An amazing life, RIP a legend of motorsport

RIP

Sir Frank Williams: Formula 1 team founder dies aged 79 – https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/59453378

Damn – long my favourite team, and still my favourite team owner. 🙁

One of the last independents we’ll see in the sport.

Highly successful cigarette and alcohol advertiser.

Highly successful cigarette and alcohol advertiser

Highly successful cigarette and alcohol advertiser.

You’re confusing him with Noel Gallagher.

Highly successful cigarette and alcohol advertiser

I reckon if he thought it’d make the car win he’d have cocaine written on the front wing and Hookers on the rear..
A great man.

Brilliant mind for competition. Real shame. However at 79 that’s some going considering how injured he was.

Ps I heard Enzo sold smack and Eddie J crystal meth… 😳 😂

Highly successful cigarette and alcohol advertiser.

Stay classy Edukator

Highly successful cigarette and alcohol advertiser.

What is it about the endless need of someone to shit on a still-warm corpse? I will never understand it.

You’re a motorsport fan, right? Who of his contemporaries do you admire for their refusal to take cigarette or alcohol sponsorship?

Don’t feed the troll.

RIP, one of the greats.

One of the greatest ever at demonstrating what can be done if you refuse to give up. The success he achieved after his injuries was incredible and he was a hero to so many people who have suffered life changing injuries.

Highly successful cigarette and alcohol advertiser.

Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

I’m glad that tobacco sponsorship has been banned but no F1 team could succeed back then without it so you need to lay the blame for that collectively at the entire sport, not on a single person. I never found Frank Williams to be a particularly likeable character, but he deserves enormous respect for what he achieved. Williams have fallen a long way from their glory days, but 30 years ago they were what Mercedes is now – an utterly dominant technical team. I’m pretty confidant that if Senna hadn’t been killed, he could have won four consecutive championships driving the Williams.

 I’m pretty confidant that if Senna hadn’t been killed, he could have won four consecutive championships driving the Williams.

Or even if that had happened, retaining Hill and not replacing him with Frentzen and perhaps more importantly,  finding a way to keep Newey on board….Williams could’ve still be a force to be reckoned with now.

The success he achieved after his injuries was incredible and he was a hero to so many people who have suffered life changing injuries.

You know how he sustained those injuries? “Making progress” in a Sierra hire car on a French road. He was injured taking risks with his own and other people’s lives on a public road. Not exactly heroic.

I was against cigarette and drink advertising in sport even when participating back then.

We don’t all have the same view of the world, one person’s hero is another person’s villain. I’m happy to speak ill of the dead if it leads to people thinking about their own behaviour. Frank Williams helped me think about mine, Henri Toivonen did at about the same time too.

Henri Toivonen was the driver I admired most at the time, I learned form him that the sport I was doing was getting silly and excesively dangerous for both participants and spectators.

I learned from Frank Williams that public roads aren’t a special stage. I’d already learned that before but it was part of a process.

And also, as far as not finding Frank Williams to be very likeable, I don’t think there’s any successful F1 team boss that I would consider likeable. Nice guys just aren’t going to succeed in that business.

Sorry Edukator, but while I agree that tobacco and alcohol advertising has no place in sport (or anywhere for that matter), the timing of your quip could be better.

Highly successful cigarette and alcohol advertiser.

It’s worth pointing out that by 2000, the Williams FW22 was notable for the absence of tobacco sponsorship, unlike cars from competitor teams like the West McLaren Mercedes, Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, Benson & Hedges Jordan, Mild Seven Benetton Playlife, Gauloises Prost Peugeot and Lucky Strike BAR Honda.

Edukator

You know how he sustained those injuries? “Making progress” in a Sierra hire car on a French road. He was injured taking risks with his own and other people’s lives on a public road. Not exactly heroic.

No need to be an arse about it though, quite obviously he wasn’t considered a hero because of the stupid decision he made to drive too quickly for the conditions, but because of his remarkable recovery

RIP Sir Frank – a great career and legacy, hopefully Williams will prosper under the new owners.

Apparently he was also the oldest living tetraplegic.

Is a thread started to pay respect to a recently deceased legend of the sport really the place to debate the rights and wrongs of advertising?

No, it isn’t.

You know how he sustained those injuries? “Making progress” in a Sierra hire car on a French road. He was injured taking risks with his own and other people’s lives on a public road. Not exactly heroic.

FFS.

I didn’t say he was heroic for the way he got injured. He was inspirational to many because of the way he carried on after he sustained those injuries. You know, building his team to be the most successful in F1 for a decade. He was not the first and won’t be the last to be a dick on the roads, but fortunately most people are not crass enough to judge his whole life on the basis of a moment of stupidity 35 years ago.

Henri Toivonen was the driver I admired most at the time

Crashed to his death in the Martini-sponsored S4, taking his team mate with him whilst miles ahead and still unnecessarily smashing out record stage times on a rally he’d condemned as he battled a raging flu, yeah? You can make ANYONE look a dick if you want to, anyone – the question you should be asking yourself is “why do I hear the news of someone passing and feel that the very first thing I want to do in a thread where people are mourning a death is tell them all how unlikeable that person was”.

