Sir Francis Owen Garbett Williams (16 April 1942 – 28 November 2021) was a British businessman, racing car driver, and the founder of the
Williams Formula One team. He was the team principal from its foundation in 1977 until 2020. During that period, the team won nine constructors' championships and seven drivers' championships.
Early life
On 16 April 1942,
Williams was born in
South Shields,
County Durham. At the time, his father served as an active
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...
officer, while his mother worked as a school teacher. Williams was partly raised by his aunt and uncle in
Jarrow, after the breakdown of his parents' marriage.
He subsequently spent much of his later childhood at a private boarding school,
St Joseph's College, Dumfries
St Joseph's College in Dumfries, South West Scotland, is a Roman Catholic secondary school. It began as a Catholic boys' boarding school run by Marist Brothers.
History
St Joseph's College was founded in 1875 as both a boarding school and th ...
,
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
. In the late 1950s, a friend gave Williams a ride in his
Jaguar XK150
The Jaguar XK150 is a sports car produced by Jaguar between 1957 and 1961 as the successor to the XK140.
Initially it was only available in fixed head coupé (FHC) and drophead coupé (DHC) versions. The roadster without full weather equipmen ...
, which immediately served to catalyse his interest in fast cars.
[Matt Jeffery]
Formula 1 Chronicles: Frank Williams
, Highandbye.com, 21 June 2012
Motorsports career
After a brief career as a driver and mechanic, Williams founded
Frank Williams Racing Cars
Frank Williams Racing Cars was a British Formula One team and constructor.
Early years
Frank Williams had been a motor-racing enthusiast since a young age, and after a career in saloon cars and Formula Three, backed by Williams's shrewd i ...
in 1966, funded by his work as a travelling grocery salesman. He ran drivers, including
Piers Courage
Piers Raymond Courage (27 May 1942 – 21 June 1970) was a British racing driver. He participated in 29 World Championship Formula One Grands Prix, debuting on 2 January 1967. He achieved two podium finishes, and scored 20 championship point ...
, for several years in
Formula Two
Formula Two (F2 or Formula 2) is a type of open-wheel formula racing category first codified in 1948. It was replaced in 1985 by Formula 3000, but revived by the FIA from 2009– 2012 in the form of the FIA Formula Two Championship. The name ...
and
Formula Three
Formula Three, also called Formula 3, abbreviated as F3, is a third-tier class of open-wheel formula racing. The various championships held in Europe, Australia, South America and Asia form an important step for many prospective Formula One dri ...
. Williams purchased a
Brabham Formula One chassis, which Courage drove throughout the
1969 Formula One season
The 1969 Formula One season was the 23rd season of the FIA's Formula One motor racing. It featured the 20th World Championship of Drivers and the 12th International Cup for F1 Manufacturers, which commenced on 1 March 1969 and ended on 19 October ...
, twice finishing in second place.
In 1970, Williams undertook a brief partnership with
Alejandro de Tomaso. After the death of Courage at the
that year's Dutch Grand Prix, Williams's relationship with de Tomaso ended. In 1971, he raced
Henri Pescarolo
Henri Jacques William Pescarolo (born 25 September 1942) is a former racing driver from France. He competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans a record 33 times, winning on four occasions, and won a number of other major sports car events including the 2 ...
with a chassis purchased from
March Engineering
March Engineering was a Formula One constructor and manufacturer of customer racing cars from the United Kingdom. Although only moderately successful in Grand Prix competition, March racing cars enjoyed much better success in other categories ...
; 1972 saw the first F1 car built by the Williams works, the
Politoys FX3 designed by
Len Bailey
Leonard Bailey (25 July 1926 – 23 June 1997) was a British automobile designer.
Career
Leonard Bailey became an apprentice at Austin at Longbridge in 1942 which at that time were building Short Stirlings for the Royal Air Force of World War ...
. Pescarolo crashed and destroyed it at its first race.
