Frank Williams Racing Cars

Frank Williams Racing Cars

Surname	Frank Williams Racing Cars
Companies
Company headquarters	Cippenham (1968 to 1971) Reading (1972 to 1975)
Team boss	Frank Williams
statistics
First Grand Prix	Spain 1969
Last Grand Prix	USA 1975
Race driven	43
Constructors' championship	0
Drivers World Championship	0
Race wins	0
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
Points	12

Frank Williams Racing Cars was a British racing team that competed in Formula 2 and Formula 1 with different names between 1968 and 1975 . The racing team was the forerunner of the Williams F1 team, which had been involved in Formula 1 since 1977 . Frank Williams Racing Cars was closely associated with Piers Courage in the early years ; later numerous lesser known drivers competed for the British team.

Company history

Francis Owen Garbatt "Frank" Williams

Frank Williams Racing Cars was founded in 1965 by Frank Williams . Williams had competed in numerous races as an active racing driver until 1966, especially in Formula 3 . At the same time, from 1965 on, he set up a racing car accessories business in London . Two years later he started selling complete racing cars. When a customer canceled the purchase of two Formula 2 cars at the end of 1967, Williams decided to use the cars with Piers Courage under his own name in the 1968 Formula 2 season. As early as 1969, the team rose to the Formula 1 World Championship. In the following years the team twice entered into alliances with Italian automobile manufacturers. In the first case, de Tomaso delivered the racing car in 1970, while Williams organized the racing; in the case of Iso (1973 and 1974), however, Williams also made the cars himself. During those years the team was significantly underfunded and heavily indebted. That is why it was not uncommon for it to compete with used equipment and paying drivers . At the end of 1975, Frank Williams sold his racing team to the Canadian-Austrian industrialist Walter Wolf , who started it under the name Walter Wolf Racing from the 1977 Formula 1 season . Frank Williams was initially still employed by Wolf, but left the team in the late summer of 1976 and founded a new racing team at the end of the year, which began in Formula 1 from 1977, initially under the name Williams Grand Prix Engineering , later as Williams F1 . Wolf Racing, however, gave up at the end of 1979. The material was taken over by the competing racing team Fittipaldi Automotive , which continued to be represented in Formula 1 until the end of 1982.

Frank Williams Racing Cars was based in Cippenham near Slough from 1968 to 1971 ; At the beginning of the 1972 season, the team moved to a 450 m² garage on Bennet Road in Reading , from which Walter Wolf Racing later operated.

Frank Williams Racing Cars in Formula 2

1968

Piers Courage at the Nürburgring in 1968

Frank Williams Racing Cars contested his first Formula 2 season with two dark blue Brabham BT23C vehicles that were equipped with a Cosworth DFA engine. The regular driver was Piers Courage , who had been friends with Frank Williams for several years. Courage brought in some promising results for Williams. But he could not take part in all Formula 2 races for Williams, as he also had a regular place at Reg Parnell Racing in Formula 1 in 1968 . When there were conflicting appointments, Jonathan Williams stepped in for courage. Jonathan Williams scored the first win for Frank Williams Racing Cars in Formula 2 at Lotteria Monza.

1969

In 1969 Frank Williams Racing Cars competed again in Formula 2 parallel to the beginning of Formula 1 involvement. Emergency vehicles were mostly still the Brabham BT23C, later a Brabham BT30 was added. Piers Courage, who was an integral part of Williams' Formula 1 program, rarely drove in Formula 2. Malcolm Guthrie contested most of the races here , with other drivers such as Jacky Ickx , Derek Bell , Alistair Walker , and Graham McRae or Franco Barnabei . The team could not achieve a victory this year. The best result was at the VI. Grote Prijs van Limborg achieved in Zolder: Here the placements two to four went to Williams' drivers. Richard Attwood achieved another second place at the 31st German Grand Prix on the Nordschleife of the Nürburgring .

1971

After a one-year hiatus, Frank Williams returned to Formula 2 with financial support from the French lubricant manufacturer Motul . His team used several March 712M with Cosworth DFA engines. The regular drivers were Henri Pescarolo , who competed for Williams in Formula 1 at the same time, and Carlos Pace . Sometimes Derek Bell - he contested the two opening races of the series in Bogotá -, Andrea de Adamich and Max Jean , who, however, only started two French races. The season was unremarkable. The drivers achieved hardly any countable results. Exceptions were the race in Mallory Park, which Pescarolo won, and the Gran Premio Città di Imola, which Carlos Pace won for Frank Williams Racing Cars.

