Williams

Williams

Friday 17th February 2006

Widely accepted as a member of Formula One's 'Big Three', Williams are currently struggling to make their way the rut that befell the team in recent years.

The team will undoubtedly go down as the team of the '90s, winning five Constructors' titles between 1992 and 1997 along with four Drivers' titles. However, life for Williams was not always so rosy.

After their creation in 1968, the Williams team struggled for the next 11 years and it was not until the 1979 season, with a car designed by Patrick Head, that they began to establish themselves as one of the top F1 teams of the modern era.

In that season they secured their first win (Silverstone) and went on to record four further wins to finish second behind Ferrari on the Constructors' table.

The team went one better in 1980 as the Constructors' Championship duly arrived and they won it again in 1981. The team also had success with a Drivers' Championship in 1980 for Alan Jones and 1982 for Keke Rosberg - a strange season in which the Finn managed only one win.

In 1985 Williams signed a deal with Honda, a partnership that would take them to the 1986 and 1987 Constructors' titles. However, the defection of Honda to rivals McLaren in 1988 was a huge blow to Williams, resulting in them having to use the Judd engine for a singularly dreadful season and losing Nigel Mansell to Ferrari.

In 1989 Williams secured a deal with French company Renault and slowly began to recover their form, although it was not until 1991 that they mounted another serious attempt on the Championship. In 1992 and 1993 Williams stamped their authority on the F1 in emphatic style as they took the Constructors' and Drivers' Championships with Mansell and Prost on the grid.

Another Constructors' win followed in 1994 despite the death of Ayrton Senna after just three races. 1995 proved a change from the norm as they lost out to the Benetton team but normality, and the Constructors' Title, was restored in 1996 and 1997.

However, the end of the association with Renault before the 1998 season heralded a difficult year with an unreliable and under-powered Mecachrome engine.

In 1998 and 1999 Williams struggled with the Mecachrome/Supertec, but it was a losing battle. Despite heroic performances from Ralf Schumacher the team suffered two of the worst seasons in its history.

For 2000 they had a new engine, courtesy of BMW, and the new package was competitive virtually out of the box with Ralf taking a fine third in Australia. Although the Williams were no match for the Ferrari or McLaren, it was definitely the best of the rest courtesy of some fine performances from Ralf and youngest-ever points scorer Jenson Button.

For 2001 Williams retained Ralf and partnered him with Colombian CART champion Juan Pablo Montoya. Sir Frank has never been afraid to go against public opinion as he proved when he controversially dropped both Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill after their Championship-winning seasons. Button was loaned out to Benetton in favour of Montoya, and the decision proved a good one. JPM immediately turned on the speed and made his name with an overtaking move on Michael Schumacher in Brazil.

The success graph was in an upwards curve in 2001 as Ralf won three races and Montoya one. Surely they would challenge more in 2002? Sadly not.

Aero faults with the FW24 were put down to a lack of attention from the departing aerodynamicist Geoff Willis and despite still having the most powerful engine on the grid, the team only came good for one race win.

2003, though, was a much better season for the team, who came close to overthrowing Ferrari in the Constructors' battle, thanks to four victories and numerous podium finishes. A late spurt from Ferrari though saw Williams finish 14 points adrift.

The team unveiled a radical car for the 2004 season, sporting 'tusks' on its unique front wing. It proved to be a mistake, however: the results were as ugly as the car.

By the end of the season, the tusks had been ditched, replaced with a conventional single-keel front-wing. Out too went Patrick Head, the long-standing technical director to be replaced by Australian Sam Michael.

The state of flux was exacerbated by disappointing performances of Montoya, who had already signed for McLaren, and Ralf who announced in August that he was departing to Toyota. As expected, the team signed Mark Webber as a replacement, but were foiled in their attempts to re-sign Jenson Button - although he did agree to join the team the following year.

Only until 20 minutes before the launch of their 2005 charger in January was test driver Antonio Pizzonia informed that Nick Heidfeld had beaten him in the fight for the second seat. It was a remarkable state of affairs, symbolic of the paralysis that had apparently seeped into the management of a team struggling to retain its status as one of F1's big guns.

Perhaps inevitably, therefore, team sank even deeper in 2005 with the third-choice Heidfeld the only bright light in a dreadful season. Consigned to be a midfield runner, Williams' woes though weren't restricted to the track only as when the engines quieted down the real drama began.

As a consequence of their dismal season, a blame game between themselves and BMW broke out which resulted in the car manufacturer ending their relationship with Williams in favour of buying the Sauber team. Major sponsor HP also withdrew their backing, while Button, who had been so keen to join Williams a year previously, decided Honda could offer him a better chance of winning the drivers' title and bought his way out of his contract.

For 2006 Sir Frank Williams signed Cosworth as his team's engine supplier while the departure of Heidfeld to BMW, meant Nico Rosberg was been given his big break - another questionable move. Nonetheless, Rosberg shone for the team at the start of the year, claiming seventh place and, more remarkably, the fastest race lap time, while Webber's P6 meant Williams bagged a double points-scoring finish in the opening race of the campaign.

Alas, it was to be the highlight of Williams' season.

The following race, Malaysia, signalled the start of bad things to come as even though Rosberg and Williams qualified third and fourth for the race, neither saw the chequered flag, succumbing to hydraulic and engines failures. It was the first of five double retirements for the team.

There were, though, glimpses of the Williams of old during the 2006 season, as Webber showed in Monaco that when the FW28 worked, it worked well. But all too often it would stop working sooner rather than later. The Aussie spent much of the Monaco GP Sunday afternoon in third place before exhaust problems on lap 48 ended his race early. It was to be the team's best chance of a podium finish.

Three top-eight finishes from Webber and two from Rosberg saw Williams plummet to eighth place in the Constructors' Championship, a fitting end to what even Frank Williams deemed to be his team's worst season in more than a decade.

For the 2007 season, Williams retained Rosberg, while Webber has been replaced by test driver Alex Wurz. The team also swapped to Toyota engines and landed a few new sponsors, which means extra cash was coming in.

But as everyone knows once you are down it's difficult to get up. Williams, though, began that journey in 2007. With Rosberg leading the challenge the team got off to a great start, scoring points in two of the opening three races. And although the German suffered a minor slump in the mid-season, Wurz took over the mantel, even bagging a podium finish at the Canadian GP where he claimed third place.

Another great result in Germany saw the Austrian clinched fourth place before it was back to Rosberg to continue the battle. The German sealed five points finishes in the final seven grands prix taking Williams up to fourth place in the Constructors' Championship.

It was a marked improvement from the team, who not only found a bit of pace but also put their reliability gremlins behind them.

With rookie driver Kazuki Nakajima partnering Rosberg, the 2008 season yet another hard one for the Grove-based team. Their season started with a third-place finish from Rosberg and a sixth place by Nakajima in the season-opener in Melbourne, but things went downhill after that.

Rosberg appeared to be fighting a lone battle at times as the FW30 wasn't very reliable and Nakajima wasn't really setting the world alight in his first season. The German also claimed a second-place finish in Singapore, but Williams still finished a lowly eighth in the Constructors' Championship with just 26 points.

Honda's decision to pull the plug on their F1 operations at the end of the season quickly led to rumours that Williams were about to do the same, but the team were quick to reaffirm their commitment to the sport.

The team opted to keep both Rosberg and Nakajima for the 2009 season, but the German also already indicated that he could be off if they have another poor season.