Williams and Head had a habit of thinking they were more important than their drivers and employees. This mentality screwed them over in the long haul. It's a team with a lot of winning succes and they should be proud of that, but they could've achieved so much more. The fact that there isn't a racing driver that won 2 or more drivers titles with Williams even though they largely dominated in the 80's & 90's says a lot about their management, or rather the lack of it.
Yes, their first champion Alan Jones felt that the team did very little to curtail the antics of Carlos Reutemann in 1981 which meant that neither Jones nor Reutemann won the title in the end. Jones therefore retired with short notice at the end of 1981 feeling he'd have enough. Piquet was their third champion in 1987 but he felt that the team didn't support him enough (and he also believed they backed Mansell more) and as soon as it was clear Honda would supply engines to McLaren by abandoning Williams at the end of 1987 Piquet felt Lotus was a "better bet" (in hindsight far from it). Mansell easily won the 1992 title but left as soon as he heard that Prost would come onboard - even before any talks of Senna in fact. Prost retired because he wanted to finish on a high and because it was clear Senna was coming to the team in 1994. Hill and Villeneuve both were paid peanuts so they never felt appreciated by the team. It's not hard to see how BAR managed to coax Villeneuve to drive for them considering how much more they paid. Keke Rosberg is the only Williams champion to stay three full seasons with the team after winning his title. He left on his own accord when McLaren offered him a drive as Lauda's replacement at McLaren for 1986.
They always had poor personnel management skills. Especially with drivers. Plus they dropped the ball by not securing a good engine deal after Renault pulled out. That was the beginning of the end.
@Temple of Ridicule Head came from a multi-generational line of military officers, with the dictatorial personality, secretive clubbish lack of communication and head-up-his-own-arse self-importance that implies.
@@paulallen8109 Excellent assesment .... Bennetton, Mclaren, Ferrari, Redbull Brabham (Piquet), Lotus (Clark) all had double world champions with same driver. I can not tell you how i detest FW and Dick Head for their treatment of Piquet and am so happy Frank has left unnoticed and unmissed.
Meanwhile Ron Dennis won 10 drivers' titles with 5 of the greatest drivers of all time: Lauda (×1), Prost (×3), Senna (×3), Häkkinen (×2) and Hamilton (×1). The fact that Mika Häkkinen is the *least* legendary of those five tells you all you need to know about the mighty McLaren champions!
As a mad Damon fan, I think they were right to! 95 proved Damon wasn’t in Michaels league! Subsequently - history proved no one was why Michael was in his pomp! You can’t blame Williams for looking for a driver who could be/maybe at the time though! Understandable! Damon left, and by 98 had made a mid table team start to beat Williams! And you better believe it - that was Damon! Damon was one of the best development drivers ever IMO! He proved that to me, and Williams!! Not really bothered if others think otherwise! Adrian already knew this - that’s why he loved Damon!
Pretty much all of F1 is like that, ie, egos and swollen heads, It's also the same when large companies fail. They did make another good car when Bottas drove for them, so they did get over Newey, but I don't know how they totally stuffed the lead they had..
@@WinTech4074 Ahh, bias in F1. When French Jean-Marie Balestre was head of the FIA he wanted french stuff to win, so he stacked stuff toward Renault and Prost. Senna stopped them winning, so he tried to ban him all the time. I think Bernie told Jean that Senna's popularity makes a lot of $ for F1, so he had to reverse the bans - lol -.
@@washedtoohot it's more like didn't because anyone that knows their value will be long gone by the time the company sinks. (Speaking from experience 😉)
Personally, I believe Riccardo Patrese's result in 1989 was one of Williams' greatest achievements. Take a year old chassis (FW12) and configure it to fit a completely new Renault V10 engine. Continue with a driver that 99% of the grid believe was washed up and watch that driver not only defeat his more vaunted team mate, but also finish 3rd in the championship, behind only Prost and Senna in the all-conquering McLaren-Hondas. That was a hell of an achievement.
As a addendum, Patrese could have (should have?) won both the Brazilian and Hungarian races if not for mechanical failures. That could have added another 18 points to his season tally.
@Ram Attack Well, he did well at Benetton where he made easy work of Teo Fabi in 1987 and then easily outscored the highly regarded newcomer Alessandro Nannini in 1988. Boutsen finished the 1988 championship in 4th and was the highest scoring "non-turbo" driver. You know, 5 podium finishes in 1988 was pretty good considering that the all-dominant McLaren finished 1-2 in 10 races and won 15 out of 16. So it certainly looked as if Boutsen would do better in a good car.
Well, Mclaren wasnt able to do that. Ofcourse partly due to Mercedes not being able to produce good enough engines but Ferrari of that time and later Renault were very strong teams. Williams were very close in 2003 while Newey was struggling to finish the MP4-18.
Imagine if they also had kept Villeneuve and had not signed Ralf, that could have been the difference too. JV was Williams next Mansell if they had been able to keep him after 1999.
Hand Solo I have to disagree. Villeneuve was nothing special after he left Williams. Probably the worst champion in the sports history. The combination of Schumacher and Montoya was very strong.
@@TheLeewi98 Villeneuve was a weird character and the promises of how great BAR were going to be broke him, , but he was an amazing driver before that in CART and F1.Let's not ever fool ourselves into thinking Ralf was ever anything other than a mid table driver. If his surname wasn't Schmacher, he probably wouldn't have a drive in F!. The guy was a sloppy and sometimes dangerous driver with his stupid brake checking garbage. A Villeneuve & Montoya Williams BMW team would have been much better than the idiot kid brother.
Really interesting! Williams upset Mansell by signing Prost then upset Prost by signing Senna. But upsetting Newey was probably the biggest mistake though - F1 has never been so much of a sport, more of an engineering challenge. Newey is probably the greatest F1 champion of all time!
Almost like they were deliberately trying to keep their drivers off-balance by playing them off against each other. Which pisses them off and prompts them to leave.
He was very quick to be fair, the problem was he thought he was driving dodgems by the looks of it. I wonder how much it must've cost them to fix all the cars he crashed?
Williams got P8 in the constructors championship that year, which is way below what the car was capable of. Hadn't Maldonado thrown so many good results away, and hadn't Williams replaced Barrichello with the underperformong Senna, they could or should have finished P5...
@@YT_timekiller001 Ditching Barrichello for Senna was as stupid as it can be. Maldonado had a lot of "bad luck" namely Monaco or Valencia...but we know his kind of bad luck. 🤗
It's very interesting, because as a British lifelong F1 fan I am today very sad to see the state Williams are in, and it is sad to see the back of Frank and Claire. But roll back to the 90s when I was a teenager and I was furious with the way Frank dealt with Damon and also Nigel (I started watching in the mid-90s but learnt about the Mansell situation through books). The way Frank dealt with people was appalling, but now we are all so sad to see the decline of this once great team. What does that say of our own tainted view of racing history - maybe (sadly) Frank got was coming to him... Losing Newey was the team's single biggest ever mistake. Can you imagine if the Mclaren success of the 90s and the more recent Red Bull success under Newey had all been done by Williams. They would have become the SINGLE greatest team in F1 history...
Andrew Storm nor was McLaren’s and pretty much everybody’s else’s at the time. The McLaren technology centre came off the back of their success with Newey’s design.
Then why does everyone hold frank and head in such light. If they were scum bags?? I don’t see it I only casually started following F1 in 2018 And after reading Adrian newey’s book I couldn’t work out why everyone panders to them??
For me the success maker was Patrick Head. Before he joined, Frank ran pay drivers in customer cars with little success. Post Patrick, he has fallen back into his bad old ways. Enjoy your retirement Patrick.
While I l agree with this to some degree, from what I've read he was also egotistical and abrasive, alienating those around him that could have kept things going.
Favourite memory Damon winning the championship at Suzuka in 1996. I used to watch that tape as a child over and over again. Murray getting emotional “Many people didn’t believe this could possibly happen but he fought. He passed Jacque Villeneuve, he took the lead, he stayed there and Damon Hill exits the chicane and wins the Japanese Grand Prix. I’ve got to stop because I’ve got a lump in my throat” I can remember Murray’s comments on that final lap pretty much word for word all these years later. Thank you Frank Williams.
People often say that, but in reality they would just have found themselves in the same situation Sauber found themselves in 2010. I think the final mistake was hiring Paddy Lowe.
@@Olivyay I think hiring anybody and not allowing them to really change things is not helping either. Pat Symmonds gave up because of this, Lowe was hired and finally sent off because they couldn't find a common ground. Newey wasn't given the chance to go the extra mile. Terzi was hired from Ferrari, given a shot and she was fired on her first mishap.
Mansell in the FW14B will always be my most love pairing at Williams. It was when I really started to understand the bigger picture in F1. Even now at 40, I still hold this as Williams best pairing as I did as a 12 year old boy in '92
A much more difficult car to drive than people give Nigel credit for due to a lack of conventional chassis feedback. You had to throw it into a corner and hope for the best.
@@trappenweisseguy27 Mansell was one of a small handful of drivers who could match Senna's pure speed, who was able to beat Prost when they were at Ferrari together. As was typical of Prost, he would use politics within the team, yet Mansell was still able to beat him in the older car lol. Sadly Mansell hardly did himself any favours, with his heavy shunts and typically treating testing days as a way to get as much golf in as possible!
Mansell helped make Williams what it was at the time, yet he seems to be the unsung hero... Letting Mansell go was the stupidest thing Frank Williams ever did...
@@trappenweisseguy27 Yes Prost didn't have the same confidence driving the active car. I think one of Williams' bigger mistakes was not coming to agreement with Nigel for the 1993 season. Oh the French sponsors Renault and ELF needed a French driver? And for what? Nigel already won their first Championship for each entity; and surely a double by Nigel was worth more one title by each driver. For me, I think we missed Nigel re-writing the F1 record book again had he been there wringing the FW15C out to the limit. In hindsight Indycar, was the big winner of the whole affair with droves of F1 fans tuning in to see Nigel rapidly become the ovalmaster.