Williams, short on cash and conducting team business from a
telephone box
A telephone booth, telephone kiosk, telephone call box, telephone box or public call box is a tiny structure furnished with a payphone and designed for a telephone user's convenience; usually the user steps into the booth and closes the booth ...
after being disconnected for unpaid bills, looked to
Marlboro
Marlboro (, ) is an American brand of cigarettes, currently owned and manufactured by Philip Morris USA (a branch of Altria) within the United States and by Philip Morris International (now separate from Altria) outside the US. The largest Mar ...
and
Iso Rivolta
ISO Rivolta is an Italian car and motorbike manufacturer active in the motor vehicle sector since 1938. Over the years, the company has taken various names, including Isothermos, Iso Autoveicoli Spa in 1952, Iso Rivolta in 1962, Iso Motors in 1 ...
, an Italian car company, for sponsorship. Though they pledged their support, they did not come through in time. In 1976, Williams took on a partner in Canadian oil magnate
Walter Wolf
Walter Wolf (born 5 October 1939) is a Canadian oil-drilling equipment supplier who in the early 1970s made a fortune from the North Sea oil business and decided to join the world of Formula One (F1) motor racing.
Life and career
Wolf was bo ...
. Though the team continued functioning, it no longer belonged to Williams. He left in 1977, along with one of his employees, engineer
Patrick Head
Sir Patrick Michael Head (born 5 June 1946) is a British motorsport executive who is the co-founder and former Engineering Director of the Williams Formula One team. For 27 years from Head was technical director at Williams Grand Prix Engineer ...
. The two partners acquired an empty carpet warehouse in
Didcot, Oxfordshire
Didcot ( ) is a railway town and civil parish in the ceremonial county of Oxfordshire and the historic county of Berkshire. Didcot is south of Oxford, east of Wantage and north west of Reading. The town is noted for its railway heritage, ...
, and announced the formation of
Williams Grand Prix Engineering
Williams Grand Prix Engineering Limited, currently racing in Formula One as Williams Racing, is a British Formula One motor racing team and constructor. It was founded by former team owner Frank Williams and automotive engineer Patrick Hea ...
, a new team to compete in
Formula One
Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...
.
The team's first win came when
Clay Regazzoni
Gianclaudio Giuseppe "Clay" Regazzoni (5 September 1939 – 15 December 2006) was a Swiss racing driver. He competed in Formula One races from 1970 to 1980, winning five Grands Prix. His first win was the Italian Grand Prix at Monza in his debu ...
drove the
Cosworth-powered
Williams FW07
The Williams FW07 was a ground effect Formula One racing car designed by Patrick Head, Frank Dernie, and Neil Oatley for the 1979 F1 season.
Design
1979
It was closely based on the Lotus 79, even being developed in the same wind tunnel at ...
to victory at the
1979 British Grand Prix
The 1979 British Grand Prix (formally the XXXII Marlboro British Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held at Silverstone on 14 July 1979. It was the ninth race of the 1979 World Championship of F1 Drivers and the 1979 International Cup for ...
at
Silverstone. Their first
Drivers' Championship and
Constructors' Championship both came in 1980, with the Australian
Alan Jones winning the drivers' title. Between 1981 and 1997, the team won six more drivers' championships and eight more constructors' championships. He also oversaw the team claim a total of 114 Grand Prix victories.
In May 1994, following the
death of Ayrton Senna in the
Williams FW16
The Williams FW16 is a Formula One car designed by Adrian Newey for the British Williams team. The FW16 competed in the 1994 Formula One season, with Williams winning the Constructor's Championship, and British driver Damon Hill finishing run ...
at
Imola
Imola (; rgn, Jômla or ) is a city and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Bologna, located on the river Santerno, in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. The city is traditionally considered the western entrance to the historical ...
, Williams was charged with manslaughter in Italy, but was acquitted after several years. After Senna's death, every chassis from the 1995
Williams FW17
The Williams FW17 is a Formula One racing car designed by Adrian Newey, with which the Williams team competed in the 1995 Formula One World Championship. It was driven by Damon Hill, who was in his third year with the team, and David Coulthard, ...
until 2012 carried a tribute in the form of a small Senna logo on its front wing supports, or nearby.
