At Silverstone, Damon Hill accomplished what had eluded his father, twice Formula One World Champion Graham Hill, by winning the British Grand Prix. [92][93], Despite being offered the chance to stay on as the Williams Team Principal, Claire Williams announced her departure from the team effective after the weekend of the 2020 Italian Grand Prix. Based in the United Kingdom, it is located in a dedicated facility of 3,800 square metres (41,000 sq ft), adjacent to Williams Formula One facilities. Claire Williams, Formula One's only female team boss, will step down after Sunday's Italian Grand Prix with founder Frank also leaving following last month's sale to U.S.-based Dorilton Capital. His replacement was a returning Nigel Mansell, who had spent the previous two seasons driving for Scuderia Ferrari. Speaking on the day of the announcement, Deputy Team Principal Claire Williams said: “The Strategic Review was a useful process to go through and proved that both Formula One and Williams have credibility and value. During the course of the 2004 and 2005 F1 seasons, BMW Motorsport and director Mario Theissen increasingly became publicly critical of the Williams F1 team's inability to create a package capable of winning the Constructors' Championship, or even multiple victories within a single season. [90], On 21 August 2020, Williams was acquired by US investment group Dorilton Capital for €152 million. [49] AT&T was previously involved as minor sponsors with the Jaguar and McLaren teams but moved to Williams following McLaren's announcement of a title sponsorship deal with Vodafone, a competitor of AT&T. He was banned for the next two races, and Hill capitalised on this with wins in Italy and a Williams 1–2 in Portugal. At the sixth round in Montreal, Williams not only scored their first win with the Renault engine but also their first one-two: Thierry Boutsen came first followed by Patrese, resulting in 15 points for Williams's championship campaign. When we started this process, we wanted to find a partner […] 1977  Ferrari Despite this success, Honda ended their partnership with Williams at the end of the year in favour of McLaren and continuing with Lotus. He would eventually return to CART. While Ferrari and McLaren battled for the Constructors' and Drivers' titles, Williams fell to the middle of the field. The Williams Formula 1 team has new owners this week after announcing on its website Friday that Williams Racing has been sold to New York-based investment firm … Hill took the team's first victory of the season, by almost half a minute over Schumacher's Benetton, while Coulthard would retire due to an electrical problem. Lone driver Patrick Nève appeared at 11 races that year, starting with the Spanish Grand Prix. Rosberg and Wurz gave Williams a more productive season in terms of points and, in Montreal, Wurz scored the team's first podium finish since Nick Heidfeld's second-place at the 2005 European Grand Prix. Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE) is the technology and engineering services business of the Williams Group. Prost won the next two Grands Prix at Silverstone and Hockenheim. Around that time, Frank Williams announced that Hill would not be re-signed after his contract expired, despite Hill's successes and eventual Drivers' Championship, so he joined Arrows for 1997. Regazzoni came close to taking the team's first win but finished second, less than a second behind race winner Jody Scheckter. [24] At the next race in Monaco, Damon Hill was the only Williams on the grid, as a mark of respect to Senna,[25] and retired on the first lap. The team won its first pole position since 2012, courtesy of Massa at the Austrian Grand Prix; it was the only time that Mercedes would be beaten to pole position over the course of the 2014 season. [75], On 4 November 2017, Felipe Massa announced his decision to retire from F1. Following the announcement that Wurz would be retiring from the sport,[51] Williams brought in their young test driver Nakajima to drive the second car for them in the final race in Brazil. At the 1997 British Grand Prix, Canadian Jacques Villeneuve scored the team's 100th race victory, making Williams one of only four teams in Formula One, alongside Ferrari, fellow British team McLaren, and Mercedes to win 100 races. Williams Racing, the British Formula 1 team and constructor, has been acquired for $179.5 million by Dorilton Capital, a U.S.