Always thought that Williams were unduly conservative in their approach to F1 in the last 20 years.The amount of times they've put a car out and then rested on its core design principles for whole eras of regulations came to really do them over. I still remember the hopelessness in their 2014-16 efforts that saw them make almost no aerodynamic progress relative to their competitors and then misplace all of their focus into dead-end suspension developments. Even the FW40 just seemed to be a stretched-out FW37. Hopefully the next era of Williams will be characterised by a more innovation-driven approach to car design and development rather than just making a good car and then letting it age.
What is also crazy is that Mclaren didn't win the 1999 Constructor's title when Schumacher didn't even run the full season after he broke his leg at Silverstone, Mika Salo replaced him and still scored enough points to beat Mclaren...
Schumacher would have won 99 with relative ease had he not broken his leg. Remember after missing 7 races to recover, he rocked up at Sepang amid people claiming it was too soon to return from such an injury, and speculation that he wouldn't be the same driver, and then he promptly smashed the entire field by a full second (including his team mate). Even Mika Salo was able to take 2 podiums in his 6 races for the team
It's worth noting also that with a car that was only marginally better than their closest opposition at best, Schumacher was able to make such a difference that he could out-qualify the field to the same extent that Mercedes drivers do today.
@@formulajuan5762 "Schumacher would have won 99 with relative ease had he not broken his leg" Perhaps, but he won the 1994 and 1995 titles with relative ease too because *Senna wasn't driving the Williams those years* . "Schumacher was able to make such a difference that he could out-qualify the field to the same extent that Mercedes drivers do today." Utter nonsense. Schumacher had the best car by far in the 2002 Ferrari yet Montoya managed as many poles as him the very same year. He was a great driver but qualifying wasn't his forte and he certainly wasn't on Senna's level of qualifying. Nor on Hamilton's for that matter.
@@fernandoueno8668 Two explanations: 1) McLaren still didn't have the *reliability* of the Ferrari. This is why Ferrari raced 1857 laps in 1999, while McLaren only raced 1566 laps. That's 299 laps *fewer* . Quite a lot. Without reliability you're not going to score *points* let alone wins. 2) David Coulthard's many mistakes lost the team a good 20-30 points. Is reliability crazy? Well, probably to you who never took that into consideration. No reliability? No points. This is where Ferrari won the constructors' title even without Schumacher for 6 races.
I always got the feeling that Frank valued his cars over his drivers especially after the way Mansell, Hill and later Senna were treated. I suspect if he could have run them without drivers he would have. There was even talk getting around that he referred to his drivers as "the organic component of the car".
To be honest the rot started when they reversed on the Mansell deal. They underestimated the appeal he had and why BE was desperate to get him back into F1. I think drivers were expendable to Frank and I think he was somewhat blinkered in that view. Losing Newey was massive and the fact they basically ignored his contract clauses was pretty arrogant to be honest imho. Having seen what happened to Mansell and then Hill, he had seen enough. I think Frank thought it was all about money and at times forgot the human aspect. Having said all that what FW and PH achieved was something very special. Those days will never be repeated. Making calls from phone boxes and hiding from the Bank manager! Respect to them both.
Frank always was “hard” and stubborn.. the treatment of Hill and Mansell never made any sense to me .. hearing this makes me feel Williams are where they deserve to be as a team
@@davemis40 I went to silverstone some years back, and a stall was selling cartoon T-Shirts, and one had Damon in his race gear running away from frank's wheelchair with a great big Turd in it!!! I thought that was hilarious, but the wife wouldn't let me buy it.
I felt bad for Williams dropping to the back of the grid, then I saw this. I had no idea how little, Williams and Head thought of their most influential people. Shafting Newey 3 times as well as Mansell and Hill is criminal. Karma worked fantastically against Williams in the long run, and they frankly deserved every bit of it
Losing Mansell was the start then not including Newey as per contract in discisions then the nail in the coffin letting Hill go and Newey leaving as they let go of hill (Hill and Newey worked well as a team developing the car). I would love if Williams came back to form really but i cant see it.
From what i have read/heard . Patrick Heads mantra was to always spend most of the budget on the car. that way the driver was of less concern if the car was a winner. This was presumably pre 1998 . Its all very well treating drivers like an easily replaced plug in light bulb when the cars a sure fire winner.not quite so easy when the car is average to crap.
I hated the way Mansell was treated, but then he went to Indycar and I watched him there, that's how I became familiar with Indycar and the awesome racing it offers, so in that sense I like it, but still, they shouldn't have treated him so poorly. Mansell had the last laugh, won Indycar championship in his rookie year and became the only driver to hold the F1 and Indycar championships at the same time.
My favorite moment is simply Juan Pablo Montoya. As a Colombian, Montoya brought the F1 market to Colombia and was honestly my favorite driver to watch, making me a fan of Williams. The way he drove put no doubt in my mind whatsoever that if the car had better reliability, JPM could contend with Schumi. Also, Juan showed us the ugly side of F1 politics, leaving the sport specifically due to politics in F1, according to him. Either way, the BMW Williams will forever be my favorite F1 car and I will always support Williams, all thanks to that man Juan Pablo Montoya, who for me is a ridiculously underrated F1 driver
I'll always remember Montoya for bringing light to the end of the tunnel in Brazil 2001. It was becoming apparent that Hakkinen had lost the appetite for another title fight with Schumacher, and he'd been the only one to really challenge Michael in speed and aggression. Then Montoya overtook Schumacher on a safety car restart into the Senna Esses, making just enough contact, but not too much. There would be someone to challange Schumacher after all.
@@JG-ib7xk that's fine; that's why it's an opinion but I admire him for it because it is that very same quality that made them one of the all-time great teams
@@neilwilliams2883 I think thats probably true...it took pure stubbornness to make a successful F1 team out of nothing...but he also sounded too difficult for his own good. What a shame the way they teated Newey, Mansell and Hill...some of Britains best!
it's what gave him initial success. he fought his way through in the 70s to establish that team as a consistent force that would win titles in the 80s and 90s. but it went to his head
@@InTecknicolour I would say it went to his head right from the beginning but he just didn't adapt to the increasing demands of staying competitive in F1
I completely agree, that losing Newey was Williams' greatest mistake. On the other hand, it's just unacceptable, how they couldn't bounce back and remain competitive, ever since. I mean, let's face it, is Newey the only good car designer on the planet? I just can't believe someone has them all stashed away inside some bunker. The bottom line is, they've always been highly conservative, regarding car design.
Newey has been without peer for 30 years. nobody else has compared to him. There is no replacement. You can only substitute him with a great driver, who would have won the 2003 title that montoya and ralf threw away.
@@martinhambleton5076, I don't really care about the difference. Mercedes don't have Newey, but they're still able to design and build a very good car. They have the best power unit, no doubt, but the car isn't just its engine. Williams have had very poorly designed cars, ever since Newey left. And that's just unacceptable.
@@joelsantos3092 I'll be honest, since the appearance of the v6 turbocharged cars, I have not followed it. V8 V10 and V12 on the same grid was brilliant.
Does anyone want to say about the appalling non -preparation of the 1994 Williams car? I read that: Senna ‘rested’ over winter 1993 & didn’t test…..which explains why he couldn’t drive properly in a small drivers cockpit…..and Williams didn’t bother to think of this…..if driver cannot extend their arms(and slightly elbows) the best driver in the world cannot drive as normal, hence Senna spinning out when he otherwise wouldn’t…….Prost says that, to him, with that spin, it looked like Senna had ‘lost all his skills’……..I always thought not being able to fit in a too small cockpit, seemed the real reason here……. & don’t forget Richard Williams definition of that car as being like ‘an unbroken colt’…..it wasn’t ready to win yet not to be driven Senna Hard……it needed time to develop, which Senna was not prepared to give….Williams probably thought ‘we’ve got Senna/he’s on pole/no sweat’ you could weep for all this Williams, needed a complete reappraisal of their car minus all the ‘gizmos’ unbelievably, they failed to recognise the seriousness of the situation and the various stability/reactions of the now ‘revised car’ I bet Newley MUST HAVE TOLD THEM what was needed, bit there was ‘no room for a 3rd person at the table’ …….they must’ve ignored him… AT WHAT POINT WERE THE REGULATIONS CHANGED TO CANCEL ALL DRIVER AIDS…… & DID THEY KNOW WHEN SIGNING SENNA & WHEN WAS SENNA AWARE OF THIS…..after or before
As sad as I've been about Willaims demise there is a small part of me that think they throughly deserve what they got. The decision to sack Hill in 96 still rankles with me today!
As far as I can remember from the news back then it's all in one word: hubris! To Frank Williams the cars were winning not the drivers so the drivers were expendable - even Senna was considered expendable at some stage. And of course to him the team was better than the cars but then again in his head he was the team and no one else. Not entirely unreasonable after all he did owned the team but here's the thing any good manager should know: you hire people to 'cover' the shortcomings in areas you know you're not the best so when those people that are paid to do so say something you listen! Frank never did and here we are where we are…
I had only started watching f1 in 94 when Newey announced he was leaving and I was very worried as even then I knew he was special. Its so frustrating that Frank and Patrick handled Adrian so badly as it's totally clear f1 domination was assured I think Williams would now be a 20 time world champ team at least. My favourite Williams memory is the 2012 Spanish Gp the drought had created a hunger for a win and it was ohh so sweet. Maldonado is a hero for that drive that day. Pay drivers should not be taken by any team and I lose a lot of respect for Williams for doing that but I will always love the team. Frank clearly thought while Newey was good he was replaceable, Head should have stepped aside and let Newey become Technical Director at Williams.
So it was the usual power struggle... The ones in charge don´t want to give up part of that power and the new ones (and employees and drivers) feel they are not valued. On top of Newey leaving, Renault also left, which left Williams a bit lost back in 98-99. After that I believe the deal with BMW was also troublesome because of the way Williams was run back then (which gave problems in recent years, since the mentality was pretty much the same). And on top of all this, Williams never prepared themselves for the new era of F1, they relied heavily on sponsors, when they started to dry up, the problems pilled up and they started to fall behind. Not even the Advanced Engineering part was able to save them.
7:52 "Williams fell back with aging customer Renault engines" = What happened to Red Bull 7:56 "Lack of design direction following Newey's departure" = AKA "poor to no innovation" 8:05 BMW engines "Best engine on grid but cars produced were not up to the task" = 2019 Ferrari
I was really impressed by Mansell's comback in 1994. F1 cars are some of the hardest cars to adjust to, whether or not it's the fastest car on the grid.
