Beginning of the end- Williams FW20 #blogpost

Back in the 1990s Williams were a force to be reckoned with, winning the constructor’s title 5 times and winning the driver’s title 4 times as well. Helped by Adrian Newey’s brilliance in aerodynamics and combined with the dominant Renault engines had helped them achieve this success. Unfortunately however, Williams’ domination ended in 1998 when Renault pulled out of F1 as an engine supplier and Adrian Newey did not have any input on their 1998 car having left the team in 1996.

The 1998 season brought about two significant technical changes to reduce cornering speeds and aid overtaking.The first was the reduction of the cars’ track, from 2 m to 1.8 m, making them much narrower than in 1997. The second change was the introduction of grooved tyres to replace slicks: the front tyres had three grooves, with four on the rear tyres. Without the help of Adrian Newey, Williams struggled to adapt to these changes and without Renault to supply engines, Williams used Mecachrome engines which were essentially the previous year’s Renault engines rebadged. Other changes for Williams included them getting Winfield as their new title sponsor instead of Rothmans, dropping the iconic blue and white livery for a red one. Their driver lineup remained unchanged with reigning world champion Jacques Villeneuve and Heinz-Harald Frentzen.

At the start of the season, it was clear that the Adrian Newey designed McLaren MP4-13 was the strongest car and that the Williams FW20 wasn’t particularly close with Villeneuve qualifying 4th and Frentzen in 6th. In a race with many retirements Frentzen would manage a podium for Williams and Villeneuve would finish in 5th, both however an entire lap down on the dominant McLarens.

The car would continue to be relatively mediocre throughout the season, never being able to challenge for wins and only managing to get 2 more podiums with Villeneuve at Hungary and Germany, managing only 4 double points finished due to poor reliability and a general lack of pace.

Despite their lack lustre season however, they still finished 3rd in the constructors championship edging out Benneton and Jordan by a handful of points and a long way behind McLaren and Ferrari who had 156 and 133 respectively compared to Williams’ 38. It would be the first time in 10 years that Williams would finish a season without winning a race. Villeneuve finished 5th in the driver’s championship and was unhappy with the team’s performance and left for the newly formed BAR team while Frentzen who finished 7th in the championship would leave for Jordan.

Unfortunately for Williams the 1998 season would only be the start of their slow transition into a midfield team, it would be followed by an even worse 1999 season and while their partnership with BMW would bring a few wins and a potential title challenge in 2003, Williams continued their fall down the F1 field finishing last in the championship in 2018, having not won a race since 6 years and not won a single title for 21 years.