‘Williams’ on Netflix is a must for all Formula One fans.
For one hour and forty-four minutes this inspiring documentary gives us an insight into the Williams F1 team right from the birth of Sir Frank’s racing empire through to his daughter Claire taking over the reigns.
Here is a F1 team born out of one man’s dream and passion.
It takes us through the desperate years of not attaining a F1 victory until 1979, to Sir Frank’s horrific car accident that left him a tetraplegic in 1986. The affects of the death of two of his loved drivers – Piers Courage (who competed here in the Tasman Series 1967-1969) at Zandvoort 1970, and Aryton Senna at Imola in 1994. It portrays the dysfunction of his family from the affects of his unrelenting passion, his accident, the death of his wife from cancer in 2013, the split between his two children when his daughter Claire is appointed as team principal ahead of her older brother and the lack of a Grand Prix victory since 2012.
At the beginning of the 2018 season the team appeared to make driver choices based on money first, talent second and then maybe experience.
Claire Williams has admitted this weekend at the Hungarian Grand Prix that they as a team have made mistakes this season. Hence they are last in the manufacturer standings.
Writing this week in Driven, Bob McMurray in his article ‘Once great F1 teams need to make change‘ sums up the situation for Williams:
“If the driver situation at Williams does change then that team should be clamouring to sign a driver who has that vast amount of experience, who has a track record of car development, who is both a fast and able ‘racer’ and can spend huge amounts of time testing the car in both the simulator and on the track, who is currently active in racing and developing a Formula 1 car, who has knowledge of the latest developments in engine and chassis technology and is a world champion driver no less.
Someone who will not ask for a $40 million a year salary.
In fact, as Formula 1 now takes a few weeks off for it’s summer holidays, more than just one team in the pit lane should be desperately seeking to get Brendon Hartley’s assistance and his autograph on a contract.”
With their ‘No 1’ driver Lance Stroll looking for an alternative team for 2019, F1 journalist Joe Saward is surmising ,,,,”Mercedes protege George Russell to join Williams. He would fit the Williams profile as a rising British star, but the key question there is how this would be funded. There is increasing talk of Williams doing a deal to buy more Mercedes technology rather than doing it all themselves and one can imagine that Russell’s involvement would be aided by Mercedes.”
Would Williams just end up with the same inexperienced drivers that they had at the beginning of 2018?
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