After this season, Frank Williams ended his involvement in Formula 2 in order to be able to concentrate exclusively on Grand Prix racing.

Frank Williams Racing Cars in Formula 1

1969

Piers Courage in the Brabham BT26 of the Frank Williams team at the 1969 British Grand Prix

For Frank Williams, promotion to Formula 1 was a logical consequence of his successful involvement in Formula 2. In a roundabout way, he managed to get a current Brabham BT26A . It was the BT26 / 1 built around the spring of 1968, which was used by Jack Brabham with a Repco engine that year and converted to a more powerful Cosworth engine in the winter months of 1968/69 . The Brabham works team used a structurally identical car in the Formula 1 World Championship. At that time, Brabham no longer delivered the latest generation of racing cars to customer teams in order to keep the pressure of competition for the works team low. The BT26A / 1 was sold at the end of 1968 to a British collector who had no Formula 1 ambitions. Frank Williams bought the car from him a few weeks later without the factory team knowing. Jack Brabham expressed anger about this additional competition.

Williams started in Formula 1 in 1969 with Piers Courage. Courage had already completed a full Grand Prix season: in 1968 he had scored four world championship points with the private Reg Parnell team and was 20th in the drivers' championship that year.

For cost reasons, Williams skipped the first World Championship run of the year in South Africa and only made his debut at the second run in Spain . Courage qualified for eleventh place on the grid in the race in Montjuïc , for which only nine teams with a total of 14 drivers registered. He retired in the race due to an engine failure. Technical failures were repeated at the following events: in the Netherlands the BT26 suffered a clutch damage, in France the chassis broke, and in Canada there was a premature failure due to a fuel leak. Only at the German Grand Prix did a driving error Courages lead to premature retirement. In the course of the year, Courage crossed the finish line five times, two times on a podium: At the Monaco Grand Prix , the team's second world championship round, he only had to give way to Graham Hill in the factory Lotus . The second place at the US Grand Prix in Watkins Glen was more important : Here he pushed Jack Brabham into third place in the identical BT26 of the works team. Together with the results of other placements, Courage finished the Formula 1 season with 16 championship points in eighth place, ahead of Jack Brabham.

1970

Used by Williams: De Tomaso 505

Given that Williams' driver Courage had beaten Jack Brabham in 1969 with the same material, Frank Williams could not expect that Brabham would provide him with a competitive chassis for 1970 as well. Lotus and McLaren also no longer supplied current chassis to customer teams, so that the future of the Williams team initially did not seem secure. In autumn 1969, however, the possibility of a connection with the Italian sports car manufacturer De Tomaso arose . The trigger for this was a Formula 2 race, in which Piers Courage brought a designed Formula 2 car from De Tomaso to the start. Courage achieved pole position at the Gran Premio di Roma in 1969 and impressed Alejandro de Tomaso with his commitment in the race. De Tomaso planned to expand his motorsport commitment to Formula 1, but did not want to lead his own team, but only provide racing cars he had designed himself for existing teams. Frank Williams then entered into a partnership with De Tomaso, initially for one year: De Tomaso supplied the racing cars, while Williams launched them under his own name in the 1970 Formula 1 season .

The emergency vehicle was the De Tomaso 505 designed by Giampaolo Dallara , a vehicle described as a "simple kit car" that was equipped with numerous British components and a Cosworth DFV engine. An integral part of the agreement was the commitment of Piers Courage, whom de Tomaso greatly appreciated. Courage accordingly stayed with Williams and turned down a contract offer from Scuderia Ferrari for this commitment .

The 1970 Formula 1 season was unsuccessful for the British-Italian team. De Tomaso's cars, three of which were made (505/1, 505/2 and 505/3), proved to be overweight, unreliable and problematic to handle. The best result was Courage's third place at the non-World Championship BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone . In the subsequent World Championship runs, Courage did not succeed in repeating this result. He did not finish in any of the first four Grand Prix. In Spain , Courage went off the track and destroyed his car. He himself was unharmed. Courage had a fatal accident at the fifth race of the season in the Netherlands . The magnesium body of the car caught fire. Most representations assume that courage burned in the car. According to other sources, the previous impact was fatal.