-based company known for its long-term approach to investment. Williams finished third in the Constructors' Championship, with 36 points, one more than the prior year. Taking their places were Australian Mark Webber and German Nick Heidfeld. Rosberg's teammate, Reutemann, finished in 15th place having quit Formula One after just two races of the new season. Williams as deputy team principal has handled the day-to-day management of the team at race weekends since she took on the role in 2013 and is the only woman in the role in F1. 2005  Renault Williams Heritage (WH) is the retired chassis and restoration division of Williams F1 (similar to Ferrari F1 Clienti and Classic Team Lotus) that keeps and maintains old retired Williams Formula One chassis that are no longer in racing use or are prepared for historic events and show runs or for the client that used in track. Drivers for Williams have included Australia's Alan Jones; Finland's Keke Rosberg; Britain's Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill, David Coulthard and Jenson Button; Colombia's Juan Pablo Montoya; France's Alain Prost; Brazil's Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna; Italy's Ricardo Patrese; and Canada's Jacques Villeneuve. Montoya finished third in the Drivers' Championship, eight points ahead of Ralf Schumacher, who finished fourth. There were major sponsorship changes for 2000–2005, as Rothmans International had been purchased in 1999 by British American Tobacco (BAT), which owned British American Racing and chose not to renew Rothmans' contract with Williams. The team finished fourth in the Constructors' Championship, scoring 36 points, including a win for Rosberg at the Monaco Grand Prix. [9], In February 2011, Williams F1 announced plans to raise capital through an initial public offering (IPO) on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FWB) in March 2011, with Sir Frank Williams remaining the majority shareholder and team principal after the IPO. Now that he was free and clear to do so without any sort of interference, and that McLaren was going through further issues with engine suppliers, Senna finally was able to fulfill his desire to drive for the two-time defending F1 championship team. [58] Hülkenberg was dropped from the team ahead of the 2011 season, and replaced by Venezuelan newcomer and reigning GP2 Series champion Pastor Maldonado. This was due to the fact that for a big-budget team, Toyota had only managed second place as their best result. Mansell later won the Italian Grand Prix and the Spanish Grand Prix, while Patrese won the Portuguese Grand Prix after Mansell's race was ruined by a botched pitstop in which only three wheel nuts were fitted. [52] During the Winter testing sessions, the team ran six different liveries to celebrate their 30th year in the sport and their 500th Grand Prix.[53]. [39][40] Jenson Button was to have driven for Williams in 2005,[41] but an FIA ruling forced Button to remain with his current team, BAR. [64] The team eventually achieved eighth position in the Formula One World Constructors' Championship. Schumacher and Coulthard had their positions reinstated after appeal, though Benetton and Williams were not awarded their Constructors' points. Hill would retire for the second time in a row after he spun-off in Spain, while his teammate, Villeneuve, took third place. 1963  Lotus This stood as a record until Ferrari surpassed it in 2000. [107], Williams's Advanced Engineering division collaborated with Jaguar Racing in its debut season. In 1979 they had discovered as first team the effect of the diffuser at the back of the car, which made their cars almost 2 seconds a lap faster than all other cars on the grid. The team managed three podiums, all scored by Ralf Schumacher, with third place in Australia and Britain and a second place in Italy. The team began the season with a radical nose-cone design, known as the "Walrus-Nose", that proved uncompetitive and was replaced by a more conventional assembly in Hungary. Over the course of the year, Rosberg was consistently in the points, scoring 20 during the season; in comparison, teammate Wurz finished in the points three times. Prost clinched the Drivers' Championship in Portugal and finished the season 26 points ahead of second-placed Senna. However, considering the budget of some F1 teams, the fee paid was nominal in the greater scheme of things. Meanwhile, Nigel Mansell won the last Grand Prix of his career here, driving the second Williams car. The Renault era started in 1989, with Italian Riccardo Patrese and Belgian Thierry Boutsen at the helm of the two Williams cars. Unlike in the 1992 offseason, Williams was able to sign Ayrton Senna. He did not return to the pit lane for almost a year. [57] Its first official test was on 1 February at Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia. Thus, Gerhard Berger and Ferrari were declared winners. Schumacher was disqualified from second place in the championship as the accident was deemed by the FIA as "avoidable". Alan Jones was the closest driver to the Ferrari duo of Villeneuve and 1979 champion Jody Scheckter; Jones scored 43 points, 17 behind Scheckter, while Jones's teammate, Regazzoni, was two places behind him with 32 points. Williams then ran a streak of victories, with Mansell winning the French Grand Prix, five seconds ahead of Alain Prost's Ferrari. The new team failed to score a point, achieving a best finish of 7th at the Italian Grand Prix.