Debut: 1978
Grands Prix: 731
Constructor’s Championships: 9
Driver’s Championships: 7
Wins: 114
Team Principal: Frank Williams
Drivers:
Significant Others:
Claire Williams – out-of-her-depth offspring who – if you watched the Williams documentary – just made you wonder what level of fuckwit her buck-toothed brother must be if she got to run the team whilst he got the gig of drifting about an old warehouse staring forlornly at cardboard boxes full of spare parts 
History:
How the mighty have fallen – assuming you’re old enough to recall them as being mighty in the first place.
Now in the equivalent of the bargain bin at Woolworths, Williams wheezes back onto the grid for its 43rd season decked out in all the current glory of whichever thruppeny bit company thought it wise to throw them enough spare change for some signage on the side of their latest clown car.
Retaining George Russell and Mercedes engines might seem like holding onto the services of Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis but even they’re not going to win any BAFTAs if you toss them the script for Hollyoaks.
Expect them to be faster than last year even if only because imagining the opposite is almost too painful to contemplate.
Distinguishing Markings:
White. Mainly white. The red and blue could be a sponsor or they could be hedging their bets a country might sponsor them and this covers all the main ones.
Reasons to support them, part 1:
1) Your F1 allegiances were forged in the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s: drawn to the fiercely independent spirit and pugnacious driving of Jones, Mansell, Villeneuve et al who could fail to be seduced by this, the most British of British F1 teams?
2) Your first ever fags were Rothmans and the team are the only thing you have left to cling to beyond the thin strand of life still attached via your ventilator
Split Personality?
Refusing to sell out to the German Schill when BMW offered several trunks full of Deutschmarks for the team, Williams proved it could remain proudly, pugnaciously, independently British in the most testing of economic circumstances. It did this by subsequently taking boatloads of Brazilian, Japanese, Venezuelan and now Canadian currency from its well-heeled driver employees which is a completely different thing, I’ll have you know from under this Union Jack hat
Owned By:
Sir Frank, Sir Patrick and a mere few hundred carefully vetted companies registered in the Cayman Islands
Fun fact(s):
Claire Williams’ gymkhana ponies are called Floppsy, Moppsy, Ranstad, Lavazza & Rokit. She is flexible on the names of the first 2 if you have a big enough chequebook
Not to be confused with:
Shirley Williams, Vaughan Williams, William of Orange, William H Macy, that team called Williams that used to win stuff
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