Frank Williams, who had lost a close friend with Courage, skipped the following French Grand Prix to enter Brian Redman for the next two races . Redman missed qualification on both attempts. At the Austrian Grand Prix he was replaced by Tim Schenken . Schenken regularly qualified for the last rows until the US Grand Prix ; However, he never finished. Williams and de Tomaso agreed to refrain from participating in the last race of the year, the Mexican Grand Prix . Their alliance was dissolved at the end of the year. Alessandro de Tomaso finally gave up his Formula 1 ambitions.

1971

Regular driver 1971: Henri Pescarolo

In the third Formula 1 season, Frank Williams Racing Cars used a March as a customer vehicle. At the first race of the season in South Africa it was still a March 701 (chassis number 701/6); At the beginning of the European races, a March 711 was used.

The regular driver was the Frenchman Henri Pescarolo . He brought sponsorship money from Motul , which not only kept the Formula 1 team running, but also enabled a two-car team to be used in Formula 2. The results in Formula 1 were poor. Pescarolo won the Oulton Park Gold Cup , a race that is not part of the world championship. In the world championship runs, however, he only achieved fourth place at the British Grand Prix and sixth place at the Austrian Grand Prix .

Williams used a second car in some races. This was always March 701. The drivers changed several times. They included Max Jean, Ray Allan , Derek Bell , Cyd Williams, and Tony Trimmer . Usually these were races that did not have world championship status. One exception was the French Grand Prix , a world championship run in which Jean Max competed alongside Pescarolo.

In the course of the year, the team was financially and organizationally “on the verge of collapse”, as Frank Williams later admitted. The reason for this was the excessive stress caused by the simultaneous Formula 1 and Formula 2 involvement.

1972

The more successful of the two Williams drivers: Carlos Pace

In the 1972 Formula 1 season , Williams became a racing car designer. The trigger was the founding of the Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA) in 1971 , an association of designers of Formula 1 vehicles. Membership, which was linked to the production of its own racing cars and denied customer teams, brought some organizational and financial advantages: This included, in particular, the assumption of travel expenses. Since the founding of FOCA, Frank Williams pursued the goal of joining it with his team. To do this, Williams had to go from being a customer team to being a designer. The costs associated with building your own car could only be borne with the financial support of a sponsor. In the fall of 1971, Williams found a donor in the Italian model car manufacturer Politoys , who supported the construction of their own car with a one-off payment of £ 40,000. In return, Politoys became the name sponsor of the vehicle. In the following months, Len Bailey designed the Politoys FX3 on behalf of Williams. Due to the hesitant payment of the designer, it was only completed as a one-off piece in June 1972 and thus with a considerable delay. However, the compact, uncomplicated car was only used in one world championship run this year: At the premiere of the FX3, Henri Pescarolo damaged it considerably in an accident. Because of financally reasons. The reconstruction and the production of a second copy dragged on until the end of the year.

The racing team called Team Williams Motul actually contested the 1972 season, contrary to expectations, almost exclusively with customer vehicles from March. The regular driver was again Pescarolo. He received a car called March 721 . Contrary to what the name suggested, this March 721/3 did not correspond to the 721 models of the same name from the March factory team. Rather, it was a car that March had built from leftover parts of the 711 models and upgraded with individual components from the 721. Carlos Pace , who drove for the Williams team from the second race of the season, received the March 711/3, which was used last year.

During the season, Pace was able to finish in the points twice: he finished sixth at the Spanish Grand Prix and fifth at the Belgian Grand Prix in Nivelles . The three world championship points achieved with it were the only ones for Williams that year. Henri Pescarolo, whom Williams had assigned the role of the top driver, dropped out several times due to driving errors.

