Frank Williams - a man of steel

Frank Williams died on Sunday aged 79, his family said in a statement. The eponymous team he founded, still the second most successful in terms of constructors' championships and third oldest, was sold to U.S.-based Dorilton Capital last year.

Sir Frank Williams and Max Mosley. Credit Motorsport Images.

In the late ‘70s we witnessed the birth of plenty of racing teams that, in one way or another, ended up being lost forever or failing in front of monsters like Ferrari, McLaren and Lotus (to name but a few). Running a F1 team is extremely difficult, but doing it from a wheelchair becomes something epic. Frank Williams forgot for decades his disability jumping around the five continents to look after his creation.

Patrick Head and Frank Williams at Brands Hatch in 1978. Copyright by Rainer W. Schlegelmilch.

Man of exceptional mettle, assisted by a good partner like Patrick Head, in the ‘90s binds his greatest hits to the brain of a designer that we know today: Adrian Newey. From his pencil is born a single-seater on the verge of perfection, the high-tech FW14, that brings pole position and wins all the time.

Sir Francis Owen Garbett "Frank" Williams CBE (born 16 April 1942) was an English businessman and former driver and mechanic. He was a founder and team principal of the Williams Formula One racing team. Born in South Shields, County Durham, England, he was the son of a serving RAF officer and a special education teacher (and later headmistress). After a brief career as a driver and mechanic, funded by his work as a travelling grocery salesman, Williams founded Frank Williams Racing Cars in 1966.

Frank Williams, first Formula 1 car.

The team's first win came in 1979 when Clay Regazzoni drove the Cosworth powered Williams FW07 to victory at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Team boss Frank Williams and engineer Frank Dernie with Williams driver Alan Jones at Imola in 1981. Copyright by Rainer W. Schlegelmilch.

Their first Drivers' and Constructors' championships both came in 1980 with Australian Alan Jones winning the drivers' championship and the team winning the constructors title by 54 points. Between 1981 and 1997, the team won six more drivers' championships and eight more constructors' championships. On 2 March 2012, Williams announced he will be stepping down from the board of Williams F1 and would be replaced by his daughter Claire, although he would still remain with the team in the role of Team Principal. Williams has used a wheelchair since becoming tetraplegic after a car accident in France on 6 March 1986. He was driving with team sponsorship manager Peter Windsor in a rented Ford Sierra from the Paul Ricard Circuit to Nice airport when the incident happened. Williams had been at the circuit to watch the testing of the team's new F1 car. But as a keen long distance runner, he was returning to the airport following the trials because he wished to compete in a fun run in London the next day. During the drive to the airport, Williams lost control of the rental car on a slight left hand kink in the road causing it to leave the highway. An 8 ft (2.4 m) drop between the road and a field caused the car to roll onto the driver's side (left hand drive). Williams suffered a spinal fracture between the 4th and 5th vertebra after being pressed between his seat and the crushed roof. Windsor sustained only minor injuries.

Young Ayrton and Sir Frank Williams.

In May 1994, following the death of Ayrton Senna in the FW16 at Imola, Williams was charged with manslaughter in accordance with Italian law, but he was acquitted after several years. Since Senna's death, all his F1 cars have carried a tribute to Senna featuring a small Senna "S" logo. Every chassis since the FW17 had the logo on the front wing supports or nearby. Rumors surfaced that it would be dropped for 2012 but was quickly denied by Williams.

Frank Williams with Susie Wolff and Claire Williams.

Perhaps Frank has to give some explanation to Senna and, as we know Ayrton, it won’t be so easy ...

