Sir Frank Williams: A career touched by triumph and disaster for one of F1’s last great pioneers

He started his own team back in 1977, with no cash and only a disused carpet warehouse as a base. He conducted business calls from a telephone box because he didn’t have enough money to pay his phone bills.

But for those who knew him and worked with him, his success was not a surprise. His bloody-minded belief that he would succeed, coupled with his strong work ethic, resulted in his team securing 114 victories, and a combined 16 drivers’ and constructors’ world championships.

Williams became the longest-serving team boss in the sport’s history, celebrating 50 years in 2019.

He used all his charm and intellect to convince sponsors that they should fund his fledgling dream. With his closest friend Patrick Head alongside him as the engineering brain, they started to build the foundations of what became a dominant team in the 1980s and 1990s.

Most of the initial investment came from Saudi Arabia and he used the money to hire Alan Jones alongside Clay Regazzoni, who claimed the team’s first victory at the British Grand Prix in 1979.

A year later, the team won the double, claiming their maiden drivers’ and constructors’ championship.

“I think he was one of the giants of the sport. There was a time when individuals could build their own team from scratch and take on the world and he did that,” said Damon Hill, who won the world championship with Williams in 1996.

“He is an absolute legend in everything that he has done. He had so many admirable attributes. He was quite intellectual and multilingual, self-taught, and a custodian of his team. His ambition was to survive and to win. He achieved everything he could possibly do in his span. I mean, to come back from his injuries and to keep running the team like he did was a measure of his guts really.”

Williams’ life was not just triumph. He was also visited by disaster. The two impostors fought throughout his life.

As his Formula One team was enjoying success on track, Williams was in a road crash in 1986, which left him paralysed from the neck down.

That was followed eight years later by one of the darkest days in the Williams F1 team’s history. Williams had signed Ayrton Senna to drive for him in 1994. The Brazilian had long been a target of Williams and to have finally secured his services was a highlight for the team principal, yet just three races later, Senna fatally crashed.

Williams was charged with manslaughter after the crash in the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix but was cleared of all charges in 1997.

The exact cause of the crash is still unknown and Williams daughter, Claire, who took over the running of the team in 2013 when her dad stepped back, spoke a few years ago to recall how her father never spoke of that day.

“Frank never spoke to anyone about it. But you can see the pain in his eyes every time he thinks about the accident,” Claire said on the 25th anniversary of Senna’s death.

“In the Williams film (released in 2017) there is a scene where Frank is at Ayrton’s funeral, and I have never seen my dad look like that. There is an extraordinary line where he is asked how he felt that day, and he just says: ‘Far from well’.

“I think that says it all. I am sure he felt far from well for many, many, many years, and still today he won’t talk about him.”

Formula One was about so much more than what happened on the track and, as Bernie Ecclestone transformed the sport from amateur to a global multi-billion pound business, Williams found himself having to manoeuvre the so-called “piranha club” - something he never struggled with.

“I think he always had a good relationship, but a tough relationship, with Bernie, but he was very clever politically,” Hill said. “He was very clear and astute at making sure that he didn’t get on the wrong side when he needed to be but was strong enough to stand his ground against all the others as well.

“A politician, an astute person, in surviving the politics of the piranha club. He kept his own counsel. It was a one-way valve. Information went in, and nothing came out. You were none the wiser really after talking to him.”

Williams was not one of life’s great communicators and found drivers to be an extravagant expense rather than the star of the team as they are portrayed now. “He had his own cheeky sense of humour but mostly he was quite a closed book,” Hill said.

“I found conversation with Frank always a bit one-sided. He enjoyed racing. He enjoyed the cut and thrust of it all. The way he looked at it was drivers are an unfortunate expense and that the money could be very much better spent on a car, but if he had to have drivers, he would give them a fair wage. I think I was slightly in awe of Frank. I found him quite impenetrable.”

Hill was told that he wouldn’t have his contract renewed midway through the 1996 season, even though he went on to win the world championship. Despite that, Hill’s memories remain fond of his time at Grove and his relationship with Williams improved over time.

“He called me a tough bastard once, which I took as a compliment. I am not sure how that works, but anyway, coming from him I thought that was a bit of a feather in my cap,” Hill said.

“I tell you what, it was a pleasure [to work there]. It was always thrilling and honest. I think you got an honest appraisal from him rather than the kind of stuff you can get when it’s not being direct. So I prefer that.”

Williams will be remembered as one of the sport’s last great pioneers.

-The Times