Frank Williams: Racer

"I never look back to the old days when we were struggling and marvel at where we are now," says Frank Williams, "nor do I gloat over any current success. The reason for this is that I am very aware of the vulnerability of it all. And I have great sympathy for smaller teams that are trying to make their way and also for the top teams that find themselves faltering occasionally."

It's hard to believe that the team that is now a charter member of the F1 establishment was once so bad that it was treated as a joke. It helps that Frank Williams has a good sense of humour. He also has great determination, perseverance and resilience, qualities that have helped him survive some terrible setbacks. During his labourious climb to the heights of success at the pinnacle of motorsport he often fell back into deep valleys of failure and despair. Each time he dusted himself and tried again, motivated by his great strength of will and the one fundemental characteristic that defines the man. Above all else, Frank Williams is a racer at heart.

With a racing mentality he is always looking ahead to the next corner, the next challenge, and prefers not to waste time looking in the rear view mirror of time. "I don't like to look back. Life is about the present and the future, and that is what we should concentrate as a team. But there is no question that an understanding of where you come from helps get you where you are going."

Though he was never a great racing driver Williams did plenty of it in the 1960's. He was always short of money and while he was racing saloon cars in club events in England he slept in the back of a van parked in the street of the town of Harrow outside London. Failing to make his mark in saloons he ventured into F3 racing, trailing his car to events around Europe and sleeping in the back of his tow car. He prepared his own machinery, though his mechanical expertise was rudimentary, and his lack of success on the track meant he seldom won any prize money and was only able to scratch out a living from the appearance money paid by the race organizers. To supplement his income he began selling used racing cars and proved himself adept at the wheeling and dealing involved in this enterprise.

"I called myself Frank Williams Racing Cars Limited," he says, "which was just me groping around in the dark, being fairly unsuccessful."

Yet Williams began to make some money when his company branched out into fielding and preparing cars for private owners. Williams also gained experience as a team entrant and manager, roles in which he thrived. In 1968 he linked up with Piers Courage, the wealthy heir of the British brewing company, and their blue liveried Brabham was noted as one of the most immaculate and best-prepared cars in the European F2 series. Always fiercely ambitious, Williams lept at the chance to move to F1 with Courage and in 1969 their Brabham was second in two Grand Prix races. But the next season was one of the worst in Frank Williams' racing life when Courage was killed in the 1970 Dutch GP.

Courage had been driving a De Tomaso F1 car, built by the Italian constructor at great expense. Besides losing one of his best friends Williams now found himself facing a huge debt which would take several years to pay off. Yet he persevered and stayed in F1, at first with paying drivers using customer versions of March cars, and then in 1972 with what was the first Williams-built F1 car. It was called a 'Politoys', in deference to the Italian model car maker which provided some sponsorship. But the money didn't go far enough and in the following seasons the Williams debt mounted progressively with a succession of uncompetitive cars driven by untalented rent-a-drivers. Frank Williams Racing Cars Limited was ridiculed in the paddock (there were rumours that the team only had one engine for two chassis) and the owner was branded a loser.

By 1976 Frank Williams Racing Cars Limited was so desperately short of funds that it became Walter Wolf Racing, when Williams sold out to Walter Wolf, a wealthy Austro-Canadian. Though very much a team player Frank Williams resented being ordered around by his new boss. On one occasion he was forced to miss a Grand Prix while he collected a new Mercedes Benz for Wolf at the factory in Germany. At the end of the season Williams left Walter Wolf Racing and started all over again.

"In 1977 I formed Williams Grand Prix Engineering Limited, with Patrick Head as the chief designer. He had been assistant to Harvey Postlethwaite at Wolf Racing and once Patrick's value to our company became known he became a shareholder and we've been together ever since. From 1978 or '79 we have been a strong frontrunning team, with one or two difficult years, and for the most part we have been fortunate."

Among the misfortunes was the death of Ayrton Senna in a Williams in 1994, "a tragedy which left us all in the depths of despair." An earlier setback was the road accident in 1986 which left Frank Williams partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. It is a tribute to his organizational capabilities that his team never faltered during the year it took him to recover sufficiently to get back to presiding over the company.

When Frank Williams - the racer - offers an explanation of how such adversities are overcome it is apparent that he is speaking for himself, as well as his team. And throughout his company the Williams personnel find inspiration from their leader.

"When we have gone through bad patches we always bounced back. It's quite straightforward why we can do this. Without exception, everyone who works here loves Formula 1 racing, to a varying degree. Most of them are nuts about it - they really adore what they do. They are highly paid, compared to the normal industry equivalents, but the primary motivation is to win. And once you've got that under your belt - once it is burning away in your stomach so to speak - the rest follows. You just push yourself and you arrive at your destination. It sounds like an exaggeration but it isn't. People here are extremely motivated."

Such high motivation has certainly paid off in the record books. Since 1979, when Clay Regazzoni won the British GP in a Williams FW07 (FW is for Frank Williams)and up to the end of 2014, his cars have won 114 F1 races.(Only Ferrari and McLaren have won more). Beginning with the 1980 World Championhip, won by Alan Jones in an FW08, Williams drivers have won the World Championship seven times. Even more important to Frank Williams is the fact that his team has been the best in the world nine times, a Constructors' Championship record second only to Ferrari, which has a 27-year head start on Williams. What, then, is the real secret of his success?

"The secret of my success is the people around me. That's what it takes to develop a strong Formula 1 team. It's all about people. We've grown and evolved over the years, always accumulating high quality people, particularly on the technical side, from whichever discipline we're recruiting from. Of the people who work here about 80% are technical and the rest are split between administration and marketing. 

"As a company, though I am not an engineer, we are engineering-led, with a slight dash of marketing to make sure the money comes in. Marketing is very important these days. It's old-fashioned thinking to say marketing and money have taken the sport downhill. It's the same with any sport. Formula 1 has become commercialized. But because of that very many more people follow it and that is attractive to the sponsors.

"I know from personal experience, some of it quite painful, that Formula 1 has always been a mixture of business and sport. As a businessman my viewpoint is that we must make money in order to re-invest - to stay in business. But of course we're mainly here for the racing. We love Sunday afternoons, and the practice and the qualifying and being close to Grand Prix racing cars. That's what it's all about."

"I certainly never studied management techniques. In fact, I learned on the job, as did many of those in the company. We have as small a vertical a structure as possible so as to have extremely good communication between management and personnel.

"In this business you've got to be flexible and be able to adapt to changing circumstances. The job is never finished and there is lots left to do. Right now, we have much to do to get back on top. I never think of stopping. For one thing, there so many people are employed here that it's not something we could close tomorrow. Besides I might get bored. Not that there's much chance of getting bored. If we get blown away we will just have to fight back, as we have always done. That will surely take us into the next two or three decades!"

His daughter Claire Williams is now deputy team principle, and Patrick Head is less hands on than in the past, but the heart and soul of the team is still Frank Williams.