Longtime admired force in Formula One racing overcame crash injuries
LONDON — Frank Williams, the founder and former team principal of Formula One’s Williams Racing, has died. He was 79.
Mr. Williams took his motor racing team from an empty carpet warehouse to the summit of Formula One, overseeing 114 victories, a combined 16 drivers’ and constructors’ world championships, while becoming the longestserving team boss in the sport’s history.
“After being admitted into hospital on Friday, Sir Frank passed away peacefully this morning surrounded by his family,” Williams Racing said in a statement Sunday.
Williams driver George Russell remembered Mr. Williams as a “genuinely wonderful human being.”
Mr. Williams’ life is all the more extraordinary by the horrific car crash he suffered in France that left him with injuries so devastating that doctors considered turning off his life-support machine.
But his wife, Virginia, ordered that her husband be kept alive and his sheer determination and courage — characteristics that personified his career — enabled him to continue with the love of his life, albeit from the confines of a wheelchair.
He would remain in his role as Williams team principal for a further 34 years before F1’s greatest family team was sold to an
American investment group in August.
Francis Owen Garbett Williams was born in South Shields, England, on April 16, 1942, to an RAF officer and a headmistress. A traveling salesman by day, Mr. Williams fulfilled his racing ambitions on the weekend and, at 24, he launched his own team, Frank Williams Racing Cars.
In 1986, Mr. Williams’ life would change forever.
Following a test at the Paul Ricard circuit in March, Mr. Williams set off on a 98-mile dash to Nice Airport in a rented Ford Sierra. Mr. Williams lost control and the car ended up on its roof after a 3-yard drop into a field.
Mr. Williams’ passenger, the team’s marketing manager Peter Windsor, escaped with minor injuries. But Mr. Williams suffered a spinal fracture that would leave him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
“I was late for a plane which I didn’t need to be late for because I got the French time mixed up with the English time,” Mr. Williams later said. “The roads were very bumpy, the hire car was not the world’s best, and suddenly I was off the road upside down and with a broken neck.
“Life went on, and I was able to continue, but it has been a handicap in the true sense of the word.”