BUT IT LOOKS LIKE A FERRARI! The Story of the 'Red Williams' Cars (1998-99)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
- On old TVs, it was almost impossible to tell the difference between the Ferraris and the Williams cars. Because they were the same colour.
After enjoying so much success in the 1990s, Williams fell off when Renault withdrew from the sport at the end of 1997, and Williams had also lost Adrian Newey to McLaren after a series of fallings out with Sir Frank.
So with a car that was basically the 1997 car adapted to new regulations, and an engine that was obsolete, how would Williams perform in their new red colours after Rothmans decided to switch it up?
Thinking about it- It was a good thing they did, since we associate red Williams with awful, and blue with good.
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I do often wonder what Frank and Patrick were thinking in Melbourne 1998 watching the Newey designed mp4-13 lap the whole field!!
iirc, Sir Frank himself said that it was a mistake not giving Newey some stakes at the team that led to his departure
Cue the meme template with the two confused looking dogs, and that’s probably pretty accurate.
ironically it was never about the stakes @@SebrystianVettel
@@markwilliams1941 At Spa 98 at the first start Villeneuve made a brilliant getaway and passed everybody to get right alongside Hakinen before the big crash and the race was stopped, that was the one moment throughout the season where he got close to the magnificent McLaren.
Probably thinking... what were we thinking?
That 99 livery in my opinion was absolutely gorgeous.
I've seen these in person when I visited the Williams factory in 2017. There was a story the guide told us about Jacques being chased around the garage by a guy in a woodpecker costume who was trying to hug him for a photo op
No wonder he was never quite the same in the 000s
@@iplayeddsharpminor woodpecker PTSD is no joke apparently
That is so good to hear about 😂
As a 12-13 year old in Quebec at this time I directly blamed the change in colour for JV's struggles. He had always had blue and white cars and had won everything put in front of him in blue and white so red just seemed like a curse
My mate was horrified by the livery change. He'd just painted his Fireblade in 'williams colours' . Another friend once painted his garage door red and white with a McLaren logo just before they went silver. 😮
I heard a father and son painted a bedroom in 1997 Mark Martin NASCAR colors then the livery changed in 1998 when they had just finished painting the room
One of the major advantages the McLaren had, in 98, was also down to the fact that Newey took a look at the Mercedes engine and asked if they could minimise it to help with the aerodynamics. This led to what were known as the series two engines, that were smaller and lighter than the ones that had been used until the end of 97.
If only Frank and Patrick hadn't managed to keep pissing Newey off, even if Renault still pulled out, I think he might have been able to design a car that might have been able to compete, maybe not fight for the championship, but still get the odd win. Then a Newey BMW collaboration could have been epic, as a lot of the time the BMW was considered as the most powerful engine. I bet Frank and Patrick were gutted every time they saw one of Newey's monsters racking up wins
Another thing about the red livery was that while the original Frank Williams Racing Cars livery was the plain dark blue Williams have used occasionaly in testing more recently, a lot of those pre-“Grand Prix Engineering” cars were also painted red. I distinctly remember people who were around back in the '70s saying things along the lines that “Frank never wins with red cars”. I don't think Frank himself was particularly superstitious, but it was certainly quite a coincidence.
So Ferrari have raced in the top tier in blue and white and williams have raced i red that both teams by coincidence have race in each others colours is interesting
About 1982: Before being to critical I think it's a good idea to watch the races to see how Rosberg drove with that underpowered car. He's a worthy champion.
When you see Rosberg drive at the 1892 Swiss GP where he caught Prost and pasted him he really was on the limit every lap. I can’t remember which lap it was about 10 from the end where, he had both rear tyres spinning leaving black lines coming out of “le Combe” .
I when to many a F1 race in the 1980’s Rosberg was the quickest I saw
Not so much a case of being critical - both the primary drivers ahead of him (clearly far ahead, with the best car in the field) were out by mid-year. The part about "only" winning one race is an irrelevance, however to say it was certainly fortunate is accurate.