The first Politoys FX3 was completed for the British Grand Prix . While Carlos Pace started the race in 13th place with the old March 711, Pescarolo in the FX3 qualified for the 26th and last place on the grid, 5.2 seconds behind the pole time. He covered seven laps in the race. On the eighth lap, Pescarolo went off the track and collided with the side barrier. There are different representations of the causes of the accident. Some reports refer to Pescarolo's alleged accident proneness and assume that a driving mistake by the Frenchman also led to the retirement at Brands Hatch. Other observers assume a technical defect ("Apparently something was broken"). As a result of the collision, the car was so badly damaged that it could initially no longer be used.

At the end of the year, Pace finished 18th in the drivers' championship with three points, Pescarolo had not scored any points.

1973

Developed by Williams: Iso-Marlboro IR1

In IR1, he got the first world championship points for Williams as a designer: Gijs van Lennep

For the 1973 Formula 1 season , Frank Williams entered into a relationship with the sports car manufacturer Iso Rivolta from Bresso near Milan . Similar to de Tomaso three years earlier, Iso also wanted to use Grand Prix racing as a promotional, sales-promoting platform for its luxury class vehicles. Iso acquired the right to label the racing cars used with its own name. There was no further technical commitment by Isos. In particular, Iso did not participate in the design or construction of the racing cars. For advertising purposes, Iso published numerous photos showing its own sports cars next to the Formula 1 vehicles. In addition, Iso issued a limited special series of the Lele .

In the first three races of 1973, the team, which was reported as Frank Williams Racing Cars , used two Politoys FX3 models, which were named Iso-Marlboro FX3B in view of the new sponsors . For the European races of the 1973 Formula 1 season, some changes to the technical regulations came into force. They primarily concerned the crash safety of cars and stipulated, among other things, better protection for the driver and the fuel tanks in the event of side collisions. While some designers were able to adapt their racing cars to the new rules, in the case of the Politoys designed in 1971 this was not possible with relative effort, so that Frank Williams decided to develop new cars. Then the Iso-Marlboro IR1 and the largely identical IR2 were created . Both vehicles made their debut at the Spanish Grand Prix . Even when they appeared, they were not considered competitive racing cars; According to observers, they only served "to fill up the starting field".

On the driver side, Williams initially relied on Carlos Pace again; The Brazilian moved to the Surtees team at the start of the 1973 season . Instead, Williams hired New Zealander Howden Ganley , who drove the IR2. Ganley managed to qualify in every race; the best result was starting position 10 at the Monaco Grand Prix . After three failures, each of which was due to technical reasons, he crossed the finish line for the first time in Sweden . He finished eleventh, four laps behind. After that he managed to finish in half of all races. As a rule, he was lapped two, three or four times by the leader at the finish line. The Canadian Grand Prix was an exception . Here he finished sixth, just one lap behind, and secured his team a second world championship point after Gijs van Lennep's sixth place in the Netherlands (in IR1). Ganley had an accident while training for the German Grand Prix after the brakes failed on his Iso-Marlboro. Since the badly damaged car could not be repaired before the race, the New Zealander had to forego the start. From Austria he had a newly built chassis available that retained the previous designation.

The IR1 was initially given to Nanni Galli , who was favored by Iso Rivolta. Galli's commitment came with his sponsors' commitment to financially support the Williams team. When the promised payments were not made by May 1973, Williams replaced the Italian at the Swedish Grand Prix with the Danish racing driver Tom Belsø , who in turn agreed to sponsor payments. Belsø qualified for the last place on the grid. Since his sponsors did not pay until race Sunday, Williams did not let the Dane take part in the race. In France and Germany, Henri Pescarolo drove the second Iso-Marlboro. In his home race on the Circuit Paul Ricard he retired due to a technical error, at the Nürburgring he finished tenth. In the UK , Williams reported Graham McRae for the IR1. The New Zealand debutant qualified for 28th and last place on the grid. At the start he stayed at the end of the field. After a serious accident at the end of the first lap in which nine vehicles were involved, the race was initially canceled. After a 90-minute break, the race was resumed. McRae lined up for a restart along with 18 other drivers. While he was still on the grid, his car suffered a clutch defect, so that the IR1 would not move. McRae then had to end the race.

