WILLIAMS PT5: THE BMW YEARS
A new partnership with BMW promised to return Williams to championship glory – but that hope remained unfulfilled as tensions mounted behind the scenes…
Formula 1 erupted in a collective surge of jubilation when Juan Pablo Montoya dived down the inside of Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari at Turn 1, Interlagos in 2001. In that moment, an audacious late-braking pass by an F1 rookie in only his third grand prix felt seminal, as a bright new contender stepped up to challenge the threatened dominance that Schumacher and Ferrari were coming to represent. Mika Häkkinen had been just as fast as Michael, if not a shade quicker over one lap, but increasingly he seemed a spent force. Instead, here was Montoya: fresh, cocksure, charismatic, funny – and on the face of it, a true Williams driver in the mould of an Alan Jones, Keke Rosberg or Nigel Mansell. This was going to be good.
And it was. But it would never be great, at least by Williams standards, and certainly not for any significant length of time. These were the BMW years, featuring all the ingredients for a tally of world titles – which never quite followed. Instead, the potent team-manufacturer partnership would register bests of two third places and back-to-back runner-up finishes in the constructors’ table between 2000 and 2005.
As for Montoya and Ralf Schumacher, his team rival (‘team-mate’ is simply the wrong term for this pair), they would harvest 10 grand prix wins between them. It feels like they won more – until we recall just how tightly Schumacher Sr and Ferrari gripped F1 by the neck in those first years of the new millennium, almost throttling it to the point of unconsciousness in 2002 and 2004. From a sporting point of view, these were tough years for F1, and even more so politically, as Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone went to war with the manufacturers over power and money – what else?
BMW never did have a natural affinity with grand prix racing like its rivals at Mercedes. Still, 10 years after its F1 withdrawal towards the end of the first turbo era, the company was ready to plunge back in and signed a six-year deal to power Williams from 2000. Perfect timing in the wake of Renault’s pull-out at the end of 1997. The dominant team of the decade was left treading water with inferior V10s it had to pay for, but at least it had a bright and shiny new manufacturer supply on the blocks. And last time around, one thing BMW hadn’t been short of was power.
But the partnership’s first blossoming was in an entirely different motorsport arena, away from F1. BMW also had ambitions to win the Le Mans 24 Hours and wisely chose to tap into the chassis construction expertise of its new F1 partner. Their first collaboration, the BMW V12 LM of 1998, missed the mark – but the second, the V12 LMR, hit bullseye in 1999. Mclaren is lauded, as it should be, for its Le Mans success with the F1 GTR in 1995, but Williams’s own victory four years later is shrouded by BMW’S
quartered shield – and yet it remains the partnership’s single greatest achievement.
BMW’S smart blue and white colours ushered in a new Williams F1 era in 2000. The younger Schumacher brother had impressed in his maiden season for the team in 1999 and now ticked the German driver box for the prestige car maker. But who would join him?
As racing driver names go, ‘Jenson Button’ is straight out of a comic book, but the fast-track rise of the sunny kid from Somerset was all too real. A European karting champion, Button had just two years of car racing under his belt when Alain Prost gave him a trial in his own team, then alerted Williams to the lad’s obvious talent. A shootout with Brazilian Formula 3000 ace Bruno Junqueira left Button on tenterhooks – until Frank Williams confirmed the drive was his, just before the first Williams-bmw, FW22, was wheeled out to the media. Today, teenage F1 debuts are almost normal, but at 20 years old Button was unusually raw for his time. Still, in the first season of a new engine partnership, there was little to lose gambling on a rookie.
Button paid back the faith. In his second grand prix, he became what was then F1’s youngest-ever points scorer (sixth, behind fifth-placed Ralf, in Brazil), and later offered nuggets of evidence that there was more to him than the playboy label some had stuck him with. At Spa and Suzuka – proper circuits – he qualified third and fifth respectively, ahead of his team-mate, although Ralf too consolidated his growing reputation. A podium first time out in Australia, in BMW’S first F1 race back, was followed by a couple more at Spa and Monza to lift Williams to third in the standings – far behind pacesetters Ferrari and Mclaren, but comfortably ahead of those seasoned campaigners at Benetton.