In March 2012, Williams announced he would be stepping down from the board of Williams F1 and would be replaced by his daughter
Claire Williams
Claire Victoria Williams (born 21 July 1976) is a British former motorsport executive who was the deputy team principal of the Williams Formula One racing team from 2013 to 2020.
Early life
Claire Williams was born in 1976 in Windsor, Berks ...
, although he would still remain with the team in the role of team principal. Williams ceased to have any involvement with the Williams team when it was sold in September 2020.
Personal life and death
Williams met Virginia Berry in 1967. They married in 1974.
They had two sons, Jonathan and Jaime, and a daughter, Claire, who would go on to become the deputy team principal of his future Formula One team
Williams Grand Prix Engineering
Williams Grand Prix Engineering Limited, currently racing in Formula One as Williams Racing, is a British Formula One motor racing team and constructor. It was founded by former team owner Frank Williams and automotive engineer Patrick Hea ...
.
Williams used a wheelchair since a car accident in the South of France, on 8 March 1986, rendered him
tetraplegic
Tetraplegia, also known as quadriplegia, is defined as the dysfunction or loss of motor and/or sensory function in the cervical area of the spinal cord. A loss of motor function can present as either weakness or paralysis leading to partial or ...
. He was driving with team sponsorship manager
Peter Windsor
Peter David Windsor (born 11 April 1952) is a Formula One journalist, and former Formula One team and sponsorship manager.
Windsor started his journalism career at the now defunct monthly magazine ''Competition Car''. He was the motorsport edi ...
in a hired
Ford Sierra
The Ford Sierra is a mid-size car or large family car manufactured and marketed by Ford Europe from 1982-1993, designed by Uwe Bahnsen, Robert Lutz and Patrick le Quément — and noted for its aerodynamic styling producing a drag coeffi ...
1600 family saloon car from the
Paul Ricard Circuit
The Circuit Paul Ricard () is a French motorsport race track built in 1969 at Le Castellet, Var, near Marseille, with finance from pastis magnate Paul Ricard. Ricard wanted to experience the challenge of building a racetrack. The circuit has h ...
to
Nice Côte d'Azur Airport
Nice Côte d'Azur Airport (french: link=no, Aéroport Nice Côte d'Azur) is an international airport located southwest of Nice, in the Alpes-Maritimes ''départment'' of France. It is the third busiest airport in France and serves as a foc ...
when the incident happened. Williams had been at the circuit to watch the testing of the team's new
Williams FW11
The Williams FW11 was a Formula One car designed by Frank Dernie as a serious challenger to McLaren and their MP4/2C car. The car took over from where the FW10 left off at the end of , when that car won the last three races of the season. The ...
, but as a keen long-distance runner, he was returning to the airport following the trials because he wished to compete in a half marathon in London the next day.
During the drive to the airport, he lost control of the hire car on a slight left-hand kink in the road, clipping a low stone wall, causing the vehicle to leave the highway. An drop between the road and a field caused the car to roll onto the driver's side. Williams remained conscious but was immediately aware that he could not move and feared fire due to fuel spillage. After being pressed between his seat and the crushed roof, he suffered a spinal fracture between the fourth and fifth vertebra. Windsor, who had sustained only minor injuries, extracted Williams from the vehicle while waiting for the emergency services.
Virginia flew with Patrick Head to the French hospital and believed that Williams was about to die. She organised his urgent repatriation to England, where doctors at Royal London Hospital
The Royal London Hospital is a large teaching hospital in Whitechapel in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is part of Barts Health NHS Trust. It provides district general hospital services for the City of London and Tower Hamlets and s ...
performed a tracheotomy
Tracheotomy (, ), or tracheostomy, is a surgical airway management procedure which consists of making an incision (cut) on the anterior aspect (front) of the neck and opening a direct airway through an incision in the trachea (windpipe). The r ...
, which then allowed his lungs to be drained of fluid, almost certainly saving his life. Williams required constant care and physical dependence on others as a consequence of the accident.
Virginia wrote an autobiographical book published in 1991, ''A Different Kind of Life'', in which she describes her experiences in the Formula One team's formative years and her husband's near-fatal accident. For his part, Williams decided not to read her account during her lifetime, preferring to leave the past in the past. She was diagnosed with cancer in 2010, and died on 7 March 2013, at the age of 66.