At one point ‘99 Williams tried steel brake rotors on Zanardi’s car as he was having brake feel issues with the carbon discs. I think he actually raced them once too. Perhaps the last use of steel rotors in F1? Interestingly the performance was very close to that of carbon brakes but of course came with a weight penalty.
Another piece of entirely dull trivia is that at the European race the team had forgotten to put the cars race numbers on the nose, which was against the rules. I think it was remedied for the race itself but if my poor memory serves me correctly they qualified without the numbers.
Hello Aidan: At 15:29, in almost the exact middle of the frame, on the car is a reference to Australian culture, a black and yellow "beware of kangaroos" sign. Have a lovely day.
These cars after the glorious Rothmans livery, signaled the end of Williams's excellence.
For me it was always Elf, Canon and Camel with the legendary red 5 on the nose. the Rothmans Livery was epic but say 90's Williams and that's my happy place
I said that exact same thing when I saw the pic of the thumb nail.
So true: it was downhill after this.
Early 2000s Williams were still good and they came very close, finishing 2nd in 2002 and 2003 (sad fact: 2003 was the last time the Williams team had a 1-2 finish at the French Grand Prix which was also Ralf Schumacher's last win in F1).
The red line in the sand. I came in at this point in terms of proper viewing of the sport, so I have never known a time with a champion Williams, only a brief flicker of competition in the early 00s, followed by massive flickers of BMW flames. The blue was back by then, though. It's a strange thing. Last win, by Maldonado, Renault engine, a driver named Senna in the other car, livery blatantly evoking Rothmans. Hybrid era arrives, blue gone, now white Martini; a pole, eleventy hundred seconds and thirds... No wins. Blue is the colour. Da Ba Dee Da Ba Da.
Williams De Tomaso and Iso cars during the 1970s were mainly red.
Slight nitpick: TV at the time in the UK was 576i, not 480p.
Although you didn’t see it for what it truly was because of the overscan.
From what I gather a lot of people still had TVs only capable of 480 by 1997.
Most in North America were only capable of 480i
Only way you could get 480p was in those old computer monitors that used VGA (the best output the Dreamcast could give us!)
@@AidanMillwardthis is only valid for North America, in Europe we had 576i
At first I thought Winston was their sponsor and “Winfield” was just the censored version for certain countries.
Flavio was smart taking over the Mechachrome deal. Make heaps while only mainly the engines, but keeping the Renault brains in house until they recommitted to F1, and made good money selling it back. Clever cookie…
I can remember when this car was first seen & the tifosi hated it, as it was more Ferrari red (rosso corsa) than the Ferrari's of the time (Marlboro red)
Villeneuve's performance in 1998 considering the car was excellent . From a driving point he might have even performed better in 1998 than he did in 1997.
Villeneuve was a stunning driver up until when Pollock was replaced as BAR manager
@@camillaquelladegliaggettiv4303idk about stunning but yup politics behind the scenes of BAR basically ended his car
1996-2001 JV was a top 5 driver on the grid
@@RANDOMZBOSSMAN1he won an Indy 500 coming back from being 2 laps down, definitely not a bad driver like some make him out to be.
@@PaperBanjo64 can I mention he did that in his SIXTH year of full-time car racing? Junior series included??? Like, the guy was out of this world in terms of talent
@@RANDOMZBOSSMAN1 I think "one entire second ahead of the second car in qualifying" qualifies as stunning
I remember back in 1998 that the first time I saw the red williams, I was literally shocked: I was 7 yo at that time and i only saw blue williams, so i founded pretty repulsive back in the day, but right now I think it looks pretty good. Meanwhile i always loved the '99 livery, tbh it's one of my favorites of all time.
I was around the same age and I remember the shock of seeing the red livery on the Williams when the car's launch was shown on the news in 1998. In recent yrs I've come to think that the 98 livery was fabulous.
