The British Grand Prix at Silverstone this weekend marks the 600th race for the Williams F1 team. They have had highs and lows throughout their illustrious history; we take a look back at one of their most successful years in the sport…
It was in 1992 that the Williams F1 team regained their dominance of the Formula 1 World, winning both the Constructors’ Championship (for the first time since 1987), and Drivers’ Championship with British driver Nigel Mansell.
After being dominant in the mid 1980’s Williams came down to earth with a bump when Honda, the engine supplier with whom they had enjoyed a successful partnership just a year earlier, pulled out of their deal prior to the 1988 season. This was rumoured to be down to Frank Williams refusing to replace Nigel Mansell with Japanese driver Satoru Nakajima who was highly favoured by Honda at the time and received strong backing from the Japanese outfit. When Williams would not comply with their demands, Honda moved their interests to McLaren. This was not something Williams had been expecting and the short notice meant a quick replacement was needed. With no time to get a big engine manufacturer onboard they opted for the Judd V8 engines, which were naturally aspirated rather than turbo-powered. Whilst Judd were an okay interim option they were definitely not a positive or permanent replacement and their performance dipped dramatically - the Judd engine just could not produce the power generated by the turbo engines. Williams suddenly found themselves at the back of the grid and at the end of the season lost Nigel Mansell to Ferrari.
Following that abysmal year, Frank Williams struck an exclusive deal with Renault to supply the outfit with engines for the 1989 season. It was to be Renault’s comeback to F1 after two years out of the sport, and they were determined to make an impact. The William’s cars got an instant boost in performance from the Renault V10 engines and although they were competitive in both the 1989 and 1990 seasons, they did not quite hit that peak in performance that everyone had hoped for. Frank Williams looked for inspiration in the form of a new designer.
They got that in abundance when they employed the services of Adrian Newey mid-way through the 1990 season. Newey lead for March/Leyton House as a Chief Designer, but with a limited budget his creative genius had been somewhat stifled and his true potential had not yet been realised. At Williams, where money was not an issue, Newey was able to let his ideas flow and put them into action with devastating effect. A Technical Department consisting of Newey’s genius along with Patrick Head’s experience was a lethal combination and proved to be a winning one for the Williams-Renault Team. Newey’s first masterpiece was FW14 - a car impressive enough to lure Nigel Mansell out of retirement and into the Williams seat for the 1991 season. The car was clearly the fastest on the grid all year long, but it was let down by a number of mechanical failures. This allowed the dominance of Ayrton Senna and McLaren-Honda to continue for one more year.
The next season (1992), however, was payback time. Williams had two very accomplished drivers in Nigel Mansell and Riccardo Patrese. Both had stayed on with the team after narrowly missing out on the Constructors' Championship in 1991 and were confident that the recent modifications to their machines during winter testing would give them the success they craved. What the FW14 morphed into for the 1992 season was a technological masterpiece. The FW14B had a finely tuned active suspension system, semi-automatic gearbox, traction control and anti-lock brakes – in short it was brilliant; any flaws its predecessor had housed in terms of unreliability were now extinct. To this day, it is still regarded as one of the most technologically advanced racing cars ever built, eclipsed only by its next generation model the FW15C.
The FW14B was clearly light years ahead of any other car on the grid at the time and the other teams struggled to match its pace. Mansell and Patrese dominated the majority of races in 1992, consistently finishing a lap ahead of their rivals. Not even the legendary Ayrton Senna could compete against such an advanced specimen of engineering. The gulf between Williams and their nearest rivals was highlighted in all its glory when at the British Grand Prix Nigel Mansell was able to set a pole lap in qualifying that was a full two seconds faster than his teammate Riccardo Patrese, who in turn was two further seconds ahead of third-place man Ayrton Senna.
Mansell won nine out of the sixteen races that season, and by Race 11 in Hungary had wrapped up the Drivers’ Championship title. Teammate Riccardo Patrese took second place overall, and Williams won the Constructors’ Championship 65 points clear of McLaren. Mansell also set the record for the most wins by a driver in one season (at that time) by recording his nine victories (Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel are the only two drivers to have recorded more wins in an F1 season). Williams had truly conquered the field in 1992 and it was just the beginning of their dominance in formula one throughout the nineties.
Thanks to Williams’ success in that decade, they entered the new millennium as the second most successful team in Formula one in terms of Constructors’ Champions (9; only Ferrari has more). The last title of the outfit, however, was in 1997, when Jacques Villeneuve took the WDC and led the Grove-based team to the top of the Constructors’ table. In the recent seasons, however, the legendary outfit has found it difficult to even break into the Top 5 of the Constructors’ Championship. Heading into the British Grand Prix, which Williams drivers have one ten times in the past, the team is yet to record a point in the 2013 Formula 1 season.
Sources: classicandperformancecar.com, Williamsf1.com, FOM
Memory added on January 7, 2015
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