He was a survivor. And not only because after the 1986 accident, with a rented Sierra on his return from Paul Ricard, the doctors had given him a few days to live, and instead he reached the age of eighty. Frank Williams he had fought all his life, to make his dream come true, to make it grow and eventually to just keep it alive. Much of this battle he fought from a quadriplegic wheelchair, or from the pole to which he was harnessed in order to eat, drink, breathe and look those in front of him in the eye. On his condition, Sir Frank expressed himself in words that were sometimes chilling to the listener: “I lost the 1986 World Cup for my stupidity”, or “The other day I treated a sponsor, I managed to get a higher figure precisely because he saw me reduced like this”. Patrick Head, for many years the technical mastermind of the team, on the other hand, was happy to talk about going to Frank’s office, nibbling a sandwich and leaving the crumbs lying around, to the desperation of his boss and partner.
For years now, Williams had left the active management of the team that still bears his name. The news about his health was never good, the drugs he had to take to remedy his physical problems took away his clarity. Virginia, his wife, had been gone for eight years with cancer. Claire, the daughter, had in fact signed the abdication of the family management to Dorilton fund, in September of last year. Perhaps – and said with all due respect – it was good that Frank lived his last years in some sort of oblivion. Of the reality that he had wanted with all his might, negotiating business from the telephone booths, hiding the engines in the trunk of his friends’ car, always trying to be one step ahead of everyone, now all that remained was the name.
It is difficult for a boy of today to believe that for most of the 1980s and for most of the following decade, the name Williams was synonymous with invincibility. F1 is a food processor that pulverizes memories of the glory of yesteryear. As a journalist, Frank had been a friend first and then an enemy. In the editorial office, ad Autosprint, there was a habit of making a phone call on Sunday evening, to comment with him on the facts and the background of sports policy. I did my first interview with him on the phone, he impressed me with his kindness and availability. Frank had clear eyes and almost always shiny, he had a smile that conquered you, but he was quick to change his expression and become hard, sharp. After the Imola tragedy we found ourselves on two opposing fronts: he was committed to defending the work of his team, to denying any errors and negligence as the cause of the accident and death of Ayrton Senna. We, at the weekly directed by Carlo Caviccchi (who on that occasion was irreducible and courageous), decided not to cover up a case that presented many, too many obscure points, starting with that inexplicable breakdown of the steering column. Those were months, indeed years, very difficult, a period in which not only Williams, but the whole British racing establishment, had turned against our newspaper and, in general, against Italy and its judicial system, for which – rightly, I believe – a car circuit is not a no man’s land in which any accident, even fatal, can go unpunished and unpunished. Big words flew by and also judicial cases, and I’m not just talking about the Imola trial. Another team principal would have done like the many who, when a newspaper bothers them, deny themselves to interviews and interviews. Instead, when it came to going to talk to him for news, he wanted to receive me in the hospitality (we were in Canada, if I remember correctly). I still have in mind the strange solidarity of his nurse / assistant who told me shortly before the meeting: “Now he will receive you. Go hard, because he will be too “.
I believe that, regardless of the events that involved him, the whole racing world has always had enormous respect for Sir Frank. Which, for its part, did not give discounts to anyone, as he did not do them to himself. He had never forgiven himself for the fact that Ron Dennis had blown his Honda engines after the 1987 world championship with Piquet. But he had no hesitation in not renewing Nelson’s contract (who after Senna’s accident, Frank confided to me, had re-proposed as a test driver for the team, despite injuries sustained in Indianapolis two years earlier). Likewise, he got rid of Nigel Mansell after the ’92 title and decided to do without Damon Hill already at the beginning of the season – 1996 – when Graham’s son brought him the Drivers’ championship as a dowry. He bet on Jacques Villeneuve, in a period in which American races were viewed with disdain, and won. He bet, two years later, on Alex Zanardi and it did not go as well, for both of them. He changed a whirlwind of engines in those years, passing from all the declinations of the former V10 Renault to BMW and then to Cosworth, Toyota and finally Mercedes. He had just turned sixty when Pastor Maldonado, in an incredible and tire-conditioned Spanish GP, gave him the ultimate joy of a victory. That afternoon Frank looked worried, almost absent. Shortly thereafter, a fire even broke out in the team garage, smoke spread across the pit lane like a bad omen.
It is always difficult to say goodbye to those who made the history of this sport. With Williams goes the memory of the heroic years, those in which a single man, with his determination, could give life to something great. One more reason why the managers of Dorliton Capital do not dare, never, to change the name of Frank’s dream.
#Goodbye #warrior #FormulaPassionit