But for Button, the euphoria of his rapid rise was countered by the reality that Williams didn’t really want him (for now): he’d need a drive elsewhere for 2001, because Montoya was on his way. The Colombian had first contact with Williams back in 1997 when he earned himself a testing contract after impressing in a young-driver session. A convincing Formula 3000 champion in 1998, he found himself farmed out to Indycars with Chip Ganassi Racing in 1999, essentially in a swap deal with Alex Zanardi, who was returning to Europe as a modern folk hero following three stunning seasons in the US. At first, Montoya was disappointed to miss out on the F1 drive he’d thought would be his, but it proved the making of him. In his first US season, he narrowly defeated Dario Franchitti to become champion, then dominated the Indianapolis 500 the following year. By now, Zanardi was back in Indycars after an oddly lacklustre single year, Button was performing solidly… but in Montoya Williams recognised a potential game-changer.
As Button headed towards choppy waters with
a doubting Flavio Briatore at Benetton, Montoya sauntered into Formula 1 with a ready smile and a twinkle in his eye – shades of Jacques Villeneuve back in 1996. But for all his natural flair, he was still a rookie up against an accomplished teammate. After Montoya’s landmark performance at Interlagos, which was only scuppered by
Jos Verstappen’s Arrows punting him out of a five-second lead, it was Ralf who would deliver Williams its first victory since 1997, at Imola. Schumacher’s maiden F1 victory also marked BMW’S first since Mexico 1986, when the winning Benetton that day was driven by Gerhard Berger… by now the manufacturer’s sporting director. Neat. Just as impressively, Imola marked the first F1 win in 17 years for new tyre supplier Michelin, in just its fourth race back. Williams, BMW, Michelin: an axis of power that would now combine to become Ferrari’s most potent threat.
Montoya scored his first podium in Spain, then Ralf won again in Canada, beating his brother in the pitstops for F1’s first sibling one-two. Next time out, at the Nürburgring, Michael put down a marker that family ties meant nothing in the white heat of competition, by treating his brother to one of his famous chops… But after his first pole position in France, on his 26th birthday, Junior stole back the limelight at Hockenheim with his third win of the season.
Meanwhile, Montoya was finding his feet, creating a fantastically spiky dynamic within the team between two very different personalities. At Monza, from his third pole position in four races, Montoya finally delivered an overdue victory, on a weekend overshadowed by the horrors of 9/11 (the attack happened the Tuesday before the race) and dreadful news from the Lausitzring oval in Germany, where the hugely popular Zanardi had lost both legs in a shocking Indycar accident. Strange, difficult, unforgettable times.
The Williams-bmw-michelin axis quickly came of age in 2001, but it wasn’t yet ready to challenge Ferrari-bridgestone for the title, even if Ralf outscored double champion Häkkinen in the drivers’ standings. Momentum was building for the partnership – only to be thwarted by a devastating red-wash in 2002.
Ferrari would win 15 of 17 races that season, with Schumacher Sr claiming 11 of them to become champion – by Magny-cours in July… Sure, Williams was best of the rest, but that didn’t mean too much in this context. Ferrari scored as many championship points as the rest of the field added together! Like Williams, Mclaren too was now running Michelins, which only allowed Bridgestone to narrow its focus further on Ferrari, while the French company was stretched to match the differing needs of two rival teams: the FW24 lacked downforce, the Mclaren-mercedes power.
But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. After Ralf had started the season by taking flight over Rubens Barrichello’s Ferrari in Australia in a multi-car shunt, he bounced back in Malaysia to head Montoya for the first Williams one-two for five years, as Michelin’s rubber dealt better with Sepang’s intense tropical heat. Meanwhile, Montoya’s growing reputation for spectacular qualifying laps took further root with a remarkable run of five consecutive pole positions, including a 161.449mph lap at Monza that exceeded Keke Rosberg’s ageing record, from Silverstone 1985, of 160.925mph in FW10. In all, Montoya started from the pole seven times in 2002 – he just couldn’t convert a single one.
In stark contrast, 2003 offered a refreshing and much needed tonic. From a season of oneteam domination, now eight drivers won races, a tally only beaten by nine in 1975 and 11 in 1982. Mclaren got off to a flier as David Coulthard won in Australia, but only after Montoya had spun
MEANWHILE, MONTOYA WAS FINDING HIS FEET, CREATING A FANTASTICALLY SPIKY DYNAMIC WITHIN THE TEAM BETWEEN TWO VERY DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES
away the lead with 11 laps to go. Ralf showed his depth of character at Imola when he and his brother shared the front row, the day after their mother had died, and in Monaco Montoya ended a 20-year Williams win drought in the principality after passing Kimi Räikkönen and beating his team-mate at the stops. It was nearly always nip and tuck between the pair, as they helped lift the Williams-bmw partnership to what would be its all too brief F1 zenith.
