WHAT THE HISTORY OF WILLIAMS GOES PART 6: 2006-13 UP...
Independence is a wonderful thing. To control your own destiny and enjoy the freedom that comes with self-sufficiency – it’s a blessing to be your own master. But in F1, independence can also mean weakness: ‘indie’ teams lack the cushion of manufacturer support and tend to pay for everything themselves (or at least through sponsors, if they can find them), including the biggest outlay: engines. Such teams tend to lack power – both metaphorically and literally – to compete at the sharp end, on the track and in boardrooms. It’s an unequal struggle, a tough, on-the-edge existence. In F1, sometimes independent freedom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Frank Williams understands the indie life because it’s all he’s really known. Even when blessed with manufacturer engine power, from Honda in the 1980s, Renault in the 1990s and BMW in the 2000s, Williams still went its own way, calling the shots on its own terms – which perhaps explains why its last manufacturer relationship, with BMW 15 long years ago, withered away. Old habits die hard when you’ve battled like hell just to exist, never mind make the grid, which was the Williams way through the 1970s when Frank was starting out.
In 2006, in the wake of a damaging BMW divorce as the German car maker took a leaf, chose its own way and bought Sauber, Frank Williams and his partner Patrick Head found themselves going back to basics. But Formula 1 had come on a few yards since 1977 when they’d run a customer March
