The beginning of the end

As my book Motor Racing in the 70`s indicates, 1979 was a very important year for the Williams team. In Silverstone, Clay Regazzoni managed to win a race for the British team for the first time. This was followed by 4 other wins by Alan Jones in the second half of the year. After trying to make the big leagues since 1969, Williams had finally arrived, with a bang.

The beginning was auspicious. Fielding a Brabham-Ford for Piers Courage in 1969, Williams actually got two second places in its debut season. Then came the De Tomaso chassis of 1970, Piers` death, and a number of years fielded Marches and proprietary chassis. Williams was often the laughing stock of the field, although a number of talented drivers drove for it during the period, including Pescarolo, Redman, Schenken, Merzario, Pace, Ickx, Laffite. The team was often underfunded, failing to collect from sponsors, then failing to pay drivers, and leased many a seat to Formula 1 hopefuls. The trough came in 1976, when a tie-up with Walter Wolf turned disastrous for Frank on and off the track. The more business-savvy Wolf ended up with the team, and actually made the new Wolf team a winner from the start in 1977. Williams regrouped late in the season, at first fielding a March for relative unknown Patrick Neve. The novelty was some Arab sponsors on the car and a young engineer called Patrick Head in the pits.  

The 1979 Williams team epitomized the successful F-1 team of the year and onwards. Well-funded, organized, motivated, with great staff and a talented engineer, plus winning drivers. The first title came in 1980, the last in 1997, a total of six, all won by a different driver. This is a Williams peculiarity among teams that won titles with more than one driver – no Williams driver ever repeated the feat.  The last race win was Pastor Maldonado’s inherited victory in the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix.  For a while Williams seemed on the rebound later in the decade and Valteri Bottas looked a certain winner a few times in the team’s cars.

The 2019 Williams team, on the other hand, looks more like the Iso-Marlboro of 1973 than a large and traditional team. Only Ferrari and McLaren can boost longer continuous career in the current F-1 field. However, 3 other teams, Mercedes, Renault and Alfa Romeo were Grand Prix pioneers from the early days of the sport. Tradition aside, Williams lost its major sponsor, Martini, a sugar-daddy (Lance Stroll’s father) and seems anything but a Mercedes B-team. The fact it is powered by the most successful engine of the age has no apparent effect on its performance.

The Iso-Marlboro of 1973 - at this point no one could guess Williams would be a top F1 team. 

The question is, how long can this continue? As an engineering company Williams makes a lot of money conducting projects for a number of clients. F-1 has become an after-thought since the heady days of the 1980s and 1990s, which might explain the big slip in overall performance since then. A tie-up with a number of engine manufacturers has not helped. In my view, Williams had a good opportunity to remain relevant should the Toyota partnership evolved. Truth is, Williams has lost its winning mentality as a team years ago, going into survival mode. And F-1 has become an embarrassment for the engineering company.

So, although I titled this article “The beginning of the end”, it may actually be the epilogue of a long process that began after losing the BMW partnership. Williams has looked quite lost in the off-season testing, and poor Robert Kubica is back in F-1 in the worst possible circumstances.

It would be sad to see Williams go, but that seems to be just a matter of time.

If you are interested in my book Motor Racing in the 70`s, you may buy it at foreigndocumenttranslations.com/motorracingbooks.php. The book is a comprehensive review of racing in the entire world during the decade and it covers all major championships and disciplines.