Absolutely the only behaviour I’m pondering right now is yours.

According to the Williams documentary – narrated by his own daughter, Frank Williams’ nickname when he was living in a house share was “W*nks”.

RIP, legendary guy. The documentary a few years ago however brought him down in my estimation as a general human being, and particularly as a family man.

According to the Williams documentary – narrated by his own daughter, Frank Williams’ nickname when he was living in a house share was “W*nks”.

As confirmed in Hamilton’s biography of him. And?

The documentary a few years ago however brought him down in my estimation as a general human being, and particularly as a family man.

Not seen it, but I don’t doubt that he was a particularly single-minded and not always family-minded man.

Slightly out of context, but this tweet is a reminder of how dominant McLaren and Williams were back in the 80s and 90s.

Great comment. No driver apart from Piquet in the Brabham in 1981 & 83 and Schumacher in the Benetton in 94-95 won a championship in anything other than a McLaren or a Williams from 1980-99. Car/reliability/luck. How many missed out?

— Brendan Rankin (@rankinb9) November 29, 2021

The last time I met Frank was around the time of the sale of the team last year, he could regularly be found chatting with the security guys on the gatehouse, I was coming back in to the factory at Grove after a late evening bike ride and ended up spending about 20 minutes discussing carbon bikes, electric gearshift and disc brakes with him – he was genuinely interested in the technology and impressed by where bike technology had got to.

An amazing man who achieved a huge amount. I’m very proud to have known him.

My friends son has just landed an engineering apprenticeship at Williams. It all happened very quickly, he went from school to, in a just a couple of weeks, moving to Oxford and starting at college and apprenticeship. What an amazing opportunity, I am very very jealous.

My friends son has just landed an engineering apprenticeship at Williams.

Jings, does he have this weeks euromillions numbers please?

My friends son has just landed an engineering apprenticeship at Williams

Wow. I’ll scale back my own paternal boasting, what an amazing opportunity.

Jings, does he have this weeks euromillions numbers please?

I suspect he isn’t the lucky sort, more the extremely hard working and talented sort, equally as rare mind.

I suspect he isn’t the lucky sort, more the extremely hard working and talented sort, equally as rare mind.

He’s not top of his class by any stretch. He gets B’s and C’s in exams. But he done lots of stuff outside of school through DofE, Boys Brigade, volunteering. He is inquisitive, enthusiastic and energetic. All great qualities.

But he done lots of stuff outside of school through DofE, Boys Brigade, volunteering. He is inquisitive, enthusiastic and energetic. All great qualities.

Not relevant to the thread I know, but I see that a lot with kids I see going through the youth groups mine gave been involved with, and with apprentices at places where I’ve worked.

The fact that an organisation like Williams will recognise those non-academic abilities with opportunities like that is fantastic – and maybe reflects on Frank Williams as well, if he set the culture.

You know how he sustained those injuries? “Making progress” in a Sierra hire car on a French road. He was injured taking risks with his own and other people’s lives on a public road. Not exactly heroic.

A point Frank himself acknowledged. He said it was an entirely selfish act that needn’t of happened had he not been a dick and that he was just grateful it was he who sustained the injuries and not Windsor.

I will give you this little snippet though from one of the obituaries that I think shows he was not a complete dick:

—
Two years earlier at the same venue, I had glimpsed the inner Frank Williams. A friend had been paralysed in a car accident, and I asked him to give me a 101 lesson in the subject. Three months later I was with that friend in Stoke Mandeville and he was radiant.

“Guess who came to see me yesterday?”

It had been Frank. He didn’t know my friend, but they shared the same consultant and Frank had paid a visit just to offer this young man advice and encouragement. Frank’s thoughtful kindness meant the world to him.
—

To me a legend, the last of the independents and perhaps the only one that really properly made it at the very pinnacle of F1.

I’m pretty confidant that if Senna hadn’t been killed, he could have won four consecutive championships driving the Williams.

Except he wouldn’t have been driving for Williams the year after he won the title because of the teams long standing policy of not retaining world champions…

Even at their peak the Williams team never had the money to pay the kind of wages a defending champion would have been looking for.

Except he wouldn’t have been driving for Williams the year after he won the title because of the teams long standing policy of not retaining world champions…

That wasn’t their policy. They just hired whatever driver they thought was best value for money and put their money towards engineering. Prost and Senna were both superstars when they signed up, they would have both taken salary cuts to get into the best car on the grid. Senna said he would drive for free, he was that desperate to get a competitive car. Williams retained Villeneuve after he won the title. They wanted to keep him on after that too, but he left to join BAR. He wasn’t sacked. They also retained Alan Jones and Keke Rosberg after winning titles.

@edukator

You know how he sustained those injuries? “Making progress” in a Sierra hire car on a French road. He was injured taking risks with his own and other people’s lives on a public road. Not exactly heroic.

Not untrue, but did it need to be said?
The guy is dead ffs.
I’ve agreed with you an a fair few other threads edukator, but you’re out of order at this moment.