It is a beautiful photo in which an era from Formula 1 is beautifully captured, in black and white, on a motorsport site last week after the death of Frank Williams. Three British men middle-aged people gathered between cars and touring caravans – the teams did not yet have access to the mobile palaces of today in the paddocks – at Zandvoort, during the Dutch Grand Prix in August 1983.
Three former drivers, team bosses, and all three co-founders of the Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA). Brabham team principal Bernie Ecclestone, Ken Tyrrell of the team of the same name and Frank (Francis Owen Garbett) Williams; three mainstays of Formula 1.
Ecclestone, now 91, transferred the rights to Formula 1 in 2016 to the American company Liberty Media. Tyrrell, team principal of three-time world champion Jackie Stewart and Jos Verstappen, among others, died in 2001 at the age of 77; Tyrrell’s racing license came through BAR, Honda and Ross Brawn to Mercedes, which has ruled Formula 1 for years.
And the third in the picture died last Sunday at the age of 79, Williams, who was paralyzed in a car accident in 1986. Before that, also known as the man who organized races for staff of the teams around races and who also ran along. In the biography of James Hunt (by Gerald Donaldson from 1994), the world champion of 1976, such a race is mentioned, over the old Monza track, in ’73. Hunt takes part, comes in second and catches 300 pounds. Winner: Frank Williams.
In American hands
The Williams team still exists – in 2013, the founder handed it over to daughter Claire, and to avoid bankruptcy of the sporting and financially distressed company with hundreds of employees, she sold it last year to an American investment company. That was the end of the last independent racing stable in Formula 1, only the name remained.
At the end of August 2021, a Williams driver was again on the podium for the first time in years: at Spa-Francorchamps, Briton George Russell finished second in the shortest Formula 1 race in history, after an unprecedented rainy day in the Ardennes, on a Nicely sandwiched between winner Max Verstappen and title holder Lewis Hamilton.
After a short career as a mechanic and driver, Frank Williams, born in South Shields (near Newcastle), founded Frank Williams Racing Cars in 1966. He was active in Formula 3, 2 and 1. In the highest racing class he made his debut in 1969 in the GP of Spain (Barcelona) with his good friend Piers Courage behind the wheel, who died a year later at Zandvoort. In 1977 he started his own Formula 1 team, which became one of the most successful ever.
When Frank Williams retired from the sport in 2013 after the death of his wife and handed over the team to daughter Claire, he could look back on a career with 114 Grand Prix wins, the last of which was in the name of Pastor Maldonado (Spain 2012). He also won sixteen world titles.
Major surgeries
In March 1986, Williams left a little early after testing his team’s new car in the south of France. The next day he would run the London half marathon. On his way to Nice airport, he lost control of his rental car and ended up meters below the road. In the days that followed, Williams fought for his life with a broken neck, among other things. He suffered a spinal cord injury and ended up in a wheelchair.
The British Formula 1 doctor Sid Watkins performed heavy procedures on him in those days, and wrote in his biography (Life at the limit, 1996) that the team boss was cheerful and polite in almost all circumstances, despite the pain he had to endure. And that once in his wheelchair, he always continued to do his physiotherapy and took other measures to stay in the best shape possible, even after his return to the pits.
His own accident was not the only black page in a half-century career in motorsport. The death of Ayrton Senna in 1994 on May 1, 1994 in Imola plunged the sports world into deep mourning. The Brazilian driver was a legend in his lifetime, and adored like no other world champion before or after him. The lawsuits brought in Italy against the top of the Williams team over responsibility for Senna’s death – he drove straight into the Tamburello corner and slammed into a concrete wall – lasted 11 years and mainly revolved around a possible design flaw in the steering. Ultimately, Williams and chief designer Adrian Newey (now technical director at Max Verstappens Red Bull) were acquitted, the case against technical director Patrick Head was declared inadmissible; the reasonable period of time to answer the question of guilt had expired.
Also this weekend at the penultimate race of the season at the brand new circuit in Jeddah, Williams’ death is commemorated in various ways, such as with a minute of silence on Sunday after the drivers’ parade before the race. He was also a special man to the Saudis; almost half a century ago they entered Formula 1 via the Brit. It is the first time that Formula 1 has visited Saudi Arabia, a country that, like Qatar (where a Formula 1 race for the first time two weeks ago was held) is heavily criticized for human rights violations. The Saudis in particular since the 2019 killing and disappearance of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, in their embassy in Istanbul, and their role in the war in Yemen.
The oil state was one of Williams’ first sponsors. In that debut year 1977 (budget £180,000), the name of the Belgian brewer Belle-Vue adorned the car with the Belgian Patrick Neve behind the wheel, and on the rear wing Fly Saudia, an advertisement for the Saudi airline, among other things. The following year, Australian Alan Jones drove a Williams sponsored by Saudia, the Saudi capital’s Riad and Albilad hotels owned by the Bin Laden family — run by two of the many brothers of later Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Sponsors he and his technical director Patrick Head had attracted in the rich Middle East so shortly after the oil crisis in the West. The colors of the car: white and green, those of the flag of the country that is now the scene of the possible denouement of the season, starring Verstappen and Hamilton.
In a Williams-Ford Cosworth with names of other (non-Saudi) multinationals on it, Frank Williams’ racing stable reached its first highlights in 1979: pole position for Alan Jones and race win for Swiss Clay Regazzoni, both in front of a British public, at silverstone. A year later the main prize: Jones world champion, the first of seven drivers to drive as many world titles in the service of Williams. The others: the Finn Keke Rosberg (1982), the Brazilian Nelson Piquet (’87), the Briton Nigel Mansell (’92), the Frenchman Alain Prost (’93), the Briton Damon Hill (’96) and Canadian Jacques Villeneuve (’97). As the best team, Williams won nine World Constructors’ Championships between 1980 and 1997, including the one in the disaster year of 1994.
Another beautiful black and white photo: Williams with his brilliant designer Patrick Head in 1978 at the Williams Grand Prix Engineering truck and one of the copies of the FW06 designed by (the now 75-year-old) Head. On the truck in large letters again the name of the Saudi state airline, which laid the financial foundation for one of the most successful teams in Formula 1.
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