Williams F1 team with humble beginnings is still going strong at the age of 40 thanks to the man whose vision and determination brought a series of championship titles. The reason Williams is still here is because “it is all Frank cares about. F1, this team and going racing’, explains Sir Frank Williams’s daughter and the team’s deputy principal, Claire. She should know, having been born just a year before Williams formed the team that bears his name and which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. McLaren and Ferrari have been racing in Formula One for longer but no man has run an F1 team as long as Williams – it is the single-minded determination his daughter knows so well that has seen them through. Some of the Williams cars have become part of F1 history. Times might have been lean for the team recently but they have every right to revel in their heritage. Williams has steered them to nine constructors’ and seven drivers’ titles and in doing so he has written a unique chapter in motorsport. Few had predicted it when, after seven years of struggle with his first outfit Frank Williams Racing Cars, he restarted with Williams Grand Prix Engineering in 1977. It was a hand-to-mouth affair. Stories of conducting business from a public call box because the phone had been cut off, he has admitted, are true. Equally, it was his wife Virginia, who died in 2013 and was not only at the heart of the team – it was Ginny who insisted they sign Mansell – who in those days kept it going. “If it wasn’t for Mum, Williams wouldn’t exist because she was the one that bankrolled Dad for so many years”, recalls Claire. Not that Williams was profligate, his focus was always racing – sent out for fish and chips, he would return with spark plugs. Some knew such strength of purpose would bear watching. The writer, Nigel Roebuck, recalls a conversation with Ken Tyrrell in 1974: “a lot of people don’t take Frank seriously, but I think they’re wrong”, said Tyrrell. “There’s no one in this paddock who wants to succeed more than he does and if he ever gets himself financially organised, watch out …”.

Frank Williams and Patrick Head (left) during a practice session beside Alan Jones' Williams, at Hockenheim in 1980. Copyright by Rainer W. Schlegelmilch.

Williams duly did get organised and, with his cofounder Patrick Head proving to be the perfect partner, foil and a formidable designer, they proved impossible to ignore.

Frank William doing jogging with Alan Jones.

"Frank was a great guy to drive for. He got the best of me with no threats or promises. You'd throw yourself in a precipice for him." Alan Jones

Alan Jones won four races in 1979 and the title a year later. Claire Williams admits that her father’s dedication to his team came at the cost of some emotional detachment that has been reflected in perceptions of Sir Frank. “A lot of people see Dad and see the poker-faced team boss”, she says. “I’ve had people say to me: ‘that Frank Williams, what’s he like? He looks like a right bastard’. I say: ‘well that’s my dad’. That’s Frank at work: focused, doing a job”. He could also be ruthless, of course, most notably with drivers. “They’re only employees, after all”, he said. “All I care about is Williams Grand Prix Engineering and the points we earn. I don’t care who scores them”. Damon Hill was dispensed with summarily after taking the title in 1996 yet he, as with almost everybody who has been connected with the team, still has only admiration for Williams. “He is single-minded and has given his entire life to creating a team that every year tries to produce the best racing car”, says Hill. “That is his love and his passion and in that sense he is the closest we have to an Enzo Ferrari. Enzo was about the passion and the cars and Frank is absolutely as passionate about his team and his cars as Enzo ever was about his”. In 1986, after the car accident in France that left him paralysed from the neck down, his strength of purpose was shown not only in coming back to lead his team but also in that they were robust enough to carry on while he recovered. At the Marseille hospital where he was being treated, doctors asked permission for his life support machine to be switched off. Ginny refused. "No, Frank wants to live", she said. Six weeks later he appeared in his wheelchair in the pits at Brands Hatch for the British Grand Prix and was given a standing ovation.

Frank Williams and Nigel Mansell.

“The greatest compliment I can give Williams and Sir Frank was the team they put together”, says Mansell. “The depth they had in the organisation when Frank had his accident – and it was devastating for everybody and we all thought the team was going to collapse – but everybody pulled together and the team solidified and became stronger”. Nelson Piquet won the first race after the accident – the season opener in Brazil – and Williams took the constructors’ title that year. The team Frank had built survived the catastrophe, just as they would after Ayrton Senna’s tragic death in 1994. 

Hockenheim, 1981. At Williams pits team boss Frank Williams and engineer Patrick Head check with Alan Jones in the Williams-Cosworth. Copyright by Rainer W. Schlegelmilch.