[14]. 2007  Ferrari [66] Maldonado was retained by the team for 2013 and was joined by Bottas, promoted from his role as test driver. [citation needed] In a cross-promotion of this technological partnership, a worldwide television commercial featured drivers Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya seemingly driving their BMW Williams cars around a track by radio control from a grandstand.[33]. [108] Williams have a contract to supply the battery system for the Gen 3 Car from the 2022 Formula E Championship. 1996 was a more difficult year with the front-wheel-drive cars outclassed by the 4WD Audi A4s of Frank Biela and John Bintcliffe. [17] The team's first win came at the British Grand Prix – their home Grand Prix – when Regazzoni finished almost 25 seconds ahead of anyone else. Williams Advanced Engineering had a technology centre in Qatar until it was closed in 2014. At the next race in Spain, Williams brought in test driver David Coulthard as Hill's new teammate. The V12 LMR won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1999. For the 2005 season, Schumacher moved to Toyota, while Montoya moved to McLaren. 2002  Ferrari 1976  Ferrari Although World Championship races held in 1952 and 1953 were run to Formula Two regulations, constructors who only participated during this period are included herein to maintain Championship continuity. They repeated this feat in the 2015 season, despite a low-key season owing to the resurgence of Ferrari. Claire Williams is confident the team's new owners have the financial firepower and wherewithal to take the former champions up the field, although … Mansell then won again at the British Grand Prix; it had been four years since a Briton had won the Grand Prix, Mansell having won it in 1987. Williams F1, 25/03/2021 12:01: 1 : Williams F1 25/03/2021 12:01: Bahrain GP: Williams Racing Grand Prix Preview Williams F1, 25/03/2021 08:23: 1 : Williams F1 25/03/2021 08:23: Williams Racing appoints Demaison as Technical Director Williams F1, 23/03/2021 10:36: 18 : Mr Brooksy 23/03/2021 22:55: Williams Racing where to now? Although the FW41 rarely suffered from reliability issues, it was significantly off the pace; the team's highest finish was Lance Stroll's 8th-place finish in Azerbaijan. Ralf Schumacher finished fifth in the Drivers' Championship, while Button, in his debut season, finished in eighth. [100], WAE generated revenues of £10.9m in fiscal year 2014–15, with profits of £1m.[101]. BMW paid for Williams cars to be entirely in blue and white – unlike the standard motorsport livery scheme, dominated by the colours of the team or major sponsors with the logos of minor sponsors in their own colour schemes. Until then, for the 1983 season, Williams continued to use the Ford engine except for the last race of the year in South Africa where Keke Rosberg scored an encouraging fifth place. [61] In January 2012, it was confirmed that Bruno Senna would be the driver to partner Maldonado, effectively ending Rubens Barrichello's F1 career. These cookies are essential to provide this service or other features. 1997  Williams Alain Prost ended his year-long sabbatical from competition following his 1991 firing by Scuderia Ferrari, and Williams was interested in bringing him in. Williams Hybrid Power (WHP) was the division of Williams F1 that developed electromechanical flywheels for mobile applications such as buses, trams and high-performance endurance-racing cars. 1973  Lotus The team's first race was the 1977 Spanish Grand Prix, where the new team ran a March chassis for Patrick Nève. Its registered office is at Grove, Wantage, Oxfordshire, OX12 0DQ. His seat was filled by Mario Andretti for the US Grand Prix West before Derek Daly took over for the rest of the year. The division's headquarters are located at the Formula One team's Grove site and also manages and looks after the Williams Grand Prix collection. I hope Liberty/FIA has the gumption in the new 2021/2025/2029 regulations to ban the Haas and B team ‘constructor’ model and restore the garagista ethos.