More insightful than you usually see in these style of videos. Williams has always seemed to regard drivers as interchangeable, pull one out and plug another one in with no loyalty at all. I've always felt this was his biggest weakness as a team boss, he was just too mercenary. The situation it developed into with Newey just underlines it.
The biggest mistake Frank Williams made was letting Damon Hill go. Hill was probably one of the very best and one of the most underrated drivers of his time. Gérard Berger really rated Hill very highly even when compared with Senna.
You skipped over 1994. Senna's death and the subsequent legal issues, with manslaughter charges hanging over the team would have had a lot to do with Newey leaving Wiiliams in 1996.
Williams was always willing to loose anybody. I remember when they ditched Hill and Villeneuve. The thing is, drivers can be replaced but engineers with a lot of experience cannot.
Drivers like Bottas, Frentzen, etc can be replaced with ease, World Champions and genuine top tier drivers can't. Williams went from Mansell, Hill & Villeneuve to guys like Ralf Schumacher. That's a serious drop off in quality.
@@handsolo1209 I'm sorry, but I'd say Ralf Schumacher was a big upgrade on both Hill and Villeneuve. Both him and Montoya, actually. Those 6 poles, 6 wins and 27 podiums he managed to achieve in what was always a top 3 car at best (besides 2003, when the car was probably the best in first half of the season, but R. Schumacher was injured pretty much for the whole season, missing winter testing because of back injury and then sustaining a concussion at the Monza test) are nothing short of amazing. Villeneuve and Hill never managed anything remotely close to that after being dropped from Williams and ending in same top 3 - top 4 cars that R. Schumacher drove for all of his career. As for 'They have more wins and podiums in total' argument - well, yeah, they do. A car that was on average 1 second faster then everything else on the track (in 94 and 96 for Hill and 97 for Villeneuve) really helped them with that.
@@cantfindawayout Yeah, a sloppy driver who is only on the grid because of who is brother is was a HUGE upgrade on 2 world champions............................................. PS, The 1997 Williams was not a dominant car and by the last part of the season it was the 3rd fastest car.
Remarkable how history consistently repeats itself; hardwork leads to success which leads to confidence which leads to arrogance which unfortunately leads to failure. At the height of success, people forget what brought the success and assume invincibility.
I was a big Mansell fan, and as a result a Williams fan (I'm still a hopeful Williams fan). Newey is one of my engineering "heroes" and he's proven himself wherever he has worked (IndyCar, Leyton House, Williams, McLaren and Red Bull).
I think Jacques Villeneuve was fundamental for winning the 1997 title. He is attitude of thinking he was the best of the world and being unshakable made him mentally stronger, enough to fight a cold blooded Schumacher. Had Williams fought the title with the likes of Damon hill frentzen or Coulthard, Schumacher would have won the 1997 championship in the same manner as 95. However, there was no reason to substitute hill, he would have being a much better 2nd driver to Jacques in 97. Jacques wasn't champion in 96 only because of his inexperience.. Had he hypothetically drove a season before 96, he would have been champion already in 96, much faster than hill in the last 5/6 races.
Don't forget Villeneuve almost fell on his own sword due to inexperience in 1997 as well. But with him being pretty close to Hill in 1996 already, there was no reason to dump Damon already. If Hill had stayed on in 1997, the WCC would have been sealed earlier and Jerez would have never happened.
@@Jejking I agree, I think hill would take some points from Michael and could have been even the runner up for Jacques. There was absolutely no reason to fire Damon, although 1995 was full of mistakes, it was over premature the decision to put frentzen in 97, not analyzing the 96 outcome first.
@@pauloluciomachadodebrito8107 Jaques also had to have help from HHF to win look back and you will see I had all of Damon's races on tape but now they are rat food.
@@mclarenjohnf1 I am warching the whole 1990's f1 decade, search for it in the Asopher1 channel here on TH-cam he has uploaded every season since 1986 from the US ESPN broadcast. HHF rarely helped Jacques. Damon would have done a much better job.
I never liked Frank Williams for how he treated people, and when the joke of a investigation into Sennas death, and the dodgy antics by the crew over orders given by Frank sneaking into the supposed sealed garage to interfere with Sennas car against FIA orders and got away with it, sealed the notion that Williams shouldn't be in F1. No disrespect to his daughter but the family name was never going to be great again. Although 2019s Williams crashes were all Kubicas fault, they were struggling for parts and kubica smashed them all.
@@waengwang5313 He didn't personally, they were told the car wasn't to be touch, his team went in and took the data from the car before giving it back, this was known back then, but I am struggling to find it, but I do remember it being in the news, plus the steering column had broken on a very bad weld done by Williams team, yet they got away with it all. Even the Race authorities kept him alive on purpose even though it was obvious he couldn't live, because if he died right there on the track the event would be cancelled, there was even rumor the same was done to Ratzenberger the day before so the race could go on.
If I was the new principal at Williams, these are key lessons to try and undo/not repeat. - Get Newey back. Give him a stake in the team if he wants and set him the challenge of getting Williams back up near the front with added bonuses or increased shares - Find an engine manufacturer and become partners. Even if that means selling some of the team to them. Williams-BMW 2.0 or Williams-Audi? Find an engine manufacturer and persuade them to become a joint-partner - During these times, it will probably be a 5 year plan before we see something come good. Have an experienced driver and a rookie talent to bolster sponsorship whilst the improvements can start to show. The veteran can show that the car is getting better and the investment is paying off and the rookie can pay for additions and sponsorship and learn from the veteran until Williams can sign a bigger name to get them further up the field. - Learn what needs to be built vs what can be bought. Spec-parts from bigger teams? Buy them and focus on developing the parts Williams design in-house. More time on them means more investment and improvements. - Write off 2021. 22 are the new regulations. Focus everything on them and use 21 to test items or learn about tyres and off-track improvements. Whatever data you could use from 21 to translate into 22 - do that. - Title sponsor. Maybe get Sega back as it would be Sonic's 30th anniversary next year and we all loved the Sega Williams sponsorship! I want to see Williams succeed and I know that these points will never happen (probably), but this is what I would be pushing for big time.
@@PaperBanjo64 Kimi will most likely retire in a couple of years, Seb will be too expensive and won't be worth the money for Williams right now. Perez would be a very good driver who could bring in sponsorship too, long terms you're looking at guys who could fit the shoes if they don't make it where they are now. Magnussen, Ocon, Bottas if he gets replaced by Russell in the next few years... But thanks for the good words! Appreciate ideas and how the future of Williams will go now
Brilliant work Glenn, it just shows that very normal issues can cause so much harm. Like in many corporations which I worked for, a lack of communication leads to a lack of trust ultimately leading to a demise of the organization.
How they treated Mansell and Newey was bad, but their treatment of Hill was monstrous. He was in his 3rd year at F1 when they lost Senna and he still managed to pull the team together and nearly win the championship.
Williams actually won the constructors championship in 94, primarily due to Hill's handiwork developing what was a dog of a car. Hill was never given the credit he deserved.
There aren't many people that are irreplaceable in any team but Newey is an amazing designer and had a track record of building championship winning cars (Mclaren, Red Bull) - they underestimated his impact to the team.
I mean, signing Villeneuve per se wasn't a mistake. I guess the idea of now including Newey in the discussion was the mistake. Villeneuve still won the fricking championship. =/
Guy-Richard Maltais no mistake there he was fast from the get go pole in the first GP and the first win denied with mechanical issues second in the championship don’t se a mistake there my friend won the championship the year after mistake was him singing with BAR
They also kept going with driver changes, and engine changes. That is not good at all. You need to have a stable lineup, and stable engines to have long time succes.
Part of the problem is they believed the hype that Heinz-Harald was another Schumacher - he wasn't of course and they would have been far better off keeping Hill. Beggar's belief that Mansell, who could so easily have been a triple F1 champion by 1992 ended up leaving. He was in devastating form, and left for the USA.
I first got into F1 when I was young (very young!) at the end of Graham Hill's career. I think that the first race I remember is his last one in Monaco. F1 wasn't on TV during the day much back then, it was an evening sports round up IIRC, but the British GP and the Monaco one seemed to be live, or at least during my daytime. Of course, Dad explained why Hill was the greatest at Monaco and I was hooked! So it was natural that when Damon became an F1 driver, I was a big fan immediately - and hell, he was cute 😉 I'd also become a Williams fan at the end of the 70s when I was old enough to really appreciate it and it was on TV more often. I actually consider him a 2 times champion (including 94, of course), for a number of reasons. He was barely beyond being a rookie when he had to rally the team after Senna's death, and somehow he was going to become the champion ... But when Williams sacked him _during_ his actual championship year, I thought that behaviour was despicable. I hadn't been as attached to Mansell as I was to him (TBH, I thought Mansell was a great driver but a real moaning Minnie), so maybe that's why it took till then for me to question my own loyalty to the team. But it was so quickly clear that Damon had, in fact, dodged a bullet and had effectively been punished enough, that I went back to them being my No1 team (after Damon retired lol). I would genuinely love to see them up front again, and odds are, they'll make it.
@@IIGrayfoxII Charlie whiting and Patrick head I think came to sennas car and asked if it could be removed saying they had permission to remove it when after it was found out they never had the permission. The guy responsible with removing it mentioned he has removed thousands of black boxes and that it was in working condition with only a few scratches on the exterior. Then it turned up all messed up with corrupt data. There is a reason why people close off crime scenes and that is so nobody can tamper with the scene before the investigation has finished.
@@nvstewart Crime Scenes dont happen on race tracks so that is why it was not closed off. It was seen as a tragic accident Even years after the investigation they found no wrong doing of williams. It is a known fact that senna pushed the cars he drove hard. and it is also a known fact that failures do happen. When Sebastien Buemis front wheels detached in China in the 2010GP was that because redbull wanted to hurt him? No.
@@IIGrayfoxII I was starting the crime scene as an example only. And no, I do not believe Williams tried to kill him, but to hide evidence that could have been used against them.
With the success of the 1990s, I am afraid FW got cocky, firing world champions left and right because he was convinced his cars, not the drivers, won. But the kiss of death came when he let Adrian Newey go as he did. Newey should have been given portions of stock from both FW and PH, to ensure his longevity with Williams. Again, cockiness plaid a part here because they thouht to be invincible.