I didn't mind the 98 one, and actually really liked (and still do) the 99 one
Personally I LOVE the 99 Williams livery. That and the Jordans of the late 90s and early 00s with the Snakes and the Hornets.
Yes I remember these Williams; quite a comedown after the success of the early and mid 90s to then go to barely scoring any points let alone a win.
That 99 Williams is my favourite F1 car ever.
Would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the Saudi Williams liveries too 👍
This livery made me switch to being a McLaren fanboy as a wee lad. The Rothmans 96 and 97 cars made me a motorsports fan when i was very young
Choosing Dijon for the Swiss GP was also out of neccessity as closed track motorracing was banned in Switzerland since the Le Mans desaster in 1955.
very tragic
Great video. Love it dude. Blast of nostalgia for me as the first real F1 season I can remember is indeed Hill in 1996. Therefore Williams has a certain resonance with me.
I actually liked the Winfield livery of 1998 , (My first full year of watching f1 (And my 1st 1/18 model car was a FW19 in 1998 livery , maybe that helped (And the driver helmets (esp Frentzen fitted very well with the Winfield livery
To be fair, the livery actually reminded me more of the Dallara Scuderia Italia cars more as they were red with the white stripe over the engine cover
Which Ferrari then accidentally copied in 92-93; while trying to ape the look of the red & white '75-'78 312Ts
I remember They changed to steel discs at Monza in the red Williams. It did not work.
In 1998 Williams had Meckacrome, & Benetton had Playlife.
Both essential Renaults!
8:36 sounds like good PR! Wouldn’t be surprised if the real reason was that Goodyear saw the writing on the wall and knew more teams were going to deflect to Bridgestone and they can’t compete with them
Fun fact Williams never won a race on Bridgestone tires
I do like the 1999 car livery though
I remember watching F1 in 98 and mixing the Williams and Ferraris up a bit.
Frank was an issue within his own team. And Newey saw it. What Frank did to both Damon and specially Nigel, the most winning driver for Williams ever (28 wins 1 WDC 3 runner up with them and 3 team titles in 86,87 and 92) was an issue for the team and Newey saw it. As everyone else we did. Sorry Frank but what you did, made your team go to sht
Man if only Newey had stayed at Williams. 😮 Isn't that an interesting alternate time line.
He wouldn't have crossed paths with Coulthard who wouldn't have recommended or pushed for his move to Red Bull.
I don't think Coulthard was test driver at Williams long enough to be influenced by Newey the same way.
I think Frank's and Pratick's politicking and willingness to back stab would have resulted in Newey hitting pissed and moving on anyway but maybe a season or two more. Heck of he survived long enough maybe BMW would step in realising what they've got and push Frank instead.
There is also the chance that Newey flies too close to the sun, out designs himself and produces the MP4-18 for Williams and gets booted anyway
At 10:25 the 1998 car is shown and the red Winfield livery looks fabulous
tbh, even at the end of season 1997, both the ferrari and mclaren were ahead of williams, since both adrian newey and renault stopped development at the beginning of the season. JV could only win title thankyfully to his talent against the faster ferrari driven by schumacher. it was quite clear thar wiliams was so good only because of newey. since adrian joined mclaren already in 1997, and mclaren was already faster than willimas at the end of 1997, it was obvious that williams can not compete ferrari and mclaren in 1998 unless they do a dramatic change in their engineering staff. it never happened, they stuck with the mediocre patrick head, and theredore they became a mediocre team.
I have to confess, I really like this shitbox of a car it was the FW20.
Zanardi didn´t succeed with 1999 Williams because of the brakes, he was used to steel brakes and could not get used to carbon brakes and that´s why he failed.
"Nothing lasts forever" - That immortal line Ian Richardson so memorably delivered at the opening of House of Cards. Williams had such a good '80s & '90s, even the years when they didn't win a title. Even in '88 & '89 they were laying the groundwork for domination. Their fall from power seemed even less likely in the late '90s than Thatchers did in 1990.