From the Dutch Grand Prix , Gijs van Lennep took over the IR1 three times. In his home race on the Circuit Zandvoort , in which Roger Williamson had a fatal accident, van Lennep finished sixth. He scored the first world championship point for Williams as a designer. In Austria and Italy van Lennep did not get into the points. In Canada, Tim Schenken drove the IR1. He finished 14th, five laps behind. In the last race of the season in the USA , Jacky Ickx, an established and experienced driver , drove for Williams. Ickx had been a regular driver at Ferrari in the first half of the season , but left the team in the summer because he was dissatisfied with Scuderia's lack of competitiveness. In qualifying he was half a second slower than his teammate Ganley. He qualified for starting place. He finished the race in seventh place.

Williams finished the 1973 season with two points in 10th place in the constructors' championship.

1974

Williams' regular driver 1974: Former Ferrari driver Arturo Merzario

Gijs van Lennep in Iso-Marlboro at the Dutch Grand Prix in 1974

In the 1974 Formula 1 season, Frank Williams continued his relationship with Iso Rivolta, even if the Italian company had run into financial difficulties in the meantime and only met its payment obligations to a limited extent. A gradual distancing became clear that Williams changed the designation of the Iso-Marlboro models by removing the previous addition IR in FW 01, FW 02 and FW 03 (FW for Frank Williams).

In 1974, as in the previous year, Williams took a two-pronged approach: one of the vehicles was registered for a regular driver for the entire season, while the second vehicle was rented to different drivers. Initially, the IR2 was the regular driver's vehicle, while the IR1 was given to various paydrivers . After the introduction of the largely identical Iso-Marlboro FW03 in spring 1974, the IR2 / FW02 took over the role of the rental vehicle. In view of the team's financial difficulties, the cars were inadequately maintained and patchy repaired. As the season progressed, there was no money for necessary repairs and spare parts. In some races, broken plastic pieces were taped together; from the summer of 1974 onwards, Williams used tires from the Ferrari team several times . This adversely affected the car's competitiveness.

The regular cockpit went to the former Ferrari driver Arturo Merzario in 1974 . At the South African Grand Prix , Merzario qualified for third place on the grid. His qualifying time was just 0.2 seconds longer than the pole time of Ferrari driver Niki Lauda . This positioning was the best starting position for a Williams in a Formula 1 world championship run until then. In the race, Merzario finished sixth. The FW03 made its debut in Spain . Merzario reached sixth place on the grid with him in Belgium , otherwise he mostly started from the seventh or eighth row on the grid. He only crossed the finish line once in nine attempts with the FW03: Merzario finished fourth at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza. At all other Grands Prix he retired early. He finished two races early after a driving mistake; where he damaged the car so significantly in Monaco that the FW03 was out of order for two months. The other failures were due to technical reasons. There were three faults in the engine or in the area around the engine, including in the area of ​​the fuel supply. The throttle linkage and power transmission also failed occasionally; the Grand Prix of the United States could not finish Merzario due to a defect of the fire extinguisher.

The second cockpit, available from the South African Grand Prix , was again made available to a number of paying drivers: in South Africa , Tom Belsø drove it. While Merzario qualified for third place on the grid in FW02 and thus achieved the best training result to date for a car reported by Williams, Belsø's training time in FW01 was only enough for 27th on the grid. In the race, Belsø didn't get past the first lap. After a few hundred meters, the clutch broke and he had to give up prematurely. Belsø also won the Spanish and Great Britain Grand Prix in the second car ; here he missed the qualification. For the Dutch Grand Prix the FW01 as reported in the previous year for Gijs van Lennep, and for the subsequent race in France , the debut was Jean-Pierre Jabouilles provided in the FW01. Both drivers missed the qualification. From the German Grand Prix , the French debutant Jacques Laffite took over the second Iso. He drove the car in each of the remaining races. He regularly qualified, but did not finish in any race of the year. At the penultimate race in Canada he retired prematurely due to a puncture, but was classified as 15th because he had covered a sufficient distance before retiring.

There were irritations at the Swedish Grand Prix . Instead of the sick Merzario, Williams reported the British Richard Robarts that the second car should be driven by Tom Belsø again. Belsø qualified for starting position 22 in practice, but damaged the car in an accident so that his car was not ready for the race. The inexperienced Robards, however, already failed due to the pre-qualification. In order to have at least one car at the start in Anderstorp, Frank Williams gave Robarts' car to Belsø for this race.