I talked about this with a friend who used to drive F3. We agreed it isn't strange that Williams eventually collapsed. It's strange they had so much success before it.
Newey knew his worth and took his genius with him. Their worst mistake was keeping Clare in charge for years as the team went backwards. They should have put someone else in charge but their arrogance prevented them from doing so.
So is all this reverence for Frank Williams a big British smokescreen? From an American perspective, where most of my F1 knowledge has been filtered through the UK, this video and what I know of Claire's time as team principal suggest's there is very little to admire about the family, and Frank in particular, except some great success in the distant past. I was lead to believe that Williams was a plucky underdog, struggling to revive their legacy. Now it seems like they're a decrepit team, disgraced after two decades mired in their just desserts.
guess what, the truth is somewhere in between and neither of those two extremes. neither fairy tale villains nor heroes actually exist in real life. Frank Williams is a talented and highly motivated man with a deep understanding of F1 racing who was always stubborn, ruthless and inconsiderate. this video is a pretty balanced look at the situation, the fact is they were the last independent team to have lasting success in a sport dominated by big money poured in by huge companies. they achieved that in large part due to Frank's energy and vision, yet his shortcomings also contributed to their decline.
As a kid, I absolutely fell in love with the Williams cars of the early 2000's with Montoya and Ralf behind the wheel. I still remember the days of pure joy that always followed their wins in an era, where Michael and Ferrari were all too painfully good.
I have seen many people try to claim that Williams down fall started with their refusal to sell out to BMW, and I have always maintained that was not even remotely the case. I have always said the two things that caused Williams downfall was losing both Renault and Newey at the same time, but that Newey was the more important part of that downfall. While yes the BMW was a great engine, we saw from their time as a constructor that they would probably have probably had the same results had they bought Williams and probably would have still pulled out when they failed to win a title. That could possibly have seen the Williams name vanish from F1 forever. Even had Renault stuck around, Williams would not have been inline for any championships over the next few years and probably would have been more on a par with where they were with BMW. Newey was the key.
Williams seemes to have had very poor management of its drivers, since Reutmann retiring mid season, the mess with Piquet and Mansell, all the cases mentioned here, and yes, had Newey been offered a partnership, and if Frank and Patrick absorbed him as a partner, things would be infinitely different, and probably today the team would be more like McLaren than Minardi. Curiously, 2014 and 2015 were positive years, with leftover finds from Venezuela, and with a solid car designed by Symonds, and developed by Massa, a proper driver lineup with a young and hungry Bottas and Claire doing a pretty descent job. In any case, I do see Williams changing names in the next few years, and being "history" like Tyrrell, Brabham, Lotus, and BRM.
It was a big mistake to not keep Newey but other teams have won championships or were in the championship mix without Newey, in particular Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari. So there are other talented aero and chassis design guys, so Williams further failure was not finding the right design talent to replace Newey, particularly when they had BMW power.
When you're a privateer team, especially one that's not been doing so well, there isn't a lot of money to attract top talent, be it drivers or designers. It becomes a vicious circle.
Sad to see Williams no longer a family/private team, but the other way to look at it is that they lasted way longer than anyone else. Enzo Ferrari sold his company and team to Fiat at the end of the sixties, but was allowed to carry on running the team. McLaren was swallowed up by Ron Dennis's Project Four at the start of the eighties, so lasted only about fifteen years as an independent team. Ron was then kicked out a few years ago. Tyrell was bought by BAR in 1988 and later became Honda, Brawn and now Mercedes. Lotus was bought by Proton of Malaysia after Colin Chapman died. Jackie Stewart and Alain Prost started their own teams but both only lasted a handful of years. There are today no privately owned teams in F1, so again Williams lasted way longer than anyone else. There are also no British owned teams any more, with again Williams being the last. Williams, Mercedes, McLaren, Renault, Red Bull and Racing Point are all based in the UK, but with Williams being sold to an American company none of those teams are British owned any more.
Franks arrogance was their biggest problem, particularly towards drivers, the treatment of Hill and Mansell and paying Senna a pittance then employing a no talent Villeneuve thinking they didn't need an A grade driver because the cars were so good all lead to the teams demise.
Frank Williams dug his own grave. He was too proud and set in his ways after all the wins and championships to understand Adrian is a genius in his craft. Redbull might have never become a front runner if he had received respect from Williams.
FW never bothered to read his wife's book that was mostly about him. Not very considerate with people. If the key players were treated like this imagine how the mechanics were treated.
What's funny about the JV signing is if Newey was there, he probably would've given Williams the greenlight on it as well. JV was an extremely gifted driver, and I think the pairing with Hill in 1996 helped mold him into the champion a year later. Shame that JV didn't stick around and that Newey wasn't respected by Head and Williams. Imagine a Villenueve/Montoya lineup in a Newey designed BMW powered entry. Easily would've challenged Ferrari.
I always like to remember times when I began to watch F1 with R. Schumacher and Montoya behind Williams wheels with BMW V10s behind them. Thats such an iconic era for me, Ive always been a ferrari fan, but without white and blue BMW williams and grey west mclaren mercedes, it would never be so awesome.
Williams and Head had a habit of thinking they were more important than their drivers and employees. This mentality screwed them over in the long haul. It's a team with a lot of winning succes and they should be proud of that, but they could've achieved so much more. The fact that there isn't a racing driver that won 2 or more drivers titles with Williams even though they largely dominated in the 80's & 90's says a lot about their management, or rather the lack of it.
Yes, their first champion Alan Jones felt that the team did very little to curtail the antics of Carlos Reutemann in 1981 which meant that neither Jones nor Reutemann won the title in the end. Jones therefore retired with short notice at the end of 1981 feeling he'd have enough.
Piquet was their third champion in 1987 but he felt that the team didn't support him enough (and he also believed they backed Mansell more) and as soon as it was clear Honda would supply engines to McLaren by abandoning Williams at the end of 1987 Piquet felt Lotus was a "better bet" (in hindsight far from it).
Mansell easily won the 1992 title but left as soon as he heard that Prost would come onboard - even before any talks of Senna in fact.
Prost retired because he wanted to finish on a high and because it was clear Senna was coming to the team in 1994.
Hill and Villeneuve both were paid peanuts so they never felt appreciated by the team. It's not hard to see how BAR managed to coax Villeneuve to drive for them considering how much more they paid.
Keke Rosberg is the only Williams champion to stay three full seasons with the team after winning his title. He left on his own accord when McLaren offered him a drive as Lauda's replacement at McLaren for 1986.
They always had poor personnel management skills. Especially with drivers. Plus they dropped the ball by not securing a good engine deal after Renault pulled out. That was the beginning of the end.
@Temple of Ridicule Head came from a multi-generational line of military officers, with the dictatorial personality, secretive clubbish lack of communication and head-up-his-own-arse self-importance that implies.
@@paulallen8109 Excellent assesment .... Bennetton, Mclaren, Ferrari, Redbull Brabham (Piquet), Lotus (Clark) all had double world champions with same driver. I can not tell you how i detest FW and Dick Head for their treatment of Piquet and am so happy Frank has left unnoticed and unmissed.
Meanwhile Ron Dennis won 10 drivers' titles with 5 of the greatest drivers of all time: Lauda (×1), Prost (×3), Senna (×3), Häkkinen (×2) and Hamilton (×1). The fact that Mika Häkkinen is the *least* legendary of those five tells you all you need to know about the mighty McLaren champions!
Williams firing Hill after winning championship is the stupidest thing I've ever seen
they thought he made heavy weather of a dominant car
@@TPH250290 bruh they literally booked the seat
As a mad Damon fan, I think they were right to! 95 proved Damon wasn’t in Michaels league! Subsequently - history proved no one was why Michael was in his pomp! You can’t blame Williams for looking for a driver who could be/maybe at the time though! Understandable!
Damon left, and by 98 had made a mid table team start to beat Williams! And you better believe it - that was Damon!
Damon was one of the best development drivers ever IMO!
He proved that to me, and Williams!! Not really bothered if others think otherwise! Adrian already knew this - that’s why he loved Damon!
All my mates at the time said it would be the beginning of the end for the willies, looks like we were all right & the experts were all wrong.
@@TPH250290 Never ask for a pay raise at Williams.
Frank really was his own worst enemy wasn't he with his games playing
Pretty much all of F1 is like that, ie, egos and swollen heads, It's also the same when large companies fail. They did make another good car when Bottas drove for them, so they did get over Newey, but I don't know how they totally stuffed the lead they had..
@@SidneyCritic thats when Claire came in. Also 2003 championship should've been Montoya but FIA screwed them
Sonu666 can you elaborate?
@@Sonu666 I stopped watching in 1995, and only have a minor interest now, ie, up to the pitstops - lol -, but what happened in 2003.
@@WinTech4074 Ahh, bias in F1. When French Jean-Marie Balestre was head of the FIA he wanted french stuff to win, so he stacked stuff toward Renault and Prost. Senna stopped them winning, so he tried to ban him all the time. I think Bernie told Jean that Senna's popularity makes a lot of $ for F1, so he had to reverse the bans - lol -.
Organizations fall when bosses don't respect their key people.
Amen!
Don’t don’t or don’t?
@@washedtoohot it's more like didn't because anyone that knows their value will be long gone by the time the company sinks. (Speaking from experience 😉)
@@christianmarche993 Same here...😉👍
@ha ha he he it's ok. Go back to playing your video games. TH-cam is a little too much for you.
Personally, I believe Riccardo Patrese's result in 1989 was one of Williams' greatest achievements. Take a year old chassis (FW12) and configure it to fit a completely new Renault V10 engine. Continue with a driver that 99% of the grid believe was washed up and watch that driver not only defeat his more vaunted team mate, but also finish 3rd in the championship, behind only Prost and Senna in the all-conquering McLaren-Hondas. That was a hell of an achievement.
Boutsen was a tad overrated.
As a addendum, Patrese could have (should have?) won both the Brazilian and Hungarian races if not for mechanical failures. That could have added another 18 points to his season tally.