Their rise from running a customer March in 1977 to 2nd in the constructors in '79 and utter domination in 1980. Dominating the constructors championship again in 1981 (and so narrowly missing out on the drivers). The FW07 was one of the greatest and most dominant F1 cars ever (worth a story in itself), and it was only the 2nd F1 car the young team had ever produced!
Until the manufacturer era began at the end of the '90s, Williams' stats were phenomenal. To me they will always be the greatest F1 team ever.
Frank Williams is one of my favourite Builders of all time. The most Gracious, unassuming and giving person you could ask for (and I'm not just giving sympathy because of the chair - he didn't change after the accident) amongst a bunch of snorting bulls, who will tell you as much..
I know its blasphemy... but i quite like those color schemes.
Please somebody confirms this: to me the 98 tires looked wider than 97's ones despide having those grooves
It looked like a Ferrari, stewards in Barcelona even showed Trulli a blue flag to let Frentzen pass thinking it was Schumacher lapping Trulli.
I was at the Williams HQ back in the 90s on the day Damon Hill joining was announced. It was back in the day when software distributors used to pick 'cool' locations for events. #goodolddays
Joining, or being confirmed as a race driver? Because there wasn't much of an announcement about him joining back in 1991.
He was best-known for crashing into Giuseppe Bugatti, a lot, in F3000 at the time and doing some quiet active suuspension testing for Williams on the side...
Ah well, a story about Williams in the late-1990s, post-Newey and pre-BMW. What if Newey was still around when they had these BMW engines? Losing Newey was bad, especially as this happened right before the 1998 rule changes, although they probably would have suffered from their slightly under-powered engines anyway. I didn't know the Ferrari engine was stronger than the Mercedes engine in these years. I thought Mercedes had the strongest engine up until beryllium alloys were banned in 2001. Interestingly, Williams were doing surprisingly well at the high-speed circuits in 1998, with a 3rd place for Villeneuve right behind the McLarens at Hockenheim and a 2nd place in qualifying at Monza; they were actually more competitive at these tracks than in 1997. By the way, I thought the story about Villeneuve was that he wasn't within one second of Hill at the test, so Newey thought he wouldn't be considered, so he was quite annoyed when they still signed him. I believe Zanardi's biggest problem in Formula 1 was that he couldn't get used to the carbon brake disks. He only did well at Monza, where he was in second place, but slipped back to seventh. He ran out of fuel in Austria (interestingly, Alesi did the same that race) and ended up delaying Coulthard, which would eventually cost Coulthard the win.
Those red cars still looked better than the 2000's cars
Ah yes, the end of the Williams glory days.
This is the first of your videos I've stumbled across, I will be making sure it's not the last! Love the storytelling, humour and simply the level of depth you prove. Awesome job dude.
This car threw my brain back in the day. My child mind couldn't get it's head around such a massive change in colour scheme.
Me too man. It was almost shocking wasn't it. The relief when BMW showed up.
Ralliart's livery for Rally Australia in the 1990s was also Winfield livery. It just looked odd seeing Mitsubishi Lancer with Winfield livery. Not as simple and clean as Ralliart's white livery or their later iconic Marlboro livery
You forgot to mention that, that 480p was also analog, not digital.
Didn’t forget anything
The standard in the UK was PAL, which translates to 576i. NTSC would be 480i. Neither of these are progressive.
Yebbut you might have got 480p (just) on Realplayer in 1997/98 if you had good phone lines
F1 and the occasional Trek reference 👌😉
Plain and simple.
10:23: Woody Woodpecker on the nose?????
If it makes you feel better my first season paying attention to F1 is 2007, but that was because I started following the sport much later after being introduced to it thanks to F1 Championship Edition on PS3. NASCAR however was 1993 and WRC was 1999.
Remember when I went to the Williams museum, the guy doing our tour got to these, went "these are cars", then walked straight past them on to the next ones. Beautiful.
closet canadian eh?
Williams should have moved heaven and earth to keep Newey.
