WilliamsF1, formerly Williams Grand Prix Engineering is a Formula One racing team formed and run by Frank Williams and Patrick Head. Founded in 1977, the team was highly successful throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
They won their first FIA Formula 1 World Championship with Australian Alan Jones in 1980. Then followed Keke Rosberg's Championship in 1982. Since then Nelson Piquet (1987), Nigel Mansell (1992), Alain Prost (1993), Damon Hill (1996) and Jacques Villeneuve (1997) have all won the World Driver's Championship for the team. The last 4 Championships were won with the dominant Renault V10 engine of the 1990s.
The team is famous for placing more significance on the World Constructor's Championship rather than the Driver's Championship and this is reflected in their results with 9 Constructor's Titles but only 7 Driver's Titles.
The team's darkest hour was probably the weekend of the San Marino GP at Imola in 1994. That weekend, the great Ayrton Senna was killed in only his third race with the Rothmans Williams Renault team. David Coulthard and Nigel Mansell alternated in substituting for Senna later in the year and the team, despite this tragedy managed to win the Constructor's Title and Damon Hill controversially lost the Driver's Championship by only one point in the final race in Adelaide, Australia.
The team has recently signed a long-term deal to use BMW engines and expertise until 2009. Since starting this relationship in 2000, the BMW WilliamsF1 team has won 9 races with Juan Pablo Montoya's recent victory at the German GP at the Hockenheimring being the latest.
