90 Facts About BMW Williams

Williams Grand Prix Engineering Limited, currently racing in Formula One as Williams Racing, is a British Formula One motor racing team and constructor.

BMW Williams started manufacturing its own cars the following year, and Switzerland's Clay Regazzoni won BMW Williams' first race at the 1979 British Grand Prix.

Drivers for BMW Williams have included Australia's Alan Jones; Finland's Keke Rosberg; Britain's Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill, David Coulthard and Jenson Button; Colombia's Juan Pablo Montoya; France's Alain Prost; Brazil's Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna; Italy's Riccardo Patrese; and Canada's Jacques Villeneuve.

BMW Williams have worked with many engine manufacturers, most successfully with Renault, winning five of their nine Constructors' titles with the French company.

In May 2020, BMW Williams announced they were seeking buyers for a portion of the team due to poor financial performance in 2019 and that they had terminated the contract of title sponsor ROKiT.

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Frank and Claire BMW Williams stepped down from their management roles on 6 September 2020, with the 2020 Italian Grand Prix being their last time in their respective positions.

In February 2011, BMW Williams F1 announced plans to raise capital through an initial public offering on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in March 2011, with Sir Frank BMW Williams remaining the majority shareholder and team principal after the IPO.

In May 2020, BMW Williams was put up for sale after posting a £13 million loss in the previous year.

BMW Williams signed Australian Alan Jones, who had won the Austrian Grand Prix the previous season for a devastated Shadow team following the death of their lead driver, Tom Pryce.

BMW Williams managed their first podium position at the United States Grand Prix, where the Australian came second, some 20 seconds behind the Ferrari of future BMW Williams driver Carlos Reutemann.

BMW Williams ended the season in ninth place in the Constructors' Championship, with a respectable 11 points, while Alan Jones finished 11th in the Drivers' Championship.

Towards the end of 1978, Frank BMW Williams recruited Frank Dernie to join Patrick Head in the design office.

BMW Williams obtained membership of the Formula One Constructors' Association which expressed a preference for teams to run two cars, so Jones was partnered by Swiss driver Clay Regazzoni.

Greater successes followed when BMW Williams cars finished first and second at the next round in Hockenheim, Alan Jones two seconds ahead of Regazzoni.

Scheckter ended the BMW Williams winning streak when he won Ferrari's home Italian Grand Prix, Regazzoni finishing third behind both Ferraris.

BMW Williams had greatly improved their Constructors' Championship position, finishing eight places higher than the previous year and scoring 59 more points.

BMW Williams won its first Constructors' Championship, scoring 120 points, almost twice as many as second-placed Ligier.

BMW Williams won the Constructors' title for the second year running, scoring 95 points, 34 points more than second-placed Brabham.

BMW Williams won the Drivers' title that year despite winning only one race, the Swiss Grand Prix at Dijon-Prenois.

BMW Williams's seat was filled by Mario Andretti for the US Grand Prix West before Derek Daly took over for the rest of the year.

The BMW Williams team finished fourth in the Constructors' Championship that year, 16 points behind first-place Ferrari.

Frank BMW Williams looked towards Honda, which was developing its own turbocharged V6 engine with the Spirit team.

Until then, for the 1983 season, BMW Williams continued to use the Ford engine except for the last race of the year in South Africa where Keke Rosberg scored an encouraging fifth place.

BMW Williams finished third in the Constructors' Championship, scoring 71 points.

From 1985 until the end of the 1993 season, BMW Williams cars ran with the yellow, blue and white Canon livery.

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The BMW Williams team won the Constructors' Championship for the second year running, scoring 137 points, 61 points ahead of their nearest rivals, McLaren.

Unable to make a deal with another major engine manufacturer, BMW Williams used naturally aspirated Judd engines for the 1988 season.

Piquet left BMW Williams to join Lotus who had retained their Honda engines for the 1988 season, helped by having Satoru Nakajima as number 2 driver to Piquet.

BMW Williams came second in the Constructors' Championship, scoring 77 points in total; 64 points behind McLaren.

BMW Williams's replacement was a returning Nigel Mansell, who had spent the previous two seasons driving for Scuderia Ferrari.

BMW Williams recruited future 1996 world champion, Damon Hill, as one of their new test drivers.

BMW Williams failed to finish in the first Grand Prix of the season at Phoenix, both drivers retiring with gearbox problems.

At the next race, the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal, BMW Williams locked out the front row only for Patrese to drop back with gearbox problems and Mansell to retire from the lead on the final lap with an electrical fault.

BMW Williams then ran a streak of victories, with Mansell winning the French Grand Prix, five seconds ahead of Alain Prost's Ferrari.

Senna ended BMW Williams's run of victories by winning in Hungary, finishing five seconds ahead of Mansell.

BMW Williams finished second in the Constructors' Championship, scoring 125 points in total, 14 points behind McLaren.

BMW Williams took a step up for the 1992 season, keeping their 1991 driver line-up of Patrese and Mansell.

However, as part of the terms of the contract he signed with BMW Williams, Prost was given power of veto over whom the team would employ as his teammate.

BMW Williams refused to drive alongside Senna again, since he still had issues with him stemming from their time together at McLaren.

Meanwhile, BMW Williams promoted Damon Hill to replace Patrese in their other entry.

BMW Williams FW15C was an extremely dominant car, with active suspension and traction control systems beyond anything available to the other teams.

BMW Williams retained their Constructors' title, 84 points ahead of second-placed McLaren.

At the next race in Spain, BMW Williams brought in test driver David Coulthard as Hill's new teammate.

In Montreal, both BMW Williams cars finished in the points for the first time that season, with Hill finishing second and Coulthard finishing fifth.