6:46 time stamp -Unless you were meaning Constructor's Championship, the 1994 Driver's Championship winning car was Ford powered.
Honestly with modern F1 im about over it... They just dont look right, way too massive, and Indycar's ruined completely might as well be an enclosed cockpit. SuperFormula's no better.
Now again what about "Williams were blue and white". No they were not. That just lasted 1994-1997. Now Williams were YELLOW white and Blue from 1985 to 1993. That's 8 years. THOSE WERE the colours of Williams Racing. I will keep on saying that. Rothmans was just an accident that lasted too much. Ugly as fk.
The Swiss GP in France was like Luxembourg GP in Germany & San Marino GP in Italy.
Maybe you should do a video on why there was a Luxembourg GP even tho Nurburgring in Germany is miles away from Luxembourg.
Aidan! How could you overlook the hilarious mess that was the 'other' 1995 (and 1996!) driver they had - the reason they were testing Villeneuve in the first place. ;)
Coulthard was fed up with being shoved aside for Sir Bernie Rothmans-Mansell in 1994 and signed with McLaren for 1995. Then when Williams found out, they said....nope; we decided just now, not to have Mansell (and his salary), so you're driving for us next year.. Coulthard disagreed, but the CRB said - in mid-December 1994!) he must drive for Williams, or nobody, in 1995...
Marlboro, Coulthard, McLaren (& Williams) all managed to find a way to buy him out for 1996 however, leaving Williams short of a driver..
It also of course, left McLaren short one for 1995... they tested a couple of former champions too. Wonder who they ended up with...
In 1999 BMW already stipulated that for 2000 they would not permit any tobacco advertising. BMW had control over the livery in those years and specified that they could only have blue & white livery; including all sponsor logos. This was modified slightly to accomodate Compaq's red outlines (as title sponsor, makes sense!).
Williams were always going to lose Winfield one way or another, because BAT had their own team, and Rothmans/Winfield's owners, were... Philip Morris, who also owned Marlboro.
Interestingly the Winfield connection led to the infamously bad Tommi Makinen Williams test in 1998. Winfield/Rothmans were part of BAT, as were Makinen's personal sponsor Pall Mall. Winfield gave full red liveries to the works-supported cars in Australia 97/98 and so had Tommi Makinen and Mick Doohan (formerly of Rothmans Honda) test with a '97 Williams; Doohan spun several times & hit the T4 wall & Makinen crashed into the T4 wall later as well.
Hmmm.....the Williams change to Winfield Red was nothing compared to the culture shock of Lotus switching from the beautiful and iconically iconic black and gold John Player Special livery to the disgusting dirty yellow Camel livery in 1987. Still haven't forgiven them.
I actually liked these Winfield liveries
Me too. 1998 is my favorite Williams 😊
Worth noting Williams did “everything” to help Zanardi in 1999, they even fit steel brakes to the car over the carbon ones they used. Shame about Zanardi but it is what it is. To me though at the time the Red Williams were cack. But now though, looking back, they are lovey looking liveries. Especially 1999. So much more interesting than the current blue batteries Williams have now.
The funny thing is, Winfield cigarettes came in both red and blue packaging, so Williams could have had a blue car with the Winfield livery.
My guess is Winfield went with red because one of the other big tobacco sponsors in Australian motorsport at the time was Peter Jackson, and their colour was blue.
Also, if I'm not mistaken, the Winfield car was the one that 500cc champion Mick Doohan took for a spin around Catalunya. I was going to call it a "test drive" but it was more of a publicity stunt engineered by Rothmans, who were also the sponsor for the Honda team Doohan was riding for.
Jones, K Rosberg, Piquet, Mansell, Prost, D Hill, & J Villeneuve have all won titles for the British team.
Not a bad list of names hey?
Are you talking about your hairline at the start
Hahahahaha it’s funny he’s got no hair hahahahahahahahaha
Look, mate. I think I speak for all if I say we don’t care about your looks. I’m not drawing crowds here with my dentures out. And I’m not that old quite yet. Stuff happens.