Two back-to-back one-twos at the Nürburgring and Magny-cours, Ralf leading Montoya in both, reprised what we’d taken for granted from Williams in the 1990s. At the same time, internal disharmony undermined the soaring achievements. In France, during an intense threestop battle between the two FW25S, Montoya and the crew on the pitwall engaged in a colourful, X-rated exchange of views. It was a signal of the fatal fracture that was opening up between the Colombian and the team. Driver paranoia is hard enough to manage when it festers on one side of the garage, but Williams now had it coming from both cars. Ralf, too, was unsettled in a team that
never had been one to offer a cuddle to its drivers.
Williams responded to Montoya’s radio blast in typical fashion, with a formal reprimand
– by letter. That was only going to stoke the simmering Latin fire, and from that point he decided his future would lie elsewhere. Still, there was a world championship to chase and over the second half of the season it was Montoya, not Ralf, who would lead the Williams charge. Victory at Hockenheim latched him on to Schumacher Sr’s tail, and after Hungary Schumacher, Montoya and Räikkönen were separated by just two points. Then Ferrari pulled a fast one, lodging a protest against Michelin about the size of the tyres’ contact patch. The moulds had been the same since 2001… yet suddenly the French company was producing illegal rubber and was forced to pull out the stops to hastily make new tyres in time for Monza, where Schumacher pulled off one of his most important wins, having not led a lap for five races. Victory put him back on the front foot. At Indianapolis, Montoya was penalised – in his view unfairly – for an early incident with Barrichello, and finished sixth.
Two races before he’d been right in the hunt; now suddenly his bid was over. Schumacher would scrape to his fourth Ferrari title with an unconvincing eighth place at Suzuka to
pip consistent Räikkönen by a point. In the constructors’ standings, just 14 points separated Williams from Ferrari and a 10th constructors’ title – but it might as well have been 50. The partnership’s best chance, as it turns out from then to the present day, was gone.
Before the next season had even started, Montoya was announced as a Mclaren driver for 2005 as he and Ralf embarked on a largely unhappy final season together in blue and white, Schumacher Jr planning his own exit to Toyota. After such an open season, 2004 turned into another Ferrari steamroller: Michael matched Mansell’s 1992 tally of five consecutive wins out of the blocks and, after a blip at Monaco, he won seven more in a row. At season’s end in Brazil, Williams, having long shed the ugly tusk nose of the FW26, finally hit a vein of form as Montoya won his last race for the team – at the same circuit where he’d inspired such hope four years earlier. Williams wouldn’t win again for another eight years.
Now Button came back into the picture. Well, almost. Since his rejection in favour of Montoya in 2001, he’d built a head of steam at BAR after a bruising experience at Benetton/renault and had emerged as next-best to the dominant Ferraris in 2004. Time for Frank to call him back… except BAR’S David Richards already had him locked up for 2005. After referral to the Contract Recognition Board, Jenson was forced to stay put. Just as well, as it turned out. The marriage between Williams and BMW had hit the rocks.
Berger had never driven for Williams during his own career – Frank joked he could never afford him – but this old-school racer easily gelled with the team in his sporting director role. But when he left BMW in 2004 his replacement, the straight-laced Mario Theissen, never looked like a man on the same wavelength as the hardened racers at Williams.
By now Patrick Head had taken a step back, as Australian Sam Michael became technical director – but the marriage was too far gone to be salvaged. A new deal was supposed to keep them together until 2009, but BMW’S board decided to go it alone and buy Sauber. In hindsight, an odd decision and an experiment that would last just four years before the company pulled the F1 plug once more. Might it ever return? Of course – but it’s impossible to see why, how and with whom.
That final season in 2005, the last of the screaming V10 era, was underwhelming for Williams, even with two enthusiastic new signings in Mark Webber and Nick Heidfeld. The team slumped to fifth. A second Jenson Button contractual squabble says much about the way the wind was blowing. Early in the season, he once again signed for Williams, this time successfully – only to change his mind. Expensive decision: the man who’d been given his big break with the team back in 2000 was now forced to pay £18m not to rejoin it for 2006…
Crazy, but at the same time you could see why. Once again, Williams was going it alone.
A NEW DEAL WAS SUPPOSED TO KEEP THEM TOGETHER UNTIL 2009, BUT BMW’S BOARD DECIDED TO GO IT ALONE AND BUY SAUBER