Many, many teams have come and gone in Formula 1. From the UK there’s been Cooper, Tyrrell, March, Arrows, Alta, Benetton, Hesketh and many more, and from elsewhere in the world we’ve seen the names Lancia, Maserati, Porsche, Zakspeed, De Tomaso and Eagle arrive and depart the F1 grid. Even Mercedes took a 55-year hiatus. There’s one team, however, that arrived more than 40 years ago and with grit and determination has stayed in F1 ever since. That team is Williams.
Gallery: Williams F1 through the years
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Team founder Sir Frank Williams first became involved with F1 in the late 1960s, and there was a previous Williams team – sold to become Wolf – before the current version. It wasn’t until 1977 that Williams Grand Prix Engineering, the team the races to this day, was founded. Williams might be going through a difficult spell at the moment, but to have started from nothing and bloomed to achieve nine constructors’ titles, seven drivers’ championships, 114 race wins and 312 podiums is an almost unbelievable achievement.
The Williams driver pool has been pretty tidy, too, with Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill, Alan Jones, Keke Rosberg, Nico Rosberg, Ayrton Senna, Nelson Piquet, Mark Webber, Juan Pablo Montoya and Clay Regazzoni flying the flag for Williams over the years.
So let’s have a look back at Williams through the years, from 1977 to the present day.
Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.
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The first race of Williams Grand Prix Engineering. The Williams March 761 of Patrick Neve at Jarama, Spain, 1977.
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Williams’ first podium at the 1978 US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, with Alan Jones driving the Williams FW06 Ford.
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Alan Jones took Williams’ first F1 weekend triple, with pole position, fastest lap of the race and the race win at the 1979 Canadian Grand Prix.
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Alan Jones taking the win in Canada, 1980, with the FW07B, clinching his and Williams’ first titles.
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The start of the Caesars Palace Grand Prix, Las Vegas, 1981, with the eventual winner Alan Jones and his team-mate Carlos Reutemann leading the pack in their Williams FW07Cs. That’s right, Caesars Palace. Williams won the Constructors' championship at the end of the year.
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Keke Rosberg won the 1982 ‘Swiss GP’ in his Williams FW08 Ford. It was his only win that year but with consistent podiums and points-scoring finishes he became World Champion.
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Keke Rosberg and his Williams FW08C at the 1983 Monaco Grand Prix. It was Williams’ only victory that year.
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Dallas, 1984, and the sole win for Williams and Rosberg that year with the Williams FW09 Honda.
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Nigel Mansell’s first win in F1 came at the 1985 European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch with the Williams FW10. Here he is going round the outside of pole-sitter Ayrton Senna in his Lotus 97T at the start of the race.
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Williams’ second and final one-two finish of the year with the Williams FW11 Honda, Monza, 1986. That year’s Drivers’ title went to Alain Prost, but Williams’ Nigel Mansell came second, his team-mate Nelson Piquet third, and Williams grabbed its third Constructors’ crown.
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Mansell won the second round of the 1987 season with the Williams FW11B, the San Marino GP at Imola. By the end of the year racked a total of six victories, his team-mate Piquet a further four, bringing Williams its fourth Constructors’ title.
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Martin Brundle driving his one and only race for Williams in the FW12 at Spa, 1988, standing in for Nigel Mansell. It was a bad year for Williams, with the team finishing in seventh place come the end of the season.
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Thierry Boutsen drove the FW12C to first place at the 1989 Canadian GP, with team-mate Riccardo Patrese coming home in second. It was Williams first victory since Mexico 1987, and the team’s first one-two since the 1987 British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch.
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Riccardo Patrese approaching the chequered flag at Imola for Williams’ first win of two in 1990 with the Williams FW13B. Thierry Boutsen took the other victory at Hungary later on in the year.
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It was Riccardo Patrese in the Williams FW14 who stood on the top step of the podium for the first time in 1991 at the Mexican Grand Prix. Mansell finished in second, and by the end of the year, with seven wins and 17 podiums between the Williams duo.
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1992 was Mansell’s year with the Williams FW14B. He won the first five races on the bounce, won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone (where the crowd invaded the track to congratulate him…), accumulated nine victories out of 16 races over the course of the season, and only failed to make it to the podium positions when he was forced to retire the car. Mansell was the Drivers’ Champion, Patrese finished as the runner-up and Williams was the number one Constructor.
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A new driver line-up of Damon Hill and Alain Prost, it was Prost who dominated in 1993. A win at the opening round in South Africa was followed by another six victories through the season to Hill’s three. Prost became Champion with the FW15C and Williams was the top Constructor for the sixth time.
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A turbulent season for Williams. Williams won the Constructors’ title with the FW16 but its new driver, the legendary Ayrton Senna, was killed on the seventh lap of the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola. Damon Hill finished the year in second behind Benneton’s Michael Schumacher. David Coulthard was called in for Williams after Senna’s death, with a best finish of second in Portugal, and Nigel Mansell came back to Williams for the final three races of the year, claiming his final F1 win in the last race in Australia.
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David Coulthard’s first win in Formula 1, Portugal, 1995. He also took pole position and the fastest lap of the race in the Williams FW17B. Team-mate Damon Hill finished in second come the end of the season, Coulthard third, and Schumacher for Benneton in first. Williams came second in the Constructor standings.
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