TED KRAVITZ

Only new leadership can make Williams a name to watch out for once more

EVERY MOTORSPORT AFICIONADO HAS A SOFT spot for Williams. Well, as long as they’re over the age of 30. Growing up in the 1980s meant that whoever your favourite driver was, you’d always keep an eye out for Williams, always in there, hustling against the odds. More greasy and oily than Mclaren, more successful than Tyrrell and somehow more identifiable than whatever passed for the post-colin Chapman Team Lotus.

The team’s story was rags to riches, although it seemed there was never much of the latter. Frank Williams, an athletic charmer – and chancer – followed a burning ambition to own and run a successful racing team. It almost broke him financially, while an accident in a rented Ford Sierra did break him (at least his back), physically, but eventually it all came right: Frank and his engineering sidekick Patrick Head overcame all these obstacles to achieve their dream of being the best; glorious years between 1980 and 1997 when Williams Grand Prix Engineering Limited was a superpower in Formula 1.

Williams won nine constructors’ championships, and seven drivers’ titles with Jones, Rosberg, Piquet, Mansell, Prost, Hill and Villeneuve. Those numbers would surely be greater had Ayrton Senna survived at Imola in 1994. The team weathered Senna’s death through the same gritty determination that had got it to the top. Triumph out of tragedy. But since 1997 the Williams story just hasn’t been that interesting. It won races with Ralf Schumacher, Juan Pablo Montoya and BMW Power in the mid-2000s, but never looked like winning the championship. Pastor Maldonado aced the Spanish Grand Prix in 2012 before a fuel drum caught fire and engulfed the team’s garage. That was exciting. Since then, zilch.

Today, if you’re young and into F1, there just isn’t much of a Williams story to follow or team characters to really care about. You might not even be aware they exist. And that’s a problem, because there’s a perfect storm brewing that could threaten the team’s very existence. Everything stems from the fact Williams has designed a very bad car this year. When it was launched it raised eyebrows in the pitlane because it had features (such as sharply undercut sidepods) that hadn’t been seen on any other car in recent years. There was a good reason for that: the features didn’t work. The car has a fundamental aerodynamic flaw that results in airflow stalling somewhere between the front and rear wings, rendering it useless to any downforce-generating surface. As soon as Williams realised this was happening, panic set in and heads started to roll. First the chief designer, then the head of aerodynamics. The chief technical officer is still in post, for now: Paddy Lowe, a brilliant engineer who started his career at Williams developing its active suspension system. He then went to Mclaren, where his cars enjoyed mixed results, before jumping ship to the all-conquering Mercedes team of the last few years. Stock high, Paddy returned to Williams to help it regain past highs. Instead it’s sunk to new lows. Lowe’s response will make or break his reputation. Nobody doubts his abilities – Paddy could knock up a Hadron Collider in your back yard – but whether he’s an effective leader remains to be seen.

Then there’s the young men behind the wheel. Williams has had to go for drivers with money, so was unable to capitalise on the amazing story of Robert Kubica’s return to F1. There is a Netflix documentary about Kubica due at the end of the season, but it could be too late by then. That’s because nobody is interested in Williams as there’s nothing to be interested in. The car is slow, so the drivers are miserable; they give gloomy interviews nobody wants to watch, so none of the sponsors get eyeballs on logos, which is where the perfect storm really bites: sponsors leave, income drops and it gets even harder to spend your way out of a performance hole.

But what about the man himself? Sir Frank hasn’t been seen at a Grand Prix for some time. He recovered from pneumonia last year and still works around the factory – his factory – but as the moving final scene showed in Williams’ recent feature documentary, Frank’s faculties have dimmed with time. In effective charge, then, is deputy team principal Claire Williams, but her focus has understandably been on son Nathanial, soon approaching his first birthday. There are the usual financial people around and the influence of ex-driver Alexander Wurz shouldn’t be underestimated, but it’s clear Williams urgently needs leaders. A Frank and Patrick for the modern age. The survival of everyone’s second-favourite team depends on it.

‘Pastor Maldonado aced the Spanish Grand Prix in 2012 before a fire engulfed the team’s garage. That was exciting. Since then, zilch’