List of Williams Formula 1 racing cars
The Williams Formula 1 racing car list includes the Frank Williams Racing Cars and Williams F1 racing cars that were used in the Formula 1 World Championship.
background
Frank Williams Racing Cars
The racing car dealer and amateur racing driver Frank Williams founded his own motorsport team Frank Williams Racing Cars in 1968, which initially fielded customer cars from Brabham in the Formula 2 European Championship . The team appeared for the first time in 1969 with Piers Courage as driver and a new Brabham BT26 in Formula 1. In 1970 Williams and Courage exclusively used a De Tomaso 505 designed by Giampaolo Dallara and built in Italy , with which Courage had a fatal accident at the Dutch Grand Prix . After another year with customer vehicles, Frank Williams' team became a designer in 1972 . The basic construction was further developed several times until 1975. The cars were given changing names, depending on the team sponsors. After Politoys (1972), the Italian sports car manufacturer Iso Rivolta was named after the company in 1973 , before Williams gave the car its own name following the Isos bankruptcy in 1975. At this time the prefix FW (for Frank Williams) was created, followed by a sequential number for the respective chassis. This nomenclature will continue into the current Formula 1 season.
At the end of 1975, Frank Williams sold his highly indebted team to the Canadian entrepreneur Walter Wolf , who continued it until 1979 under the name Walter Wolf Racing .
Williams Grand Prix Engineering and Williams F1
In 1977, Frank Williams founded a new racing team called Williams Grand Prix Engineering, which started in 1978 after a transition year with a customer vehicle from March with a self-constructed car. The model designated as FW06 continued the count interrupted in 1977. The team, which is now known as Williams F1, has been involved in the Formula 1 World Championship without interruption ever since. From 1980 to 1997 it won seven drivers 'and nine constructors' championships.
Customer teams
Until 1980, individual Williams chassis were not only used by the works team in the Formula 1 World Championship, but also by independent customer teams who took over older chassis from Williams. Since 1981 the regulations have forbidden the use of a racing car that was not designed by the company itself. Some Williams chassis also appeared in the Aurora AFX Formula 1 series and in the International Formula 3000 Championship .
Explanations of the list
Data collected
The list includes all Formula 1 racing cars designed by Frank Williams Racing Cars as well as Williams Grand Prix Engineering or Williams F1 that were used in a race for the Formula 1 World Championship. Deployments by the works team and the customer teams are listed equally. However, Formula 1 races that did not have world championship status are not taken into account . Here Williams sometimes reported drivers who did not start in world championship races. Mere test vehicles and prototypes that were not used in any world championship run are also not included. They are described below in the section Formula 1 racing cars not used .
Notes on coloring
The list includes all Formula 1 racing cars designed by Frank Williams Racing Cars, Williams Grand Prix Engineering and Williams F1. Both companies were legally independent. To enable a clear assignment of the individual chassis to the respective company, individual table fields are colored. The colors have the following meanings:
| Background color | meaning |
| Light Blue | Cars designed by Frank Williams Racing Cars as well as the drivers of the works team |
| White | Cars designed by Williams Grand Prix Engineering and Williams F1 as well as the drivers of the works team |
| pink | Driver of a customer team who ran a car from Frank Williams Racing Cars or Williams Grand Prix Engineering |
Notes on the columns
- The "Vehicle" column contains the designation under which the respective construction was reported. Only in the early years of Frank Williams Racing Cars were the chassis individually numbered; Starting with the Williams FW06, the name refers to the entire series, which regularly included several identically constructed chassis.
- The "Season" column indicates the year or years in which the vehicle in question was used for a race in the Formula 1 World Championship.
- The "Driver" column names the racing drivers who were registered with the respective chassis by the factory or customer team. If a chassis has been used for several years, but a driver only started the car in one year, the year of use of the respective driver is marked with a bracket.
- The column "Designer" names the engineer who was responsible for the construction of the vehicle. Until the 1970s, the vehicles were completely designed by a single engineer, especially for small teams like Williams was at the time. Larger construction departments were created later. From the second half of the 1970s, the technical director or the holder of a comparable position is listed accordingly.
- The column "World Championship Points" lists the points that the Williams works team has achieved with the respective chassis across all seasons. The Williams customer teams have not scored a World Championship point with any chassis. The points of the individual drivers are added up.
List of Williams Formula 1 racing cars
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Formula 1 racing cars not used
- The Williams FW07D and Williams FW08B were test vehicles with six wheels from 1982. The cars had two powered rear axles and one steered front axle. Conceptually, they corresponded to March 2-4-0 of 1976. When a restriction to four-wheeled vehicles was included in the Formula 1 regulations in 1983, Williams stopped developing the six-wheeled models.
- The Williams FW15 was an active suspension racing car developed for use in the 1992 season as a replacement for the FW14B. When it became clear in the course of the year that the FW14B was so powerful that it could win the world championship even without the computer-controlled chassis, Williams decided not to use the FW15.
- The Williams FW15B was a further development of the FW15, which had received changes mainly in the area of chassis geometry and aerodynamics. The FW15B was only used on test drives prior to the start of the 1993 season . The findings resulted in the FW15C, which was further developed and was used throughout the 1993 season.
References and comments
- ↑ Emilio Zapico drove for the Mapfre-Williams team .
- ↑ Brian McGuire drove for his own team, Brian McGuire Racing . He redesigned the FW04 in the spring of 1977 and died in the car during test drives at Brands Hatch.
- ↑ Masami Kuwashima was entered for the 1976 Japanese Grand Prix and took part in Friday training. After his sponsor did not pay on time, the team replaced him with Hans Binder for Saturday training.
- ↑ Rupert Keegan started for RAM Racing in an FW07.
- ↑ Desiré Wilson started for the Brands Hatch Racing team organized by RAM Racing in an FW07.
- ↑ Emilio de Villota registered an FW07 for his team Equipe Banco Occidental in 1981. However, he was banned from participating in the race because the Formula 1 regulations now forbade the use of customer cars.
- ↑ Kevin Cogan started for the Rainbow Jeans Racing team organized by RAM Racing .
- ↑ Geoff Lees started for the RAM Racing team . Its use was financed by Theodore Racing , but was not connected there.
- ^ History of the Williams FW08C / 10 on the website www.oldracingcars.com (accessed on May 11, 2017).
- ^ History of the Williams FW08C / 11 on the website www.oldracingcars.com (accessed on May 11, 2017).
literature
- Ian Bamsey: The 1000 bhp Grand Prix Cars , 1988 (GT Foulis & Co. Ltd), ISBN 978-0854296170 (English)
- Adriano Cimarosti: The century of racing , Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9
- Alan Henry: Williams: Formula 1 Racing Team , Haynes Publishing, 1998, ISBN 978-1-85960-416-8 .
- David Hodges: A – Z of Grand Prix Cars 1906–2001 , 2001 (Crowood Press), ISBN 1-86126-339-2 (English)
- David Hodges: Racing Cars from A – Z after 1945 , Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-613-01477-7
- Pierre Ménard: La Grande Encyclopédie de la Formule 1 , 2nd edition, St. Sulpice, 2000, ISBN 2-940125-45-7
- Doug Nye: The Big Book of Formula 1 Racing Cars. The three-liter formula from 1966 . Publishing house Rudolf Müller, Cologne 1986, ISBN 3-481-29851-X .