical accomplishments underlined
by two Queen’s Awards for Export
Achievement, the team gradually faded to
become a shadow of its former self for most
of the last decade; even with some of the
best technical brains in the F1 business,
the likes of Paddy Lowe, Ross Brawn, Neil
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august 2014
Regazzoni was definitely buoyed by Frank’s
faith in him and the opportunity to put his
knowledge and skills to good use in the
twilight of his career.
Perhaps Massa will follow in
the late, great Swiss driver’s
footsteps and give Frank a
win in 2014 – or five as the
marque recorded in that heady
’79 season.