Don’t worry, unless you’re uncomfortable about it yourself, healthwise. Then still don’t worry, let your gp do it instead.
Oh, NHS waiting lists. I also follow adifferentbias quite fervently, let’s just leave it there.
Motor racing was banned in Switzerland after the 1955 le Mans tragedy, and still is (mostly) to this day, which is why the race was held in France. The Swiss motor club organised that race, so I guess they decided to keep the name - wishful thinking for a future change of laws?
if woody woodpecker were on a car today , it would be extremely popular... the average age an F1 fans dropped about 2 decades and now is 30% women (girls or young women 16 to 24)
I 100% chose to follow Williams because I loved the 1993 livery
1:50: It is funny that back then, F1 kept up the false facade that there was only "one" race in each country and today, there are THREE US GRAND PRIX!
Lowest constructor with a drivers championschip was most likely 2008😂
Correction 🤓: Rafael Nadal HASN'T retired from tennis. He is finished though, just refusing to retire because he can't accept that he's finished but he's still obsessed.
imagine how different motorsport history would have been if Newey had been treated better and stayed with Williams. McLaren probably wouldn't have returned to winning championships, Red Bull would probably be at best a midfield team and Vettel and Verstappen's careers would probably be quite different, to name a few.
While the 98 car looked like a slower Ferrari the 99 car looked and performed decently, despite dropping two places in the constructors. Would have been even better if the second car wouldn't have performed like the similar looking BAR.
That is a shame that Zanardi had such misfortune in his F1 stint. He was a beast in other series, even winning a race in WTCC after losing both legs.
As a Williams fan of over 30 years I choose to ignore the "Ferrari-lite" years. Nothing of merit was accomplished in red and it is best forgotten and exiled to the history books...and TH-cam videos.
Didn't they have the Luxembourg GP at Nurbergring in Germany during the 90s
Renault were dumb, what's the use of winning if you don't crow about it, money makes things happen and selling more cars makes more money etc yet I never ever saw Renault publicise their success, I just don't get it.
they funny thing about the red winfield livery is in australia i think most people associate the brand with the colour blue because those ones are the most popular (i think they're milder or something) ..no end of uncles and aunties asking you to pick up a pack of 'winnie blues.'
I’m just chuffed a Kangaroo and woody Woodpecker “stickers” appeared all season on a top 3 constructor car all season
I never understood why they did not opt for Winfield Blue since that tends to be a more popular variety in Australia and from a non smoker’s perspective a much less offensive tobacco.
Didn't someone win a Red Williams show car on ITV F1.
He was from Smethwick
Meanwhile over at Jordan the leprechaun just convinced DHL to completely overhaul their corporate colour scheme to match the yellow cars.
every aussie in existance has bought a $1 winnie blue from a dodgy milk bar around the corner from school.
Tell me whatever you want, but 6 year old me and myself still blame this livery and this livery alone for Williams' dowmturn.
It is said that noses and ears grow all your life. Newey must be able to hear the news broadcast from Pluto then, by now. KK doesn’t stand a chsnce with her… seating.
Some would say that the F310B (1997) was a Williams copy.
Having tech as the next source of sponsorship in 2000 must have seemed like such a good idea at the time. Oof.
Not entirely correct at 6:46. Title winning Benetton B194 had a Cosworth engine.
A Williams looked fantastic in the Martini colours remember!
Who cares about the Rothmans livery? As the red was better. Williams is and has to be Yellow Blue and White
It was a bit of a culture shock seeing Williams in red. Tho i quickly got to used to it.
British American Tobacco erred by not naming their team British American Team (BAT).
Wasn't one of these red Williams once waved as winner or something, because the person mistook it for a Ferrari?
The worst thing about the Winfield livery is that they could have been blue. Winfield had Red, Blue, Gold and Sky Blue for their different strengths. They could have looked so much better
Reneult pulled factory support didn't help!