Team owner Frank Williams and designer Patrick Head of Williams talking to driver Alan Jones, at Zeltweg in 1981. Copyright by Rainer W. Schlegelmilch.

In the Grove factory, he and Head had forged a remarkable organisation. “It’s that consistent love of racing and that comes from Patrick and Frank”, says Paddy Lowe, the team’s technical director now enjoying his second stint with Williams having been integral to Mansell’s 1992 title. “There are many, many engineers within the sport who began their careers at Williams and learned that spirit of racing from Frank and Patrick, including myself, Ross Brawn and Adrian Newey. Frank is obsessed with racing and all that it takes to win. That’s why we are still here after 40 years”. Claire points out Williams remains in pain every day because of the accident. But inevitably he does not dwell on it. “I’ve always been a little boy, always enjoyed speed, that’s how I finished up in a chair – going too fast”, says Williams. Yet stepping away from the team has never been an option and he has remained just as committed even through the leaner years. Their last title was in 1997, the last win, Pastor Maldonado’s at Barcelona in 2012 and they will still be fighting for only the lead in the midfield at Sunday’s British Grand Prix. But Williams still burns with the desire to win. “He has no interest whatsoever in giving up his F1 team”, says Claire. “If he could take it and put it in his coffin with him I think he would. That’s just who he is”. Which has defined the team that still bear his name above the door and is all he has ever wanted. “Aren’t you jealous of what I do – running a grand prix team? It’s a great privilege”, quips Williams with gleam in his eye.

Lady Virginia Williams, “Ginny”, 66, the wife of Formula One motor racing team chief Sir Frank Williams has died after a two-year battle with cancer. 'She had been a rock in Frank's life ever since his car accident'. McLaren chief Ron Dennis pays tribute to a 'truly great lady'. He said: “she was friendly and fun, yet also a tower of strength and intelligence”. The Williams have three children, Claire, Jonathan and Jaime. After her marriage hit trouble, she began a relationship with Frank and, following her divorce, they married in August 1974 in a ceremony hurriedly squeezed in between races. She played a largely uncredited role in helping Frank through his difficult early years in F1, giving up her job and even loaning him money after selling her London apartment before their marriage. She made huge sacrifices as Frank used every spare penny to keep the team going. An inspirational couple indeed.

Frank Williams dead: the team born in a carpet shop, the successes, the accident, the death of Senna. By Giorgio Terruzzi.

Farewell to Sir Frank Williams. He had been hospitalized since Friday. Starting from a second-hand Brabham body he founded a team that has won 9 constructors' championships and 7 drivers with champions such as Jones, Rosberg, Piquet, Mansell, Prost, Hill and Villenueve.

A prized piece of motoring history. This was Sir Frank Williams, who passed away on Sunday at the end of his third life, made up of fatigue and suffering, after that road accident in the south of France in 1986 that paralyzed him, relegating him to a wheelchair. Before that, a frenetic activity, impregnated with racing, speed, castor oil. Three lives, that's it. The first had inside the fury of youthful passion. Hunger and desire to do it, not without a few bad days. The second, which began in 1977, marked by the partnership with a brilliant and enlightened technician, Patrick Head, coincided with the foundation of the Williams Grand Prix Engineering team, destined to win 7 drivers 'world titles and 9 constructors' titles between 1980 and 1997.

Frank had a unique relationship with Italy. He spoke excellent Italian, learned at the end of the 1960s to procure sponsors, often found in Italy, when he came and went from England transporting small single-seaters, engines and spare parts for those who, in these parts, were ready to do anything in order to jumping in a car, the gas pedal at the end of its travel. They jokingly called him Francesco Guglielmi.

Whilst the De Tomaso-Cosworth 505 is being refueled, Piers Courage speaks with team boss Frank Williams at Monte Carlo in 1970. Copyright by Rainer W. Schlegelmilch.