Patrese overtook Butsen on a pure luck, he won nothing against 2 races won by Butsen
@Ram Attack Well, he did well at Benetton where he made easy work of Teo Fabi in 1987 and then easily outscored the highly regarded newcomer Alessandro Nannini in 1988. Boutsen finished the 1988 championship in 4th and was the highest scoring "non-turbo" driver. You know, 5 podium finishes in 1988 was pretty good considering that the all-dominant McLaren finished 1-2 in 10 races and won 15 out of 16. So it certainly looked as if Boutsen would do better in a good car.
@@Glasshexagon It's called consistency - he finished a ton of races on the podium and out-qualified Boutsen most races. Pure luck my ass.
Imagine the early 2000s BMW-powered cars with an Adrian Newey-designed chassis, they could’ve won at least one title. Letting him go really backfired.
Well, Mclaren wasnt able to do that. Ofcourse partly due to Mercedes not being able to produce good enough engines but Ferrari of that time and later Renault were very strong teams. Williams were very close in 2003 while Newey was struggling to finish the MP4-18.
I think If they gave him a stake they would have a few more championships imo. His eye for groundbreaking ideas would work out well.
Imagine if they also had kept Villeneuve and had not signed Ralf, that could have been the difference too. JV was Williams next Mansell if they had been able to keep him after 1999.
Hand Solo I have to disagree. Villeneuve was nothing special after he left Williams. Probably the worst champion in the sports history. The combination of Schumacher and Montoya was very strong.
@@TheLeewi98 Villeneuve was a weird character and the promises of how great BAR were going to be broke him, , but he was an amazing driver before that in CART and F1.Let's not ever fool ourselves into thinking Ralf was ever anything other than a mid table driver. If his surname wasn't Schmacher, he probably wouldn't have a drive in F!. The guy was a sloppy and sometimes dangerous driver with his stupid brake checking garbage. A Villeneuve & Montoya Williams BMW team would have been much better than the idiot kid brother.
Really interesting! Williams upset Mansell by signing Prost then upset Prost by signing Senna. But upsetting Newey was probably the biggest mistake though - F1 has never been so much of a sport, more of an engineering challenge. Newey is probably the greatest F1 champion of all time!
Correct everyone always talks about the name
Not the person behind it
One of the true greatest alongside with Champan and Brawn
Almost like they were deliberately trying to keep their drivers off-balance by playing them off against each other. Which pisses them off and prompts them to leave.
@@Glasshexagon Or even Chapman.
Newey is up there with Chapman, Murray, and Barnard, as the very best F1 designers
Newey should have been given 5% of the company - imagine the contribution he could have made to Williams
Their biggest succes was making Maldonado a race-winner.
He was very quick to be fair, the problem was he thought he was driving dodgems by the looks of it. I wonder how much it must've cost them to fix all the cars he crashed?
Williams got P8 in the constructors championship that year, which is way below what the car was capable of. Hadn't Maldonado thrown so many good results away, and hadn't Williams replaced Barrichello with the underperformong Senna, they could or should have finished P5...
Maldonado made Williams a race-winner not the other way around
@@YT_timekiller001
Ditching Barrichello for Senna was as stupid as it can be.
Maldonado had a lot of "bad luck" namely Monaco or Valencia...but we know his kind of bad luck. 🤗
Wow you said that right lol
It's very interesting, because as a British lifelong F1 fan I am today very sad to see the state Williams are in, and it is sad to see the back of Frank and Claire. But roll back to the 90s when I was a teenager and I was furious with the way Frank dealt with Damon and also Nigel (I started watching in the mid-90s but learnt about the Mansell situation through books). The way Frank dealt with people was appalling, but now we are all so sad to see the decline of this once great team. What does that say of our own tainted view of racing history - maybe (sadly) Frank got was coming to him... Losing Newey was the team's single biggest ever mistake. Can you imagine if the Mclaren success of the 90s and the more recent Red Bull success under Newey had all been done by Williams. They would have become the SINGLE greatest team in F1 history...
Good summary. The facilities are nice but not world class like McLaren or Ferrari and nor were they setup for the future
Andrew Storm nor was McLaren’s and pretty much everybody’s else’s at the time.
The McLaren technology centre came off the back of their success with Newey’s design.
Then why does everyone hold frank and head in such light.
If they were scum bags??
I don’t see it
I only casually started following F1 in 2018
And after reading Adrian newey’s book
I couldn’t work out why everyone panders to them??
Tbh, Newey was failing in McLaren in 2001-2004
Nanogon no Newey’s 1st car was over a second quicker than any other car on the grid and won two world championships-do your research
For me the success maker was Patrick Head. Before he joined, Frank ran pay drivers in customer cars with little success. Post Patrick, he has fallen back into his bad old ways. Enjoy your retirement Patrick.
While I l agree with this to some degree, from what I've read he was also egotistical and abrasive, alienating those around him that could have kept things going.
For me too Peter. Head for me also was the Key role there
Head was only the key to early success. Stopped being relevant to the car in the mid-eighties
Worth watching just to look at all those pics of cars from when Williams was good 😍
It still is
@@dj_james170 .รรนนณีีร้๊
Some of the best looking liveries ever 😍
Williams also didn't really upgrade their facilities during their successful years and so fell back, lost money and couldn't do it to catch up
They did move from Didcot to Grove during that period.
Favourite memory Damon winning the championship at Suzuka in 1996. I used to watch that tape as a child over and over again. Murray getting emotional “Many people didn’t believe this could possibly happen but he fought. He passed Jacque Villeneuve, he took the lead, he stayed there and Damon Hill exits the chicane and wins the Japanese Grand Prix. I’ve got to stop because I’ve got a lump in my throat” I can remember Murray’s comments on that final lap pretty much word for word all these years later. Thank you Frank Williams.
With a car that dominant, and with a rookie teammate, he should’ve won it way before Suzuka
Turning down the BMW deal was the beginning of the end...
more like the point of no return, I'd say
Nope. We could see at Sauber how BMW gives zero f**ks shutting down an F1 company with tradition. They'd probably gone out of business way earlier.
People often say that, but in reality they would just have found themselves in the same situation Sauber found themselves in 2010.
I think the final mistake was hiring Paddy Lowe.
@@Olivyay I think hiring anybody and not allowing them to really change things is not helping either. Pat Symmonds gave up because of this, Lowe was hired and finally sent off because they couldn't find a common ground. Newey wasn't given the chance to go the extra mile. Terzi was hired from Ferrari, given a shot and she was fired on her first mishap.
That didn't happen. BMW left because of the team's arrogant attitude when they wanted to help. Listen into Ralf Schumacher's Beyond the grid podcast.
Mansell in the FW14B will always be my most love pairing at Williams. It was when I really started to understand the bigger picture in F1. Even now at 40, I still hold this as Williams best pairing as I did as a 12 year old boy in '92
I agree Mansell in the Fw14B awesome best car to date in F1
A much more difficult car to drive than people give Nigel credit for due to a lack of conventional chassis feedback. You had to throw it into a corner and hope for the best.
@@trappenweisseguy27 Mansell was one of a small handful of drivers who could match Senna's pure speed, who was able to beat Prost when they were at Ferrari together. As was typical of Prost, he would use politics within the team, yet Mansell was still able to beat him in the older car lol.
Sadly Mansell hardly did himself any favours, with his heavy shunts and typically treating testing days as a way to get as much golf in as possible!
Mansell helped make Williams what it was at the time, yet he seems to be the unsung hero... Letting Mansell go was the stupidest thing Frank Williams ever did...
@@trappenweisseguy27 Yes Prost didn't have the same confidence driving the active car. I think one of Williams' bigger mistakes was not coming to agreement with Nigel for the 1993 season. Oh the French sponsors Renault and ELF needed a French driver? And for what? Nigel already won their first Championship for each entity; and surely a double by Nigel was worth more one title by each driver. For me, I think we missed Nigel re-writing the F1 record book again had he been there wringing the FW15C out to the limit. In hindsight Indycar, was the big winner of the whole affair with droves of F1 fans tuning in to see Nigel rapidly become the ovalmaster.
Always thought that Williams were unduly conservative in their approach to F1 in the last 20 years.The amount of times they've put a car out and then rested on its core design principles for whole eras of regulations came to really do them over. I still remember the hopelessness in their 2014-16 efforts that saw them make almost no aerodynamic progress relative to their competitors and then misplace all of their focus into dead-end suspension developments. Even the FW40 just seemed to be a stretched-out FW37.
Hopefully the next era of Williams will be characterised by a more innovation-driven approach to car design and development rather than just making a good car and then letting it age.
What was sad about that too is they started the V6 era with a very competitive car.
@@rockbeauchamp4502 absolutely, and no-one batted an eye because that's where they should have been running anyway
The last time I'm excited about WilliamsF1 was back in the days of Williams BMW + Ralf/Montoya as their drivers.
One mistake: 1999 wasn’t a championship double, just a driver’s crown. Crazy that Mclaren hasn’t won a constructor’s title since 1998.
What is also crazy is that Mclaren didn't win the 1999 Constructor's title when Schumacher didn't even run the full season after he broke his leg at Silverstone, Mika Salo replaced him and still scored enough points to beat Mclaren...
Schumacher would have won 99 with relative ease had he not broken his leg. Remember after missing 7 races to recover, he rocked up at Sepang amid people claiming it was too soon to return from such an injury, and speculation that he wouldn't be the same driver, and then he promptly smashed the entire field by a full second (including his team mate).
Even Mika Salo was able to take 2 podiums in his 6 races for the team
It's worth noting also that with a car that was only marginally better than their closest opposition at best, Schumacher was able to make such a difference that he could out-qualify the field to the same extent that Mercedes drivers do today.
@@formulajuan5762 "Schumacher would have won 99 with relative ease had he not broken his leg" Perhaps, but he won the 1994 and 1995 titles with relative ease too because *Senna wasn't driving the Williams those years* .
"Schumacher was able to make such a difference that he could out-qualify the field to the same extent that Mercedes drivers do today." Utter nonsense. Schumacher had the best car by far in the 2002 Ferrari yet Montoya managed as many poles as him the very same year. He was a great driver but qualifying wasn't his forte and he certainly wasn't on Senna's level of qualifying. Nor on Hamilton's for that matter.
@@fernandoueno8668 Two explanations: 1) McLaren still didn't have the *reliability* of the Ferrari. This is why Ferrari raced 1857 laps in 1999, while McLaren only raced 1566 laps. That's 299 laps *fewer* . Quite a lot. Without reliability you're not going to score *points* let alone wins. 2) David Coulthard's many mistakes lost the team a good 20-30 points.