Overall, Williams finished the season, which was associated with considerable financial burdens, with four championship points as tenth in the constructors' championship. With that, Williams was able to leave John Surtees' team behind.

1975

At the end of 1974 Iso Rivolta was dissolved due to bankruptcy. The partnership with Williams came to an end. Marlboro also largely withdrew from Frank Williams' team, which then had to contest the 1975 Formula 1 season without the financial support of a major partner. The largest part of the team budget was contributed by Jacques Laffite, who was raised as a regular driver, who was supported by a Swiss company called Ambrozium and had to pay the team an amount of £ 1,000 for each race. Additional funds came from Paydrivers, to whom Frank Williams rents his second car, as in previous years.

The team initially started with the two-year-old FW02 and the one-year-old FW03, whose model name had been changed from Iso-Marlboro to Williams at the beginning of the season. The FW01 was no longer used. Using its components, Williams built the first copy of the Williams FW04 in the spring of 1975 , a further development of the Iso-Marlboro constructions, which was primarily characterized by a narrower cockpit tailored to the thin Laffite. After its debut in Spain , when it was still driven by Merzario, Laffite took over the new car, while the FW03 became the rental car for the Paydriver. At the last race of the year the second FW04 was finished; but the car was no longer used.

During his first outing in the FW04 in Monaco , Laffite missed the qualification, but after that the participation in the races was secured. Laffite's best qualifying result was twelfth starting place at the Austrian Grand Prix , the worst 21st place at the US Grand Prix . Laffite only crossed the finish line twice in eight races. The gearbox collapsed three times, the engine failed once, and in Austria Laffite gave up because his car was inaccessible. Laffite achieved the best racing result in the team's history at a Formula 1 World Championship run at the German Grand Prix , which he finished in second place: Laffite started the race from 15th place on the grid. In the first nine laps of the race, an unusually large number of drivers dropped out as a result of tire damage and the resulting suspension damage: Jochen Mass , John Watson , Vittorio Brambilla , Emerson Fittipaldi , Carlos Pace and Jean-Pierre Jarier , all of whom had started before Laffite, had to End the race at the Nürburgring prematurely after tire defects , James Hunt and Clay Regazzoni also retired due to other defects. Laffite was spared technical problems in this race and crossed the finish line in second place with almost a minute ahead of third-placed Lauda. He drove in six world championship points for Williams, the only one that year and the only one that the FW04 scored.

The second Williams was rented to eight different drivers in 1978. In Spain, Tony Brise drove the car that made its Formula 1 debut in Montjuïc . He qualified for 18th place on the grid. Two laps before the end he collided with the Shadow factory driver Tom Pryce while lapping . Both drivers dropped out. But since Brise had covered 27 of 29 laps, he was classified seventh. Brise then moved to the Embassy Hill team . His successors at Williams were Damien Magee , Ian Scheckter , François Migault , Ian Ashley , Jo Vonlanthen and Renzo Zorzi , who each bought themselves into the team for a race. Scheckter, Magee and Zorzi crossed the finish line in their missions outside of the points. The best result of them was achieved by Scheckter, who finished twelfth in the Netherlands . He had been lapped five times; Zorzi was six laps behind in Italy. The other drivers suffered from the technical unreliability of the FW03. Migault, who was registered for the French Grand Prix , qualified for 24th place on the grid but was unable to take part in the race. Before the start, the Williams mechanics failed to start the engine. The Swiss Jo Vonlanthen missed the qualification at the Austrian Grand Prix, almost eight seconds behind the pole time. However, since the pre-placed Wilson Fittipaldi and Mark Donohue could not take part in the race due to an accident, Vonlanthen moved up into the line of qualifiers. After 15 racing laps, he had improved from 25th to 20th place. Then it failed prematurely because of an engine failure. Ian Ashley suffered an accident during training for the German Grand Prix in the Pflanzgarten section in which he broke several hand bones. He couldn't take part in the race. Vonlanthen also drove the FW03 at the Swiss Grand Prix , a Formula 1 race that was not part of the World Championship and was held the week after the race in Austria on the French Circuit de Dijon-Prenois . He qualified for 15th and penultimate starting position; he was 2.5 seconds behind the pole time of Jean-Pierre Jarier (Shadow). The race was "full of problems" for Vonlanthen, so that he crossed the finish line nine laps behind and was not classified.