With Alejandro De Tomaso he built an F1 with no luck. It was driven by his friend Piers Courage, who died on the track at Zandvoort, Holland, in 1970; it was the Iso Rivolta who supported him when Williams was struggling above all with debts. It was him to manage the team that would have been taken over by the oilman Walter Wolf in 1976.

The first headquarters of Williams GP Engineering was a former carpet shop: the fabric of the cars was immediately of excellent quality.

Frank Williams had handed over the helm of the team to his daughter Claire, not quite as inspired as her father. His absence was felt by everyone, together with the feeling that the team's destiny was compromised, well before the sale to the American fund Dorilton. He struggled to breathe but gave in to requests for interviews to tell and remember the joyful days, the furious fights between Mansell and Piquet, the underlying pain for the loss of Senna at Imola, with that painful, useless trial that followed, an additional via crucis. Senna, to whom he was the first to offer an F1 for a test in 1983, discovering the talents of that child prodigy.

He was a veteran, protagonist of an era that lives in the memory of old lovers. Two years ago Hamilton took him for a ride at Silverstone in a road Mercedes for the GP. That's the last image we have of Frank Williams.

Frank Williams' emotional passenger ride with Lewis Hamilton is truly wholesome.

It contains the smile of someone who hadn't stopped considering speed a priceless adventure. "They told me to go slow," Lewis said before starting. "You're joking, right?” He replied, “I’m expecting great things”. They had to do just one lap: "let's do another one, please, this is unforgettable for me."

Satisfied, of course, but yes. Have a good journey Sir Frank.

Toto Wolff, Frank Williams and Lewis Hamilton.

Checkered flag for Frank Williams. In the end, the man who lived twice also surrendered, that gentleman with stubborn blue eyes, irreducible but courteous and smiling, wandering around the paddock curved in his slow wheelchair.

Frank Williams in a 2008 image. AFP.

Frank Williams with his daughter Claire in the pits of the 2019 British GP.

Thatcherian, "English before British", a career that began with the sale of groceries.

And then the very serious road accident of Sir Frank on the Côte d'Azur: "because I have always been impatient", he will say.

"I feel the need for speed", so said Williams himself in the documentary dedicated to him, made by Morgan Matthews in 2017.

Sir Frank's greatest quality, as Head always said, was "incredible resilience and motivation, even in the worst situations". Because, as Williams himself said a few years ago, "I'm not good at socializing or having a hobby. Mine is work, it's my passion. And my hobby too."

Frank Williams was one of the greatest Formula 1 protagonists of all time.

Only Ferrari and McLaren have been able to do better than him in the history of motor racing: in over 50 years of belonging to the Formula 1 Circus, Williams has seen one of his drivers climb the top step of the World Championship seven times.

He had started in 1972 as patron of Politoys, a team that three years later would bear his name. In fact, that was his dream. Already in '66 - Beatles and swingin' London era - he had given birth to Williams Racing Cars, Formulas 2 and 3, while Silverstone was the mecca of the roaring engine.

The debut of the Politoys went as expected: off the track and many greetings. He was in a tight spot: little money and a lot of debt. He solved it by selling - seen with today's eyes that look through the prism of politically correct salutism - the soul to whom it should not be sold.

A cigarette sponsor saved the day, the team and a lot of exhaust fumes. But it was only for a little while, less than five years. Eventually the eponymous patron had to give up his creature and be reduced to occupying a former carpet shop to start over. Thus was born Williams Grand Prix Engineering, which then still exists and resists on the circuits of the world, which are no longer just Silverstone, Monza or Nurburgring, but have extended themselves to once unlikely countries.

Frank Williams and Frank Dernie at Jarama in 1980. Copyright by Rainer W. Schlegelmilch.

A golden decade for Williams, the 1980s, which corresponded to a certain decline of Ferrari after the triumph and tragedies of the Villeneuve and Pironi era.

Honda engines and top-class drivers: the technical domination lasted for the whole of the following decade. The average is almost one constructors' championship for every two disputed. Now England also had its own dragon.

