Williams is one of the oldest racing teams on the F1 grid. Established in 1978, the team have seen many highs and the lowest of lows. They have won seven drivers’ championships and nine constructors’ championships, 1997 was the last year of Williams brilliance. The team have had many ups and downs since, including the sale of the team and the death of Sir Frank Williams.
The team won their first race at the 1979 British Grand Prix, with Clay Regazzoni behind the wheel. 1980 was the year that Williams won their first drivers’ championship. They went onto to win nine constructors championships between 1980 and 1997, a feat that seemed almost impossible to beat until Ferrari won their tenth championship with Micheal Schumacher at the helm. Alain Prost won his fourth and final drivers’ championship with Williams in 1993 before announcing his retirement. Just after Prost retired from Formula 1, Ayrton Senna was killed at Imola.
Despite reeling from the loss of Senna, Williams won the 1994 constructors championship. 1996 and 1997 gave Williams another two constructors championships. The turn of the century saw a drastic change in Williams competitiveness, due to a range of problems from power packages fading early in the season, to poor pace the team have struggled with ever since. When the team changed to Renault power units there was a hope that things would be better but the hope was shortly crushed. However, in 2014 a combination of excellent chassis, Mercedes power and the driver duo Bottas and Massa, Williams once again began fighting for podiums.
Six years of a variety of driver and car layout combinations didn’t help improve Williams luck. Then the pandemic struck. The team was struggling on and off the grid with poor powers systems and financial issues, this lead to the Williams family selling the team to Dorilton Capital and tightening their connections to engine suppliers Mercedes. The first podium scored in years was overshadowed by the death of founder Sir Frank Williams.
The 2022 season saw a few positives and what looked to be a glimmer of hope but the season ended. Enter 2023 and James Vowles. The FW45 showed the world promise especially in qualifying and on the straights giving the best result of seventh place for Alex Albon in Montreal and Monza 2024. What a season for Williams. It was a tough year right from lights out in Bahrain. There was a handful of heavy crashes for the team throughout the season and we really did not see the impact of these accidents until towards the end of the season when the team were struggling with covering the constant repairs.
A particularly difficult crash involving Logan Sargeant, saw to a rapid replacement for Sargeant’s seat, rookie Franco Colapinto replaced Sargeant for the remainder of the season. 2024 also saw the signing of Carlos Sainz as Alex Albon’s teammate for the 2025 season.
The 2025 season has shown great promise so far with the FW47 being the best package the team has had in years. Proof of this was during the Miami Grand Prix when the car was three tenths off of pole position time. There has been a couple of miscommunication issues as the team adjusts to their new driver Carlos Sainz but the team are making great strides to develop. However, team principal James Vowles has decided that in the teams best interest it would be better to focus resources into the FW48 next season as there is a variety of new regulations coming into play. So here’s to Williams and whatever happens during the rest of the 2025 season.
PHOTO CREDIT: williams-fw19.jpg (300×200) and alex-albon-williams-fw46-logan.jpg (1200×799)
WRITTEN BY: Hannah Mahmood
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this is so well written! I absolutely enjoyed reading this.