Frank Williams, the founder and former manager of the Williams Racing team, has passed away. He was 79 years old.
Williams led the motorsports team from an abandoned carpet factory to the top of Formula One. He racked up 114 victories, with a combined 16 drivers ‘and constructors’ world championships. He went on to become the longest-serving skipper in F1.
“After being admitted to the hospital on Friday, Sir Frank passed away peacefully this morning surrounded by his family,” Williams reported Sunday. “Today we pay tribute to such a beloved and inspiring figure. Frank will be sorely missed.”
Briton George Russell, the team’s current driver, evoked Williams as “a wonderfully genuine human being.”
The most extraordinary thing in Williams’ life was the will he displayed after a spectacular car accident in France in 1986. The injuries were so severe that doctors even considered turning off the artificial respiration apparatus.
But his wife, Virginia, ordered her husband to stay connected, and by means of determination and courage – characteristics that personified his career – he continued to live, although he was left in a wheelchair.
He remained as Williams’ patron for 34 years until the long-established F1 family sold the team to an American consortium last August.
Francis Owen Garbett Williams was born in South Shields on April 16, 1942, the son of a British Air Force officer and a school principal. He was educated at St Joseph’s College, a private academy in Dumfries where he became obsessed with cars after taking a drive in a Jaguar XK150.
From a daytime merchandise salesman, Williams fulfilled his ambition of venturing into motorsport racing on the weekends and, at just 24 years old, launched his own team, Frank Williams Racing Cars.
Four years later, they were already in Formula 2. With his friend and roommate Piers Courage behind the wheel, Williams jumped into F1 in 1969 with a second-hand Brabham.