Frank Williams and Ayrton Senna.

It was 1994 and that year Fangio was called Ayrton Senna. The fast car was racing on the Imola circuit. He, Senna, apparently complained of a car too demanding for anyone's body. Later it will be said that even the way it was designed was not flawless and that the bottom was not flawless, but it is too late now. At the exit of the Tamburello curve, Senna goes off the track, hits the external structures of the circuit with his right side, a spike enters his helmet. Nothing to do: about ten years after Villeneuve, the Great Circus is crying again for its most handsome boy. For Williams there is also the charge of manslaughter, which however falls on deaf ears.

Speaking of subsequent decline is too much and profoundly wrong: see the satisfactions that fill the books and almanacs. But sure that, with Senna's death, a way of seeing Formula 1 - now less heroic and more technological, colder and less creative - went away.

He himself, Williams, began a slow but progressive disengagement, until he left completely in 2013. But, in fact, it took him twenty years. The roar of the engines is the strongest call in nature, even if it was a cigarette that ignited them for many years.

Williams and Brabham team bosses Frank Williams and Bernie Ecclestone (also head of FOCA), at Zeltweg in 1981. Copyright by Rainer W. Schlegelmilch.

Former Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone paid tribute to the late Frank Williams as a pioneer who helped to build the modern sport and without whom it might have ceased to exist.

Williams came from an era where title-winning teams were run by their founders, men such as Enzo Ferrari, Ken Tyrrell and Lotus boss Colin Chapman who are all long gone.

Bernie Ecclestone with Frank Williams.

"Without those type of people I doubt whether Formula One would have still been going now. Probably Ferrari would have stopped and that would have been it," Ecclestone, 91, told Reuters.

"There's not many of the old-timers floating around now, those that were with the teams when they started”.

"You could buy an engine and a gearbox (in those days). You didn't need to have multi, multi-billions and have 1,000 people working for you."

Frank Williams beside his driver Henri Pescarolo at Zandvoort in 1971. Copyright by Rainer W. Schlegelmilch.

Ecclestone, who took over and ran the Brabham team in the early 1970s, recalled Williams as an old friend who got over life's financial and physical obstacles with charm and determination.

"Frank was a little bit special as a person. And that sort of showed in the way he kept going," he said.

"Things were never really bad as far as Frank was concerned, he never complained about things. He got on with things the best way he could. And that's the reason he was so successful. He was a racer through and through."

Ecclestone recalled the obsessive physical fitness fanatic who, before his accident, would run for miles before dinner but also showed a keen eye for style.

"He was always ahead of the game. He knew about cashmere sweaters when I'd never heard of cashmere. That was Frank," said the British billionaire.

"He'd say to me 'could you lend me 2,000 pounds'. And I'd say yes. And he'd say 'I'll pay you in 10 days'. As sure as anything, Frank would return in 10 days with 2,000 pounds.

"He'd talk about whatever and then, just before he went, he'd say 'I wonder if you could help me? Do you think you could lend me 2,500 pounds? I'll pay you back in 10 days.' And that's how we worked with Frank. I would trust him with my life."

Ecclestone also recalled sitting in hospital, after Williams had been flown back from France to London, with Formula One doctor Professor Sid Watkins.

"I said 'how long's this going to last?' And he (Watkins) said 'I think he'll be here for six months looking at the ceiling'. I said 'is he going to survive all this?' And he said 'I don't think so'. And Sid really knew (the science).

"As usual Frank proved everyone wrong. They don't grow them like Frank any more".

“Sir Frank Williams was one of the kindest people I had the pleasure of meeting in this sport, always had time for me and always without judgment. I feel so honoured to have called him a friend. What he achieved in this sport is something truly special. Until his last days I know he remained a racer and a fighter at heart. I have utmost respect and love for this man and his legacy will live on forever. You will be missed Frank, but I will see you on the other side. My thoughts and prayers are with the Williams family”. Lewis Hamilton

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