Disregarded an engine failure in FW04: Lella Lombardi

For the last race of the year in the USA the second Williams FW04 appeared for the first time, which was supposed to replace the FW03, which Williams had rented to a total of seven paydrivers during the 1975 season . In Watkins Glen , the second car for the Italian racing driver Lella Lombardi , who had sponsorship funds from Lavazza , was registered. She should drive the new FW04 / 2. Due to a chain of unfortunate circumstances, none of the Williams drivers ultimately took part in the US Grand Prix. Laffite qualified for 21st place on the grid, Lombardi for 24th place. During the warm-up on race Sunday, a valve spring on Lombardi's Cosworth engine broke. The Italian did not notice the defect and continued her training round. The valve then fell into the cylinder and tore the engine block. Since Williams did not have a replacement engine for financial reasons, Lombardi was initially excluded from participating in the race. On the morning of the Sunday race, Laffite also dropped out: his wife mistook his eye drops for a cleaning fluid and mistakenly put a few drops of the cleaning agent in the driver's eyes. Laffite then had to be taken to a clinic and could not take part in the race. The attempt to bring Lombardi to the start in the now vacant Laffites car also failed: Lombardi did not fit into the FW04 / 1, which was tailored to the extremely slim Laffite. In addition, there was no time to change the engine.

End of the racing team

In December 1975 Frank Williams sold his racing team to Walter Wolf. Wolf had previously taken over the remnants of the Hesketh team and is now merging the resources of Hesketh and Williams. The team should compete under the name Walter Wolf Racing in the future . As such, it was regularly reported from the 1976 Spanish Grand Prix .

The assignment of the 1976 Formula 1 season is not without controversy in motorsport literature. Some authors still attribute the year statistically to the Frank Williams Racing Cars team, which corresponds to a postponement of Walter Wolf Racing's debut to 1977 . Mostly, however, it is assumed that Frank Williams Racing Cars contested his last race at the 1975 US Grand Prix, so that all races from 1976 are already included in Walter Wolf Racing's statistics. However, the team has been running the entry lists as Walter Wolf Racing since 1976.

Even after the takeover by Walter Wolf, old Williams vehicles repeatedly appeared in Formula 1 races. The 1973 Williams FW03 produced took the Ticino Loris Kessel , who had it rebuilt in Italy by Giacomo Caliri and under the name of Apollo Williams FW03 for the Italian Grand Prix in 1977 reported. He couldn't qualify with the four year old car. The FW04 appeared in the spring of 1976 at the Spanish Grand Prix for the Mapfre-Williams customer team . Then it was sold to Brian McGuire, who rebuilt it significantly and entered it as McGuire BM1 for the British Grand Prix . McGuire couldn't qualify. A little later he had a fatal training accident in his car at Brands Hatch .

Race cars from Frank Williams Racing Cars

From 1972 to 1975 Frank Williams Racing Cars designed five different racing cars, of which a total of seven copies were made. The Williams FW05 does not belong in this range. On the one hand, it is not a Williams' own design, but just a renamed Hesketh 308C ; on the other hand, regardless of its model name, the car was not used by Frank Williams Racing Cars, but by Walter Wolf Racing.

model	number of pieces	season	Starts	driver	Points	Re-use
Politoys FX3 Iso-Marlboro FX3B	2	1972 1973	7th	Henri Pescarolo Nanni Galli Howden Ganley Jackie Pretorius	0
Iso-Marlboro IR1 Iso-Marlboro FW01	1	1973 1974	12	Gijs van Lennep Tim Schenken Jacky Ickx Jean-Pierre Jabouille	1
Iso-Marlboro IR2 Iso-Marlboro FW02 Williams FW02	1	1973 1974 1975	25th	Howden Ganley Arturo Merzario Tom Belsø Gijs van Lennep Jacques Laffite	2
Iso-Marlboro FW03 Williams FW03	1	1974 1975	18th	Arturo Merzario Tony Brise Damien Magee Ian Scheckter François Migault Ian Ashley Jo Vonlanthen Renzo Zorzi	3	1976 as Apollon-Williams FW03
Williams FW04	2	1975 1976	10	Arturo Merzario Jacques Laffite Lella Lombardi Renzo Zorzi Emilio Zapico Brian McGuire	6th	1976 by Mapfre Williams reported as 1977 McGuire BM1 reported