Is reliability crazy? Well, probably to you who never took that into consideration. No reliability? No points. This is where Ferrari won the constructors' title even without Schumacher for 6 races.
I always got the feeling that Frank valued his cars over his drivers especially after the way Mansell, Hill and later Senna were treated. I suspect if he could have run them without drivers he would have. There was even talk getting around that he referred to his drivers as "the organic component of the car".
Frank definitely said "the car is the most important factor, drivers can easily be found when needed" The car wins races, the drivers just drive it.
@@alanwhite6293 Heh, I wonder what his excuse is now then. :)
Plus with the suspicious answers at the trial for Senna’s passing 😔🙁☹️
To be honest the rot started when they reversed on the Mansell deal. They underestimated the appeal he had and why BE was desperate to get him back into F1. I think drivers were expendable to Frank and I think he was somewhat blinkered in that view. Losing Newey was massive and the fact they basically ignored his contract clauses was pretty arrogant to be honest imho. Having seen what happened to Mansell and then Hill, he had seen enough. I think Frank thought it was all about money and at times forgot the human aspect. Having said all that what FW and PH achieved was something very special. Those days will never be repeated. Making calls from phone boxes and hiding from the Bank manager! Respect to them both.
Frank always was “hard” and stubborn.. the treatment of Hill and Mansell never made any sense to me .. hearing this makes me feel Williams are where they deserve to be as a team
The biggest problem is they still think nothing is wrong with the team and its just a phase and they will bounce back.
@@jamesbraun9842 yup .. look at what McLaren have had to do .. it's been a long expensive road back for them, but they're getting there.
@@davemis40 I went to silverstone some years back, and a stall was selling cartoon T-Shirts, and one had Damon in his race gear running away from frank's wheelchair with a great big Turd in it!!! I thought that was hilarious, but the wife wouldn't let me buy it.
Always let people know that they are appreciated, it goes a long way.
Absolutely doesn't cost much.
What goes around, comes around : “proverb - the consequences of one's actions will have to be dealt with eventually”. Awesome video, thank you.
I felt bad for Williams dropping to the back of the grid, then I saw this. I had no idea how little, Williams and Head thought of their most influential people. Shafting Newey 3 times as well as Mansell and Hill is criminal. Karma worked fantastically against Williams in the long run, and they frankly deserved every bit of it
Frankly 🙂↕️get it😉
Losing Mansell was the start then not including Newey as per contract in discisions then the nail in the coffin letting Hill go and Newey leaving as they let go of hill (Hill and Newey worked well as a team developing the car). I would love if Williams came back to form really but i cant see it.
From what i have read/heard . Patrick Heads mantra was to always spend most of the budget on the car. that way the driver was of less concern if the car was a winner. This was presumably pre 1998 . Its all very well treating drivers like an easily replaced plug in light bulb when the cars a sure fire winner.not quite so easy when the car is average to crap.
Frank was always super hard headed with his decisions and that's ultimately what brought the team to its knees.
Love Williams, but have always been annoyed at them for Mansell not being able to defend his title
Well said, about defending his title, Never supported Williams after that.
I think part of it is false economy. A driver that wins the WC is going to want a bigger paycheck, so they dump him to save money.
me too
I hated the way Mansell was treated, but then he went to Indycar and I watched him there, that's how I became familiar with Indycar and the awesome racing it offers, so in that sense I like it, but still, they shouldn't have treated him so poorly. Mansell had the last laugh, won Indycar championship in his rookie year and became the only driver to hold the F1 and Indycar championships at the same time.
@@tech9803 Williams didn't save any money. They had to pay Prost to sit out 1994 after they signed Senna.
My favorite era of the Williams saga was right in the start of winning. Alan Jones and the FW07 was such a potent combo.
My favorite moment is simply Juan Pablo Montoya. As a Colombian, Montoya brought the F1 market to Colombia and was honestly my favorite driver to watch, making me a fan of Williams. The way he drove put no doubt in my mind whatsoever that if the car had better reliability, JPM could contend with Schumi. Also, Juan showed us the ugly side of F1 politics, leaving the sport specifically due to politics in F1, according to him. Either way, the BMW Williams will forever be my favorite F1 car and I will always support Williams, all thanks to that man Juan Pablo Montoya, who for me is a ridiculously underrated F1 driver
Mantorras Montquilla He won the CART title and proved himself at almost all levels that he was worthy of the F1 seat
I don't think he's underrated. He is loved by many.
Williams BMW was a very strong car.
@Random Animations He was definitely a driver of the highest level in F1 even tho he raced for a short period of time
I'll always remember Montoya for bringing light to the end of the tunnel in Brazil 2001. It was becoming apparent that Hakkinen had lost the appetite for another title fight with Schumacher, and he'd been the only one to really challenge Michael in speed and aggression.
Then Montoya overtook Schumacher on a safety car restart into the Senna Esses, making just enough contact, but not too much. There would be someone to challange Schumacher after all.
I think a 3-part mini series on just Frank Williams is needed. This channel is incredible.
Frank Williams' hard-headedness is endearing, curious and frustrating all at the same time
I wouldn't call it endearing
@@JG-ib7xk that's fine; that's why it's an opinion but I admire him for it because it is that very same quality that made them one of the all-time great teams
@@neilwilliams2883 I think thats probably true...it took pure stubbornness to make a successful F1 team out of nothing...but he also sounded too difficult for his own good. What a shame the way they teated Newey, Mansell and Hill...some of Britains best!
it's what gave him initial success. he fought his way through in the 70s to establish that team as a consistent force that would win titles in the 80s and 90s. but it went to his head
@@InTecknicolour I would say it went to his head right from the beginning but he just didn't adapt to the increasing demands of staying competitive in F1
I completely agree, that losing Newey was Williams' greatest mistake. On the other hand, it's just unacceptable, how they couldn't bounce back and remain competitive, ever since. I mean, let's face it, is Newey the only good car designer on the planet? I just can't believe someone has them all stashed away inside some bunker. The bottom line is, they've always been highly conservative, regarding car design.
Newey has been without peer for 30 years. nobody else has compared to him. There is no replacement. You can only substitute him with a great driver, who would have won the 2003 title that montoya and ralf threw away.
Wouldn't you say though, That's the difference between having the best or second best?
@@martinhambleton5076, I don't really care about the difference. Mercedes don't have Newey, but they're still able to design and build a very good car. They have the best power unit, no doubt, but the car isn't just its engine. Williams have had very poorly designed cars, ever since Newey left. And that's just unacceptable.
@@joelsantos3092 I'll be honest, since the appearance of the v6 turbocharged cars, I have not followed it.
V8 V10 and V12 on the same grid was brilliant.
Does anyone want to say about the appalling non -preparation of the 1994 Williams car?
I read that:
Senna ‘rested’ over winter 1993 & didn’t test…..which explains why he couldn’t drive properly in a small drivers cockpit…..and Williams didn’t bother to think of this…..if driver cannot extend their arms(and slightly elbows) the best driver in the world cannot drive as normal, hence Senna spinning out when he otherwise wouldn’t…….Prost says that, to him, with that spin, it looked like Senna had ‘lost all his skills’……..I always thought not being able to fit in a too small cockpit, seemed the real reason here…….
& don’t forget Richard Williams definition of that car as being like ‘an unbroken colt’…..it wasn’t ready to win yet not to be driven Senna Hard……it needed time to develop, which Senna was not prepared to give….Williams probably thought ‘we’ve got Senna/he’s on pole/no sweat’ you could weep for all this
Williams, needed a complete reappraisal of their car minus all the ‘gizmos’ unbelievably, they failed to recognise the seriousness of the situation and the various stability/reactions of the now ‘revised car’
I bet Newley MUST HAVE TOLD THEM what was needed, bit there was ‘no room for a 3rd person at the table’ …….they must’ve ignored him…
AT WHAT POINT WERE THE REGULATIONS CHANGED TO CANCEL ALL DRIVER AIDS……
& DID THEY KNOW WHEN SIGNING SENNA & WHEN WAS SENNA AWARE OF THIS…..after or before
As sad as I've been about Willaims demise there is a small part of me that think they throughly deserve what they got. The decision to sack Hill in 96 still rankles with me today!
As far as I can remember from the news back then it's all in one word: hubris!
To Frank Williams the cars were winning not the drivers so the drivers were expendable - even Senna was considered expendable at some stage.
And of course to him the team was better than the cars but then again in his head he was the team and no one else.
Not entirely unreasonable after all he did owned the team but here's the thing any good manager should know: you hire people to 'cover' the shortcomings in areas you know you're not the best so when those people that are paid to do so say something you listen! Frank never did and here we are where we are…
I had only started watching f1 in 94 when Newey announced he was leaving and I was very worried as even then I knew he was special. Its so frustrating that Frank and Patrick handled Adrian so badly as it's totally clear f1 domination was assured I think Williams would now be a 20 time world champ team at least. My favourite Williams memory is the 2012 Spanish Gp the drought had created a hunger for a win and it was ohh so sweet. Maldonado is a hero for that drive that day. Pay drivers should not be taken by any team and I lose a lot of respect for Williams for doing that but I will always love the team. Frank clearly thought while Newey was good he was replaceable, Head should have stepped aside and let Newey become Technical Director at Williams.
So it was the usual power struggle... The ones in charge don´t want to give up part of that power and the new ones (and employees and drivers) feel they are not valued.
On top of Newey leaving, Renault also left, which left Williams a bit lost back in 98-99. After that I believe the deal with BMW was also troublesome because of the way Williams was run back then (which gave problems in recent years, since the mentality was pretty much the same). And on top of all this, Williams never prepared themselves for the new era of F1, they relied heavily on sponsors, when they started to dry up, the problems pilled up and they started to fall behind. Not even the Advanced Engineering part was able to save them.
Williams lost all credibility for me over Mansell's and Hill's treatment following their championship wins, couldn't have cared less after that.
I totally agree!