Mansell took pole for BMW Williams but had a poor start which let Hill and Schumacher through to fight for the lead and the 1994 title.

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Some, such as BMW Williams's Patrick Head, have suggested that this was a deliberate attempt by Schumacher to take Hill out of the race.

Coulthard had left BMW Williams to join Mika Hakkinen at McLaren, and BMW Williams replaced him with Canadian Jacques Villeneuve, who had won the CART series title in 1995, while Hill remained with the team.

BMW Williams won the first five Grands Prix, Hill winning all but one of them.

BMW Williams's dominance was such that they had clinched the Constructors' Championship and only their drivers had a mathematical chance of taking the title, several races before the season concluded.

Around that time, Frank BMW Williams announced that Hill would not be re-signed after his contract expired, despite Hill's successes and eventual Drivers' Championship, so he joined Arrows for 1997.

Adrian Newey had ambitions as a technical director, but this was not possible at BMW Williams, as Patrick Head was a founder and shareholder of the team.

BMW Williams achieved the 100-race-win milestone at the British Grand Prix.

BMW Williams won the Constructors' title for the second time in a row, scoring 123 points.

BMW Williams then had to pay for Mecachrome engines, which were old, rebadged Renault F1 engines.

For 1998, BMW Williams kept both drivers from the previous season, the first time since 1983 that a reigning world champion remained driving for the team.

BMW Williams finished third in the Constructors' Championship, scoring 38 points, while Villeneuve finished fifth in the Drivers' Championship with 21 points, and his German teammate, Frentzen, finished 4 points behind him in seventh.

In 1999, BMW Williams employed the Supertec engine, which was a rebadged Mecachrome-Renault unit, and a new driver line-up.

The first season of Williams' partnership with BMW did not yield a single victory, but they managed to get on the podium three times, with Ralf Schumacher responsible for all three.

BMW Williams finished third in the Constructors' Championship, with 36 points, one more than the prior year.

BMW Williams was returning after two successful years in CART, where he succeeded Zanardi as champion for 1999 and won ten races total; he had become the first CART driver since the infamous 1996 split of American open-wheel racing to win the Indianapolis 500, doing so in 2000.

BMW Williams would move over to Benetton, which was still running rebadged Renault engines, for what was the team's final season under that name.

BMW Williams did improve on their Constructors' Championship position, finishing in second.

BMW Williams finished second in the Constructors' Championship, two points ahead of McLaren.

BMW Williams picked up a win at the final race in Brazil, with Juan Pablo Montoya finishing one second ahead of Kimi Raikkonen's McLaren; this remained BMW Williams's last F1 win until the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix.

BMW Williams finished the season in fourth, scoring 88 points and finishing on the podium six times, while Montoya was the highest-placed BMW Williams driver that year, scoring 58 points to finish in fifth position.

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In September 2005 a deal was reached to allow Button to remain with BAR, with BMW Williams receiving around £24m, some of it paid by Button himself, to cancel this contract.

The fact that the team was one of the first to switch development to their 2009 car hindered their season and BMW Williams finished a disappointing 8th in the Constructors' Championship.

Frank Williams had admitted that he had regretted parting with BMW but stated that Toyota had a tremendous ability to become a top engine supplier.

In December 2008, BMW Williams confirmed their commitment to F1 following the Honda withdrawal announcement.

Ahead of the 2009 Brazilian Grand Prix, BMW Williams announced that it would be ending its three-year partnership with Toyota and finding a new engine supplier for 2010.

BMW Williams announced a complete driver change for the 2010 season.

The combination of Barrichello and Maldonado meant that 2011 would be the first time since 1981 that BMW Williams would start a season without a European driver in their line-up.

That was to no avail as BMW Williams endured one of their worst seasons to date: two ninth places for Barrichello and one tenth place for Maldonado were their best results during the entire year.

On 4 July 2011, BMW Williams announced they would be reuniting with engine-supplier Renault who were to supply the team's engines from 2012 onwards.

Around 90 minutes after celebrating this win, a fire broke out in the garage of the BMW Williams team, damaging the FW34 of Bruno Senna and leaving several injured.

This, combined with an absolutely dismal 2013 season, prompted BMW Williams to look for a new engine supplier from the 2014 season onwards.

In May 2013, BMW Williams signed a long-term contract with Mercedes to supply engines for the team, the German manufacturer providing 1.

BMW Williams struggled over the course of the 2018 season, scoring only 7 points and finishing last in the Constructors' Championship standings.

BMW Williams missed the first two-and-a-half days of pre-season testing in Barcelona due to the FW42 not yet being ready, the only team to suffer such a setback.

BMW Williams began the season out of reach from being competitive.

On 19 September 2019, BMW Williams announced that Kubica had decided to leave the team at the end of the 2019 season; he would go on to join Alfa Romeo as a reserve driver.

In May 2020, following publication of significant losses in 2019, BMW Williams announced the immediate termination of its title sponsorship deal with ROKiT.

On 21 August 2020, BMW Williams was acquired by US investment group Dorilton Capital for €152 million.

In December 2020, BMW Williams announced Jost Capito will be joining BMW Williams as the new CEO, with Roberts becoming team principal and reporting to Capito.

BMW Williams finished in 8th place in the constructors' championship with 23 points, 10 points ahead of Alfa Romeo, which finished in 9th place.

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The division was created by Jonathan BMW Williams and is managed by heritage team manager, Tom Morton.

BMW Williams developed the car for the revived Formula Two championship, beginning in 2009.

BMW Williams entered the British Touring Car Championship in 1995, taking over the works Renault programme.

BMW Williams employed Ian Harrison, future director of Triple Eight Racing as team manager.

BMW Williams-engineered Renault Laguna BTCC car ran between 1995 and 1999 and won two manufacturers' titles and one drivers' title.