Williams F1 milestones: 500 Grand Prix special

[Kotenok]

The AT&T Williams F1 Team has been racing for 30 years long, within this time the team took part already in 500 Grand Prix.

This great sum is going to be approached tomorrow, at the 2008 Italian GP in the "Autodromo Nazionale di Monza", known as the Cathedral of the Italian 'tifosi'. A great number of them are passionate supporters of Ferrari. It's a great party for those who are dressed in 'rosso corsa', but it is also a great holiday day for those who wear dark blue :-)

The circuit of Monza has a long history in motor racing world also, it hosted more F1 races than any other track and there were raced all Italian GP since 1950, but not in 1980 been in Imola. Monza is the most suitable place for celebrate the 500th GP of the history of Williams this Sunday. Williams Grand Prix Engineering was formed by Frank Williams and Patrick Head in 1977, but didn't take part in any race until January of 1978 at the Argentine Grand Prix, and the little F1 team brought there their first racing car, the FW06, driven by Alan Jones.
Monza will landmark the 500th GP of the team during the 30th anniversary of the participation at the FIA F1 World Championship, during this period of time their cars covered over 250.000 Km, succeeded with 113 victories and won 16 World Championships, 9 constructor titles and 7 driver titles.

And the whole team is going to take part in this landmark celebration, because 500 Grand Prix is a great record for a F1 private team which succeeded and still keeps kicking!

Some words extracted from diverse interviews:

Nico Rosberg:
Q: 2008 is an important year for Williams as it celebrates 500 GPs, 30 years and 50,000 raced laps. Is being part of a team with such a strong heritage important to you?
NR: It’s amazing for the team to be celebrating all these milestones in one year! The team has moved on so much over the years though so I don’t really think about it too much, but it’s still cool to be a part of it.

Kazuki Nakajima
Q: Williams will celebrate a number of landmarks this year, notably 500 GPs. What does it mean to you to make your career debut with a team with such a strong heritage in the sport?
KN: Williams is a great team with a long and successful history. For me, it's really special to be making my debut with them because I can learn so much from their experience. It's also like one big family. Everyone loves what they do and has just one aim and that is to race, so as a driver it's one of the best teams to be with.

Patrick Head
Q: 2008 is a celebratory year for Williams in which 500 GPs and 50,000 racing laps will be reached. Did you foresee such longevity when you started the team?
PH: I don’t think either Frank or I thought about it. Formula One teams in those days tended to come and go. In our first five years or so it was a financial struggle to survive, but luckily we started winning races and then Championships quite early, so this made the financial side stronger.

Source © Williams

CAR magazine online publishes a personal interview with Frank Williams by Tom Clarkson (I've never heard about, but well... he may be know in his neighborhood), to read more about the impressions of their meeting follow this link to:

CAR magazine online - Frank Williams: exclusive interview on his 50...


Some statistics compared to the F1 top competitors:

Over its thirty years of Formula One, Williams has enjoyed enduring rivalry with
some of the sport’s greatest names. The team’s record in this company is as
follows:

Williams has won 23.3% of the races it has entered
This record is slightly behind Ferrari (win ratio of 26.5%) & McLaren (24.8%)
60.8% of the races Williams has entered have yielded a podium position
Williams has scored an average of five points every race since 1977
Over 57 years (1950 – 2007) Ferrari has won 201 races. An average of 3.5
wins per annum
Over 44 years (1963 – 2007) McLaren has won 156 races. An average of 3.5
wins per annum
Over 36 years (1958 – 1994) Lotus won 79 races. An average of 2.2 wins per
annum
Over 30 years (1977 – 2007) Williams has won 113 races. An average of 3.8
wins per annum

Statistics of Williams published on 2008 pre-season

Source © Williams
These statistics were compiled on 11th of February of 2008.

In base to Williams F1 constructor are possible to find many statistics in the net, but they usually include in their range the previous attempts which Frank Williams did in the FIA F1 World Championship with "Frank Williams Racing Cars" and "Walter Wolf Racing", although appears data of "Jolly Club of Switzerland" (Loris Kessel brought his own Apollon-Williams, a client car based on the FW03).

Here are two good sources for get a detailed review of the history of Willliams:

F1DB.com - Constructor / Williams

4mula1.ro - List of driver's results (since 1973 to latest result achieved)

Carefully when reading these statistic sources, some could be not contrasted with official sources.

Why the supporters of the AT&T Williams F1 Team may enjoy?

Because all of us had one or more heroes during this time! We followed the team as a kind of marriage, in the good times and the bad ones!! And surely we shall enjoy that the Williams team's spirit is the same of the beginnings! This F1 team means much more than a simple racing squad, they're a bit of history of the modern Formula One.

The heroes of all times

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Some parts of this post have been extracted from AT&T Williams F1 Team site, concerning to their copyright and their reproduction here, please contact me before any claim about their copyrights.