Yeah, me too
7:52 "Williams fell back with aging customer Renault engines" = What happened to Red Bull
7:56 "Lack of design direction following Newey's departure" = AKA "poor to no innovation"
8:05 BMW engines "Best engine on grid but cars produced were not up to the task" = 2019 Ferrari
I was really impressed by Mansell's comback in 1994. F1 cars are some of the hardest cars to adjust to, whether or not it's the fastest car on the grid.
Mansell was a hell of a race car driver. I miss seeing him race!
More insightful than you usually see in these style of videos. Williams has always seemed to regard drivers as interchangeable, pull one out and plug another one in with no loyalty at all. I've always felt this was his biggest weakness as a team boss, he was just too mercenary. The situation it developed into with Newey just underlines it.
Enzo Ferrari was also guilty of that way of thinking.
Many of those older 90s photographs are so damn well selected. Great job!
Got to say my favourite Williams era was the Alan Jones time, and Gilles in the 12cyl Ferrarri
The biggest mistake Frank Williams made was letting Damon Hill go. Hill was probably one of the very best and one of the most underrated drivers of his time. Gérard Berger really rated Hill very highly even when compared with Senna.
rumors say, they wanted a german driver, in hope they could get mercedes engines then... so they hired heinz harald frentzen
My unforgetable Williams moment : 1986 Adelaide, Mansell's left rear blew and delayed his title another 6 years.
You skipped over 1994. Senna's death and the subsequent legal issues, with manslaughter charges hanging over the team would have had a lot to do with Newey leaving Wiiliams in 1996.
Williams' approach to driver hiring and driver retention in the 1990s was absolutely shambolic. I'm not surprised Newey walked away.
Williams was always willing to loose anybody. I remember when they ditched Hill and Villeneuve. The thing is, drivers can be replaced but engineers with a lot of experience cannot.
Drivers like Bottas, Frentzen, etc can be replaced with ease, World Champions and genuine top tier drivers can't. Williams went from Mansell, Hill & Villeneuve to guys like Ralf Schumacher. That's a serious drop off in quality.
@@handsolo1209 I'm sorry, but I'd say Ralf Schumacher was a big upgrade on both Hill and Villeneuve. Both him and Montoya, actually. Those 6 poles, 6 wins and 27 podiums he managed to achieve in what was always a top 3 car at best (besides 2003, when the car was probably the best in first half of the season, but R. Schumacher was injured pretty much for the whole season, missing winter testing because of back injury and then sustaining a concussion at the Monza test) are nothing short of amazing.
Villeneuve and Hill never managed anything remotely close to that after being dropped from Williams and ending in same top 3 - top 4 cars that R. Schumacher drove for all of his career. As for 'They have more wins and podiums in total' argument - well, yeah, they do. A car that was on average 1 second faster then everything else on the track (in 94 and 96 for Hill and 97 for Villeneuve) really helped them with that.
@@cantfindawayout Yeah, a sloppy driver who is only on the grid because of who is brother is was a HUGE upgrade on 2 world champions.............................................
PS, The 1997 Williams was not a dominant car and by the last part of the season it was the 3rd fastest car.
Nah, the drivers who actually who do the winning are the most important, look at how Schumacher built Ferrari
@@spac18 he wouldn't have been able to do that if not for the massive technical staff he brought over from Bennetton
I could have saved you the effort - three reasons were: EGO, EGO and EGO. Good video, sad to see a team self-implode.
True and on the money
Seems it's more like "how they signed Villeneuve", not that they in fact did.
Agreed.. like he got them a championship
I believe that is correct. Although Newey might have been unhappy that Williams signed a better driver than Hill......
Remarkable how history consistently repeats itself; hardwork leads to success which leads to confidence which leads to arrogance which unfortunately leads to failure. At the height of success, people forget what brought the success and assume invincibility.
The saying goes.
Clogs to Clogs in three generations.
@7:50
McLaren didnt get the championship double in 1999, Ferrari won the constructors championship in that year.
I assumed during the video that he meant Mclaren won the drivers championship in 1998 and 1999.
@@I.am.Sarah. "Another" suggests to me that they mean compared to 1998, so the 1998 drivers championship isnt counted then.
@@GigglingChinchilla Yep. Their statement is ambiguous.
I was a big Mansell fan, and as a result a Williams fan (I'm still a hopeful Williams fan). Newey is one of my engineering "heroes" and he's proven himself wherever he has worked (IndyCar, Leyton House, Williams, McLaren and Red Bull).
Truly one of the greats!
My favorite Williams drivers were Mansell, Vilenuve and Montoya.
It's right, and Montoya make suffer to both Schumacher brother's, but Frank Williams do not value it.... (sorry for my english if i made a mistake)
Or even VILLENEUVE?
"They had the best engine on the grid but didn't have the car to support it..." - some things don't change!
I think Jacques Villeneuve was fundamental for winning the 1997 title. He is attitude of thinking he was the best of the world and being unshakable made him mentally stronger, enough to fight a cold blooded Schumacher. Had Williams fought the title with the likes of Damon hill frentzen or Coulthard, Schumacher would have won the 1997 championship in the same manner as 95.
However, there was no reason to substitute hill, he would have being a much better 2nd driver to Jacques in 97.
Jacques wasn't champion in 96 only because of his inexperience.. Had he hypothetically drove a season before 96, he would have been champion already in 96, much faster than hill in the last 5/6 races.
Don't forget Villeneuve almost fell on his own sword due to inexperience in 1997 as well. But with him being pretty close to Hill in 1996 already, there was no reason to dump Damon already. If Hill had stayed on in 1997, the WCC would have been sealed earlier and Jerez would have never happened.
@@Jejking I agree, I think hill would take some points from Michael and could have been even the runner up for Jacques.
There was absolutely no reason to fire Damon, although 1995 was full of mistakes, it was over premature the decision to put frentzen in 97, not analyzing the 96 outcome first.
Your both wrong! What made it a fight was Adrian was already gone by the start of 97! The Williams car got no better at the start of 97 to the end!
@@pauloluciomachadodebrito8107 Jaques also had to have help from HHF to win look back and you will see I had all of Damon's races on tape but now they are rat food.
@@mclarenjohnf1 I am warching the whole 1990's f1 decade, search for it in the Asopher1 channel here on TH-cam he has uploaded every season since 1986 from the US ESPN broadcast.
HHF rarely helped Jacques. Damon would have done a much better job.
yeah Imagine a Redbull with Merc at the back that team would have been Williams if they didn't do the mistake!
I never liked Frank Williams for how he treated people, and when the joke of a investigation into Sennas death, and the dodgy antics by the crew over orders given by Frank sneaking into the supposed sealed garage to interfere with Sennas car against FIA orders and got away with it, sealed the notion that Williams shouldn't be in F1.
No disrespect to his daughter but the family name was never going to be great again.
Although 2019s Williams crashes were all Kubicas fault, they were struggling for parts and kubica smashed them all.
Im pretty sure it wasn't confirmed that he "snuck" in or something, its just a rumor
to be fair ferrari also broke into wiliams garage
@@user-gu1hl2kx2k Oh I agree they're all dodgy, anything to get one up on each other, look at Racing Point this year with the Merc clone.
@@waengwang5313 He didn't personally, they were told the car wasn't to be touch, his team went in and took the data from the car before giving it back, this was known back then, but I am struggling to find it, but I do remember it being in the news, plus the steering column had broken on a very bad weld done by Williams team, yet they got away with it all.
Even the Race authorities kept him alive on purpose even though it was obvious he couldn't live, because if he died right there on the track the event would be cancelled, there was even rumor the same was done to Ratzenberger the day before so the race could go on.
If I was the new principal at Williams, these are key lessons to try and undo/not repeat.
- Get Newey back. Give him a stake in the team if he wants and set him the challenge of getting Williams back up near the front with added bonuses or increased shares
- Find an engine manufacturer and become partners. Even if that means selling some of the team to them. Williams-BMW 2.0 or Williams-Audi? Find an engine manufacturer and persuade them to become a joint-partner
- During these times, it will probably be a 5 year plan before we see something come good. Have an experienced driver and a rookie talent to bolster sponsorship whilst the improvements can start to show. The veteran can show that the car is getting better and the investment is paying off and the rookie can pay for additions and sponsorship and learn from the veteran until Williams can sign a bigger name to get them further up the field.
- Learn what needs to be built vs what can be bought. Spec-parts from bigger teams? Buy them and focus on developing the parts Williams design in-house. More time on them means more investment and improvements.
- Write off 2021. 22 are the new regulations. Focus everything on them and use 21 to test items or learn about tyres and off-track improvements. Whatever data you could use from 21 to translate into 22 - do that.
- Title sponsor. Maybe get Sega back as it would be Sonic's 30th anniversary next year and we all loved the Sega Williams sponsorship!
I want to see Williams succeed and I know that these points will never happen (probably), but this is what I would be pushing for big time.
I like your ideas...for drivers somebody like Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen or even Sergio Perez,
@@PaperBanjo64 Kimi will most likely retire in a couple of years, Seb will be too expensive and won't be worth the money for Williams right now. Perez would be a very good driver who could bring in sponsorship too, long terms you're looking at guys who could fit the shoes if they don't make it where they are now. Magnussen, Ocon, Bottas if he gets replaced by Russell in the next few years...
But thanks for the good words! Appreciate ideas and how the future of Williams will go now
Well presented matter, indeed Frank and Patrick pretty much dug the grave, the team would never come out of.
Brilliant work Glenn, it just shows that very normal issues can cause so much harm. Like in many corporations which I worked for, a lack of communication leads to a lack of trust ultimately leading to a demise of the organization.
How they treated Mansell and Newey was bad, but their treatment of Hill was monstrous. He was in his 3rd year at F1 when they lost Senna and he still managed to pull the team together and nearly win the championship.
Williams actually won the constructors championship in 94, primarily due to Hill's handiwork developing what was a dog of a car. Hill was never given the credit he deserved.
There aren't many people that are irreplaceable in any team but Newey is an amazing designer and had a track record of building championship winning cars (Mclaren, Red Bull) - they underestimated his impact to the team.
Canadian here. My favourite Williams moment will always be Villeneuve’s championship.
I start watching F1 in 1996 because of Jacques Villeneuve (I am Canadian). Still enjoy watching F1 race today. Thank you Williams for all those years.