See also

List of Williams Formula 1 racing cars

literature

• Adriano Cimarosti: The Century of Racing . Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9
• Maurice Hamilton: Frank Williams. The inside story of the man behind the Williams Renault . London (Macmillan) 1998. ISBN 0333717163 .
• David Hodges: Racing Cars from A to Z after 1945 . 1st edition Stuttgart (Motorbuch Verlag) 1994, ISBN 3-613-01477-7
• David Hodges: AZ of Grand Prix Cars 1906–2000 , 1st edition London 2001, ISBN 1861263392 (English)
• Pierre Ménard: La Grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1 . 2nd edition, St. Sulpice, 2000, ISBN 2-940125-45-7 (French)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hamilton: Frank Williams. The inside Story of the man behind Williams-Renault , pp. 21, 39.
2. ↑ Statistics and race results of Formula 2 ( Memento of the original from March 28, 2012 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ^ Maurice Hamilton: Frank Williams, p. 25.
4. ↑ Racing history of the Brabham BT26 / 1 on the website www.oldracingcars.com ( Memento of the original from January 7, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed October 20, 2013). 
5. ↑ Hamilton: Frank Williams. The inside story of the man behind Williams-Renault, p. 27.
6. ↑ David Hodges: Racing Cars from A to Z after 1945, p. 78.
7. ↑ Maurice Hamilton: Frank Williams, p. 30
8. ^ David Hodges: AZ of Grand Prix Cars 1906–2000, p. 45.
9. ↑ Maurice Hamilton: Frank Williams, pp. 35, 38.
10. ^ ^{A b c} Maurice Hamilton: Frank Williams. The inside story of the man behind Williams-Renault . P. 40 f.
11. ↑ ^{a b} Pierre Ménard: La Grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1, p. 558.
12. ^ David Hodges, Rennwagen from A to Z after 1945, p. 210.
13. ↑ Maurice Hamilton: Frank Williams, p. 40.
14. ↑ On the racing history of the March 721/3 see. the website www.oldracingcars.com ( memento of the original from September 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed October 20, 2013). 
15. ↑ For the different representations cf. David Hodges: Racing Cars from AZ after 1945 , p. 210.
16. ↑ Arturo Merzario, the Iso-Marlboro IR1 and an Iso Lele: Image at www.ibics.ch ( Memento of the original from October 16, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed October 16, 2013). 
17. ↑ Cimarosti: The Century of Racing, p. 253.
18. ↑ David Hodges: Racing Cars from AZ after 1945 , p. 121.
19. ↑ Maurice Hamilton: Frank Williams. The inside story of the man behind Williams-Renault , p. 43.
20. ↑ David Hodges: Racing Cars from A to Z after 1945, p. 121
21. ↑ In Belgium the throttle cable jammed, in Monaco the half-wave broke.
22. ↑ ^{a b} Biography of Tom Belsøs on the website www.f1rejects.com ( Memento of the original from October 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed October 8, 2013). 
23. ↑ See Maurice Hamilton: Frank Williams. The inside story of the man behind Williams-Renault . Pp. 50 and 68 f.
24. ^ Entry on Merzario's commitment to the 1974 US Grand Prix on the website www.racingsportscars.com (accessed on October 15, 2013).
25. ↑ Maurice Hamilton: Frank Williams. The Inside Story of the man behind Williams-Renault . P. 45.
26. ^ Biography of Jo Vonlanthen on the website www.f1rejects.com (accessed October 8, 2013).
27. ↑ Statistics of the Grand Prix of Switzerland 1975 on the website www.silhouet.com (accessed on October 16, 2013).
28. ↑ Representation in Jo Vonlanthen's biography on the website www.f1rejects.com , there without further specification of the problems (accessed on October 8, 2013).
29. ↑ On the history of the US Grand Prix in 1976. Hamilton: Frank Williams. The inside story of the man behind Williams-Renault . P. 52.
30. ↑ For example Cimarosti: Das Jahrhundert des Rennsports , p. 273 f.).
31. ^ So also Maurice Hamilton: Frank Williams, p. 56