Frank Williams was trying to gain a foothold in Formula 1 in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Teaming up with fortune seekers, he gets into a car here and there for the Grand Prix and every cent must be flipped. In 1977, Williams made a major breakthrough, when he finally got his own stable at the start of the Grand Prix.
As early as 1980, Williams could unlock champagne for the title when making Alan Jones the team champion. Keke Rosberg and Nelson Piquet followed suit in the years that followed, but the Williams machine didn’t start until 1992. In 92, 93, 96 and 97 the team from Grove took the title with Mansell, Prost, Hill and Villeneuve as drivers respectively. The team’s last victory came in 2012, when Pastor Maldonado surprisingly won the Spanish Grand Prix.
In recent years the team has unfortunately slipped into the tail of the Formula 1 grid. 2019 was the final bottom line for the racing stable. It started early, when the team appeared two days late on test days in Barcelona and lost a lot of their precious test time and data. Partly because of this, the team has been behind all year and has always been at the back of the net. One meager point was collected at the World Cup in 2019.
In 2020, the racing stable was put up for sale by the Williams family and in the middle of the season the family disappeared from the picture. Dorilton Capital, an investment firm, acquired the team and Williams immediately called the team. However, the name still stands to this day and the new owners want to relive the glory days.
Investing was made immediately in the facilities, which were rather outdated in some places. The performance was a little better last year, but the team still lags behind and fails to score a single point. With 2021 being the last transition year, Groven will have to contend for the podium again from 2022 and who knows, maybe even the titles. They are doing it again this year with Russell and Latif as drivers.