I mean, signing Villeneuve per se wasn't a mistake. I guess the idea of now including Newey in the discussion was the mistake. Villeneuve still won the fricking championship. =/
Guy-Richard Maltais no mistake there he was fast from the get go pole in the first GP and the first win denied with mechanical issues second in the championship don’t se a mistake there my friend won the championship the year after mistake was him singing with BAR
error at 7:47 ferrari won the constructers championship in 99
Yup hakkinen just won the driver's championship I believe
error detected
I reckon their biggest mistake was not selling a controlling stake to BMW.
They also kept going with driver changes, and engine changes. That is not good at all. You need to have a stable lineup, and stable engines to have long time succes.
Part of the problem is they believed the hype that Heinz-Harald was another Schumacher - he wasn't of course and they would have been far better off keeping Hill. Beggar's belief that Mansell, who could so easily have been a triple F1 champion by 1992 ended up leaving. He was in devastating form, and left for the USA.
you already know the video is going to be on Newey
I first got into F1 when I was young (very young!) at the end of Graham Hill's career. I think that the first race I remember is his last one in Monaco. F1 wasn't on TV during the day much back then, it was an evening sports round up IIRC, but the British GP and the Monaco one seemed to be live, or at least during my daytime. Of course, Dad explained why Hill was the greatest at Monaco and I was hooked!
So it was natural that when Damon became an F1 driver, I was a big fan immediately - and hell, he was cute 😉 I'd also become a Williams fan at the end of the 70s when I was old enough to really appreciate it and it was on TV more often. I actually consider him a 2 times champion (including 94, of course), for a number of reasons. He was barely beyond being a rookie when he had to rally the team after Senna's death, and somehow he was going to become the champion ... But when Williams sacked him _during_ his actual championship year, I thought that behaviour was despicable.
I hadn't been as attached to Mansell as I was to him (TBH, I thought Mansell was a great driver but a real moaning Minnie), so maybe that's why it took till then for me to question my own loyalty to the team. But it was so quickly clear that Damon had, in fact, dodged a bullet and had effectively been punished enough, that I went back to them being my No1 team (after Damon retired lol). I would genuinely love to see them up front again, and odds are, they'll make it.
Their biggest mistake was the steering column that killed senna
And the 'Black Box' in Senna's car which was intact after the accident but mysteriously turned up all smashed during the investigation.
@@nvstewart You do know the FIA as well as the police had it, not the team
@@IIGrayfoxII Charlie whiting and Patrick head I think came to sennas car and asked if it could be removed saying they had permission to remove it when after it was found out they never had the permission. The guy responsible with removing it mentioned he has removed thousands of black boxes and that it was in working condition with only a few scratches on the exterior. Then it turned up all messed up with corrupt data.
There is a reason why people close off crime scenes and that is so nobody can tamper with the scene before the investigation has finished.
@@nvstewart Crime Scenes dont happen on race tracks so that is why it was not closed off.
It was seen as a tragic accident
Even years after the investigation they found no wrong doing of williams.
It is a known fact that senna pushed the cars he drove hard.
and it is also a known fact that failures do happen.
When Sebastien Buemis front wheels detached in China in the 2010GP was that because redbull wanted to hurt him?
No.
@@IIGrayfoxII I was starting the crime scene as an example only. And no, I do not believe Williams tried to kill him, but to hide evidence that could have been used against them.
With the success of the 1990s, I am afraid FW got cocky, firing world champions left and right because he was convinced his cars, not the drivers, won. But the kiss of death came when he let Adrian Newey go as he did. Newey should have been given portions of stock from both FW and PH, to ensure his longevity with Williams. Again, cockiness plaid a part here because they thouht to be invincible.
Damon Hill memorably said in his autobiography that Williams Grand Prix Engineering sometimes felt like a bunch of engineers who went racing
I loved the Piquet / Mansell era. The team was just too good! I think they won almost all of the races...
Never forgave Williams, for his treatment of Nigel Mansell
Nobody has ever seen Heinz-Harald Frentzen and David Duchovny in the same room together.
Lol may be tea Leone
has in a raucous threesome?
wtf????
If Newey had designed the BMW Williams cars, JPM would've been a multiple world champion
Thank you Race for making the best F1 videos on the whole internet.
I talked about this with a friend who used to drive F3. We agreed it isn't strange that Williams eventually collapsed. It's strange they had so much success before it.
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Newey knew his worth and took his genius with him. Their worst mistake was keeping Clare in charge for years as the team went backwards. They should have put someone else in charge but their arrogance prevented them from doing so.
So is all this reverence for Frank Williams a big British smokescreen? From an American perspective, where most of my F1 knowledge has been filtered through the UK, this video and what I know of Claire's time as team principal suggest's there is very little to admire about the family, and Frank in particular, except some great success in the distant past.
I was lead to believe that Williams was a plucky underdog, struggling to revive their legacy. Now it seems like they're a decrepit team, disgraced after two decades mired in their just desserts.
guess what, the truth is somewhere in between and neither of those two extremes. neither fairy tale villains nor heroes actually exist in real life. Frank Williams is a talented and highly motivated man with a deep understanding of F1 racing who was always stubborn, ruthless and inconsiderate. this video is a pretty balanced look at the situation, the fact is they were the last independent team to have lasting success in a sport dominated by big money poured in by huge companies. they achieved that in large part due to Frank's energy and vision, yet his shortcomings also contributed to their decline.
@@-yeme- I'm not sure, it seems Patrick Head was the one that secured the success, despite Frank!
As a kid, I absolutely fell in love with the Williams cars of the early 2000's with Montoya and Ralf behind the wheel. I still remember the days of pure joy that always followed their wins in an era, where Michael and Ferrari were all too painfully good.
Such a shame we didn’t get to see Mansell and Prost in ‘93
pretty fair assessment really, I always looked back to when they fired hill and thought those lads have lost their minds,
I can never forgive FW for having 'killed' Senna and his treatment of Hill and Mansell removed any feeling about this 'British' team.
Frank deserved all that went wrong after he did that
I have seen many people try to claim that Williams down fall started with their refusal to sell out to BMW, and I have always maintained that was not even remotely the case. I have always said the two things that caused Williams downfall was losing both Renault and Newey at the same time, but that Newey was the more important part of that downfall.
While yes the BMW was a great engine, we saw from their time as a constructor that they would probably have probably had the same results had they bought Williams and probably would have still pulled out when they failed to win a title. That could possibly have seen the Williams name vanish from F1 forever.
Even had Renault stuck around, Williams would not have been inline for any championships over the next few years and probably would have been more on a par with where they were with BMW.
Newey was the key.
Frank was always a big kid, it's my ball and I'm going home, very much doubt Claire had any choice to stay at all!
Williams seemes to have had very poor management of its drivers, since Reutmann retiring mid season, the mess with Piquet and Mansell, all the cases mentioned here, and yes, had Newey been offered a partnership, and if Frank and Patrick absorbed him as a partner, things would be infinitely different, and probably today the team would be more like McLaren than Minardi. Curiously, 2014 and 2015 were positive years, with leftover finds from Venezuela, and with a solid car designed by Symonds, and developed by Massa, a proper driver lineup with a young and hungry Bottas and Claire doing a pretty descent job. In any case, I do see Williams changing names in the next few years, and being "history" like Tyrrell, Brabham, Lotus, and BRM.
It was a big mistake to not keep Newey but other teams have won championships or were in the championship mix without Newey, in particular Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari. So there are other talented aero and chassis design guys, so Williams further failure was not finding the right design talent to replace Newey, particularly when they had BMW power.
A very good point well made thank you.
When you're a privateer team, especially one that's not been doing so well, there isn't a lot of money to attract top talent, be it drivers or designers. It becomes a vicious circle.
Sad to see Williams no longer a family/private team, but the other way to look at it is that they lasted way longer than anyone else. Enzo Ferrari sold his company and team to Fiat at the end of the sixties, but was allowed to carry on running the team. McLaren was swallowed up by Ron Dennis's Project Four at the start of the eighties, so lasted only about fifteen years as an independent team. Ron was then kicked out a few years ago. Tyrell was bought by BAR in 1988 and later became Honda, Brawn and now Mercedes. Lotus was bought by Proton of Malaysia after Colin Chapman died. Jackie Stewart and Alain Prost started their own teams but both only lasted a handful of years. There are today no privately owned teams in F1, so again Williams lasted way longer than anyone else. There are also no British owned teams any more, with again Williams being the last. Williams, Mercedes, McLaren, Renault, Red Bull and Racing Point are all based in the UK, but with Williams being sold to an American company none of those teams are British owned any more.
Drivers are like lightbulbs: they keep the lights on.
when you put a weak one on the socket, it's pretty much useless
Franks arrogance was their biggest problem, particularly towards drivers, the treatment of Hill and Mansell and paying Senna a pittance then employing a no talent Villeneuve thinking they didn't need an A grade driver because the cars were so good all lead to the teams demise.
Frank Williams dug his own grave. He was too proud and set in his ways after all the wins and championships to understand Adrian is a genius in his craft. Redbull might have never become a front runner if he had received respect from Williams.
FW never bothered to read his wife's book that was mostly about him. Not very considerate with people. If the key players were treated like this imagine how the mechanics were treated.
What's funny about the JV signing is if Newey was there, he probably would've given Williams the greenlight on it as well. JV was an extremely gifted driver, and I think the pairing with Hill in 1996 helped mold him into the champion a year later. Shame that JV didn't stick around and that Newey wasn't respected by Head and Williams. Imagine a Villenueve/Montoya lineup in a Newey designed BMW powered entry. Easily would've challenged Ferrari.
Why would Villeneuve stick around after winning the championship after what happened to Hill the previous year?????
I would say letting hill go was the biggest one but it was really pissing and letting newey go.
I always like to remember times when I began to watch F1 with R. Schumacher and Montoya behind Williams wheels with BMW V10s behind them. Thats such an iconic era for me, Ive always been a ferrari fan, but without white and blue BMW williams and grey west mclaren mercedes, it would never be so awesome.
Killing Senna surely wouldnt have helped. No one would have cared about Hill, Villeneuve or Frenzen if Senna was there.
Ah, A Man Of Wisdom, Or Women. Check Out My Comment That I Posted Up About This.
BTW They didn’t kill Senna.
It’s interesting to think how much difference one person can (or can’t) make, especially in today’s F1.