89 Facts About Williams Racing

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

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

Drivers for Williams Racing 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.

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

In May 2020, Williams Racing 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 Williams Racing 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, Williams Racing F1 announced plans to raise capital through an initial public offering on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in March 2011, with Sir Frank Williams Racing remaining the majority shareholder and team principal after the IPO.

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

Williams Racing 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.

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

Williams Racing 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 Williams Racing recruited Frank Dernie to join Patrick Head in the design office.

Williams Racing 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 Williams Racing cars finished first and second at the next round in Hockenheim, Alan Jones two seconds ahead of Regazzoni.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until then, for the 1983 season, Williams Racing 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.

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

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

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The Williams Racing 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, Williams Racing used naturally aspirated Judd engines for the 1988 season.

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

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

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

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

Williams Racing 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, Williams Racing 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.

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

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

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

Williams Racing 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 Williams Racing, Prost was given power of veto over whom the team would employ as his teammate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mansell took pole for Williams Racing 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 Williams Racing's Patrick Head, have suggested that this was a deliberate attempt by Schumacher to take Hill out of the race.

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

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

Williams Racing'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 Williams Racing 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 Williams Racing, as Patrick Head was a founder and shareholder of the team.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Williams Racing 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.

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

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

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

Williams Racing 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 Williams Racing's last F1 win until the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix.

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

Williams Racing opted for Cosworth V8 engines for the 2006 which saw Nico Rosberg replace German Nick Heidfeld, who departed for BMW Sauber, while Mark Webber stayed on with the team.

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In September 2005 a deal was reached to allow Button to remain with BAR, with Williams Racing 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 Williams Racing finished a disappointing 8th in the Constructors' Championship.

Frank Williams Racing 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, Williams Racing confirmed their commitment to F1 following the Honda withdrawal announcement.

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

Williams Racing 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 Williams Racing would start a season without a European driver in their line-up.

That was to no avail as Williams Racing 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, Williams Racing 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 Williams Racing team, damaging the FW34 of Bruno Senna and leaving several injured.

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

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

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

Williams Racing 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.

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

On 19 September 2019, Williams Racing 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, Williams Racing announced the immediate termination of its title sponsorship deal with ROKiT.

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

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

Williams Racing 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 Williams Racing and is managed by heritage team manager, Tom Morton.

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

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

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