WILL WE SEE THE WILLIAMS NAME DISAPPEAR FROM FORMULA ONE?
It was announced last week by the Williams F1 team that they were “considering various strategic options” regarding the company’s future. This means that they are looking to sell a minority stake or a majority stake in the team and the entire Williams Grand Prix Holdings business. Williams is effectively up for sale. After years of stating that selling the business was not on the boards minds it seems that it has come to the point were that may be the only way of securing the company.
This saddens me deeply as Williams were THE team when i first started watching the sport and the drivers I felt an affinity with wore Williams overalls. Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill were my idols. It seems inconceivable that a team that was the benchmark of Formula One is now having to consider selling up.
Whether the team is sold partly or wholly and whether the name vanishes from F1 (I sincerely hope not) it will no longer feel like the team we all know and love, like the team I day dreamed about driving for, like the team that was built on sheer determination and enthusiasm by Sir Frank and Sir Patrick. However in this difficult economic time for the sport and indeed for the wider world after the Covid-19 pandemic if selling up ensures that the business survives in some form or other then we must be thankful for that.
The team could be a good purchase for someone as there are good people there, they have some good resources at their HQ and with the new cost reduction rules that are coming soon the team will not be lagging behind so much financially. It should not then be very difficult to find a buyer, however what I hope for the team that I have always loved is that they are bought by someone that is serious about competing in the sport and prepared to stay for the long haul and put in the effort required to be find success. If they are sold to someone who just loves the idea of being in the sport but doesn’t understand the challenges it could damage the company irreparably.
We will have to wait to see what happens and who they can attract but I want to take some time to discuss where Williams have gone wrong over the years, what are the reasons that they went from leading the field to propping up the back of the grid?
It is easy to balme Claire Williams, Frank’s daughter who has been in day to day control of the team for a few years now, Indeed their has been may recently who lay the blame at her door. I believe this is being very unfair on Claire though as the cost of competing in F1 have sky rocketed over the years and F1 as a sport has failed to control this. In recent years we have regularly heard it said that one or two teams are on the verge of collapsing, so the financial issues are not only of the teams own making. It is only now that the sport is putting cost capping measures in place to help the smaller teams like Williams and make it viable for them to carry on competing.
So I give Clair Williams credit for keeping things together during very difficult times and. There has certainly been of a lack of strategic vision and mistakes that have been made that should have been avoided and I do think the team would have benefited from an experienced team boss who could have helped Claire guide things but she does not in my view deserve all the blame for the teams current situation.
I think that in order to really find out where the teams downfall begun we must go all the way back to 1997, the year that the team last won them world championship. Two key things happened that year that would prove pivotal. Number one the teams engine partner Renault pulled out of the sport at the end of that year, no fault of Williams here, it was a Renualt decision and Benetton were effected in the same way, and both teams were left with Meachrome engines for the following two seasons. Number two at the start of 97 Adrian Newey, design genius and a huge part of the technical success of the team left to join McLaren.
It was Newey’s exit that for me was the teams biggest mistake. I have read that Adrian wanted a greater say in driver choice and also some equity in the outfit, on the whole not much to expect given the huge part of the teams success in the nineties that he had played. Williams didn’t for whatever reason want to give Newey what he wanted and so he left for pastures new. Frank and Patrick should have given Newey whatever he asked for, keeping him at the team should have been a priority for them. After he left the team never seemed completely on the ball technically, the cars they produced never cutting edge and striking.
This is meant is as no disrespect to the people who followed Newey as design heads, it is more a sign that they never really found had a good technical structure thereafter. They never had that group of people in the design office that came together as the perfect team as they did at Ferrari in the early 2000’s and at Williams themselves in the 90’s.
And so when Williams started their partnership with BMW in 2000 what should have been a great partnership that only ever achieved a few race wins and a outside shot at the world title with Montoya in 03. The BMW engine was one of the best in the field, definitely the fastest down the straights but the Williams chassis was always the weak point. This is what let the partnership down. I can only imagine what could have been achieved with that BMW motor and an Adrian Newey designed car, the challenge to Ferrari could have been epic. Instead of that BMW got frustrated with the lack of success and when Williams wouldn’t sell them the team thet upped and left for Sauber where they bought a majority stake and made it a works team.
From that point on Williams were always on the back foot and left to compete with customer engine deals and in some cases having to take at least one pay driver to help fund the racing. All this lead to a slide down the order and that of course means less prize money and over a period of years this means you are fighting to stay in F1 and not fighting for the top prize.
There was of course the slight upturn in 2014-16 when the team got Mercedes engines and new backing from Martini,podiums and even a pole position came their way but they were not able to make the most of the rare occasions when the works Mercedes couldn’t win the race and eventually this run came to an end again.
And now the team finds itself looking for either a partner or new owner. As already mentioned above it makes me very sad when I can remember Williams leading the way and wining races with ease. It is a very sad fall from grace, and it is even more upsetting to think that the dream of seeing them recover those glory years is now over. I will sign off this piece by saying that I will never forget the great times that Williams had and will always see them as one of the giants of the sports history, they were my team when I became hooked on the sport and will forever hold a special place in my racing heart. I wish everyone at the team good luck in the future whatever the future may bring.
My F1 talk 