Williams was admitted to hospital in Surrey on 26 November 2021, and died two days later, on the morning of 28 November, at the age of 79.
Honours
Williams was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...
(CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in the 1987 New Year Honours
The New Year Honours 1987 were appointments by most of the Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries, and honorary ones to citizens of other countries ...
, and received a knighthood
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the ...
in the 1999 New Year Honours
The New Year Honours 1999 for various Commonwealth realms were announced on 30 December 1998, to celebrate the year passed and mark the beginning of 1999. The ''Honours list'' is a list of people who have been awarded one of the various orders, d ...
"For services to the Motor Sport Industry." He was appointed a Knight of the Legion of Honour by France, for his work with Renault F1
The French automotive manufacturer Renault has been associated with Formula One as both team owner and engine manufacturer for various periods since 1977. In 1977, the company entered Formula One as a constructor, introducing the turbo engine ...
's engines. Williams received the Wheatcroft Trophy in 2008, in recognition of his significant contributions to motorsports.
In 2010, he was awarded the Helen Rollason Award for outstanding achievement in the face of adversity at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year
The BBC Sports Personality of the Year is an awards ceremony that takes place annually in December. Devised by Paul Fox in 1954, it originally consisted of just one, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award. Several new awards have been ...
awards. Williams was added to the Motor Sport Hall of Fame as a member in 2011. In 2012, a new road in Didcot, Oxfordshire
Didcot ( ) is a railway town and civil parish in the ceremonial county of Oxfordshire and the historic county of Berkshire. Didcot is south of Oxford, east of Wantage and north west of Reading. The town is noted for its railway heritage, ...
, was named Sir Frank Williams Avenue.
Formula One teams paid tribute to Williams by running a special livery of the Frank Williams Racing Cars
Frank Williams Racing Cars was a British Formula One team and constructor.
Early years
Frank Williams had been a motor-racing enthusiast since a young age, and after a career in saloon cars and Formula Three, backed by Williams's shrewd i ...
logo at the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
The 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix (officially known as the Formula 1 STC Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2021) was a Formula One motor race, held on 5 December 2021 at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, in Saudi Arabia. The inaugural Saudi Arabian Grand ...
(the next race after his death), and a moment of silence was held before the start of the race. MurWalls created a -long mural bearing a -high portrait of Williams at the Silverstone Circuit ahead of the 2022 British Grand Prix
The 2022 British Grand Prix (officially known as the Formula 1 Lenovo British Grand Prix 2022) was a Formula One motor race held on 3 July 2022 at the Silverstone Circuit in Northamptonshire, England.
Carlos Sainz Jr. took both his first pole ...
. A memorial mass of thanksgiving for Williams took place at Westminster Cathedral
Westminster Cathedral is the mother church of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. It is the largest Catholic church in the UK and the seat of the Archbishop of Westminster.
The site on which the cathedral stands in the City o ...
in London on 4 July 2022, attended by more than 600 individuals. The Frank Williams Memorial Trophy for Masters Racing Legends race for Formula One cars that competed between 1966 and 1985 was held in tribute to him in the Silverstone Classic
The Silverstone Classic is an annual three-day car and race event at the Silverstone Circuit, home of the British Grand Prix. The event features hundreds of historic race cars in circa 20 races over the weekend, displays from over 100 car clubs w ...
at Silverstone late in August 2022.
National honours
*:
**
Commander of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...
(1986)
Foreign honours
*:
**
Knight of the Legion of Honour
References
External links
Profile
on GrandPrix.com
by Roger Horton (1999)
Profile
on Williams F1 official website]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Frank
1942 births
2021 deaths
20th-century English businesspeople
21st-century English businesspeople
Businesspeople from Tyne and Wear
Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
English motorsport people
English Roman Catholics
Formula One team owners
Knights Bachelor
People educated at St Joseph's College, Dumfries
People in sports awarded knighthoods
People with tetraplegia
Segrave Trophy recipients
Sportspeople from Jarrow
Sportspeople from South Shields
Williams Grand Prix Engineering