AGAINST ALL ODDS THE HISTORY OF WILLIAMS PART 2: 1983-88
To the man himself, it’s just the reality he finds himself living through. Self-indulgence, self-pity? Not likely. After the accident, the only option was – and still is – to press on regardless. That is the Williams way.
FOR HIS FIRST 44 YEARS HE LIVED ONE LIFE, THEN SINCE 8 MARCH 1986 HE HAS LIVED ANOTHER. THAT’S ALL FRANK WILLIAMS HAS TENDED TO SAY PUBLICLY ABOUT THE DEVASTATING ACCIDENT THAT FOREVER CHANGED HIS DAILY EXISTENCE, BECAUSE AS FAR AS HE IS CONCERNED WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO SAY? TO THE REST OF US, HIS RESILIENCE IN THE FACE OF SUCH SEVERE PHYSICAL DISABILITY MAKES HIM A FIGURE OF DUMBFOUNDING AWE.
The road accident that so very nearly killed him occurred just as his team was returning to dominance, when the same purity of engineering that had made it a winner for the first time in 1979 and a champion by 1980 was harnessing and unleashing the full potency of Honda’s increasingly super-powered V6 turbo. But we pick up the story on yet another occasion when Williams found itself backed into a corner, still propelled in 1983 by an outdated and underpowered normally aspirated V8 among the gathering turbo forces – and we’ll pause five years later, in 1988, with a team having travelled full circle. These were years of extremes, fortunes proving at times almost desperate, at times simply sensational, at times traumatic – and always utterly compelling. The mid-1980s are why the F1 world loves Williams.
The FIA’s rug-pull late in 1982
