Williams, soon to turn 69, insists he 'will have endless energy for a long time to come' the 65-year-old Head, however, retires this year, fuelled by his share of the £59m the pair plan to pocket from the flotation, which as post‑retirement spending money goes certainly beats the winter fuel allowance. 'The engineers are very happy, the drivers too.' And, thanks largely to his arrival, the bank manager.Īdapt to survive The FW33's USP is the gearbox, the smallest in the history of Formula One and one of a number of changes to the back of the car – not least of which is the arrival of the word Venezuela, plastered on the back of the rear wing since the arrival of Maldonado and an entirely coincidental massively lucrative sponsorship agreement with the country's state-owned oil company.ĭriving force Williams and Head – but not for long. Gesture politics With the pit lane increasingly packed with a new generation of engineering talent, look out for one of the Williams old guard attempting an unconvincing novelty 'youth' handshake with someone young enough to be their grandchild.Ī full and proper coalition? 'We're like a big family,' said Pastor Maldonado, the new Venezuelan driver, when he joined the team.

True, they did enjoy one pole position last season – secured by Nico Hülkenberg in Brazil – but there are probably more effective ways of encouraging a repeat than the one they chose: the German was sacked eight days later. We predict The only way that this season's going to see them getting back to the front of the grid is if the grid's looked at back to front. 'We know that won't be easy, but we hope this car will take us closer to the leaders than we were in 2010.' They predict 'Our ambition is to get back to the front of the grid,' Williams himself says. Williams became Formula One's first publicly owned team when they floated on the Frankfurt stock exchange just before the start of the season, though only 27.39% of the company was actually up for grabs.

In 1978 he and Patrick Head set up together in a disused carpet warehouse in Didcot and the rest is history.įuelled by German investors.

In the rear-view mirror Frank Williams built the team from nothing, famously having to commandeer a Slough telephone box as his makeshift office in the early 70s because he couldn't afford his own line.

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