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The passing of Frank Williams yesterday got me thinking how the Formula One Teams of today differ from those of yester year and it was an interesting rabbit hole to jump down. Where and how did the likes of McLaren come from as who started the team? I have written about Sir Frank before so will cover Williams plus teams Like McLaren and Jordan/Force India/Aston Martin. The other teams like Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault/Alpine are less interesting as they are backed by millions being factory owned/shareholders.
The characters involved back in the 1970's and early 80's who were involved in founding the Formula One teams had many similar character traits and that was a desire and hunger to succeed. They had a passion for motorsport knowing full well in those days it was a high risk business. The three teams being discussed today were like the 3 musketeers being independently owned founded from literally nothing.
Frank Williams was more like a salesman who had a passion for driving high speed cars. Williams racing didn't just happen overnight and the early years were a serious financial struggle. He started out as a teenager mechanic in 1966 for his friend and rising racing driver star Piers Courage. behind the scenes he was more than a mechanic as he was building and selling single seater racers plus wheeling and dealing in car parts.
In 1969 he scraped enough capital together to start Frank Williams Racing only to see his star driver and friend Pierre have a fatal crash at the Dutch Grand prix in 1970. This wasn't the end as he struggled on until he was bought out in 1976 due to money troubles. Like everyone success doesn't just happen and it is these moments that we will see lessons were learned.
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Frank Williams with the 1978 car that had drivers queueing up to drive for his team.
In 1977 he started Williams Grand Prix Racing with Patrick Head who was a genius with everything engineering. It took them 2 years to win their first Grand Prix and they never looked back dominating the sport for many years until Frank had that terrible crash in France leaving him in a wheel chair for life. He had started out and had conquered Formula One by having the best car with the top drivers begging to drive for his team. This is how Williams went from mechanic to Formula One team owner and a legend in the sport.
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Frank's story is similar in many ways to someone like Ron Dennis (McLaren) who as a teenager was an assistant at Brabham Formula One. Assistant meaning general office body come tea boy. He then left Brabham to work at Coopers Racing (Mini) and became their chief mechanic within the next 3 years. He was then asked to go back to Brabham when a take over was happening and originally said no as he wanted to be out of the workshop. Ron wanted to oversee the Formula One team and not be stuck in the workshop.
Funny how things work out as he saw another side of the business and whilst having to travel down to Mexico City and bank the winners cheque from the American grand Prix he had time to think. In those days cars were transported by road and not by plane so the down time would be 14 days instead of 7 days like today. He wanted to start his own team and that is exactly what he did.
McLaren Automotive was born with him building his own cars and fortunately Graeme Hill rode on a pro rats basis with what they could afford. They did remarkably well coming second in their very first race and winning the second. By the end of the season he owed more than he could afford and was forced to sell. In that time frame he had a marketing chap working for him who had tried to onboard Phillip Morris as a sponsor with no luck, but they were so impressed that they pinched his employee. A turn of luck as now he had an inside line into a massive sponsor.
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Ron Dennis on the right with his first carbon fiber car which Phillip Morris knew he had built the season they agreed to help him take his company back. The deal was they told the existing owners to relinquish 50% back to Ron Dennis otherwise they would pull their sponsorship. Bit shady but having this technology ready to use gave him negotiating strength.
The following year he received a call from Phillip Morris begging him to start up again and to do them a huge favor. The drivers were from Ecuador of all places and were trying to land a deal with the Government so this was the favor. Ron Dennis thought of a crazy figure and multiplied it by 6 thinking it would be rejected yet the answer was a unanimous yes. Back in the game he took back 50% of McLaren automotive changing the name into McLaren International tying Phillip Morris into a mega deal. Now we know why Marlboro was always on a McLaren car and the rest is history.
The last one is just as crazy as the first two as one has to understand teams back then struggled financially. over 150 Formula One teams have gone bust in the sports history being 70 odd years old which averages out at around 2 teams per season.
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This team actually started around Martin Brundle of all people which is the guy who does the pit walk and interviews for Sky Formula One today. Back then drivers used to drive Formula One and GT races to make a living. His 30 000 pounds per year barely covered his costs as all travel expenses then the driver paid his own way. He had a $6000 cheque from winning a race but had no Formula One seat. He was put onto Eddie Jordan an Irish entrepreneur /racing enthusiast who had a make shift team.
Eddie took Martins $6000 plus an old 7 seater camper van which became the team crew bus and Martin had a driving seat. Benson and Hedges came to the teams rescue because of Phillip Morris being involved with McLaren and the team now had finances. The team was sold to a number of different people over the years and is now the Aston Martin team we see today.
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What I find fascinating is every story has hardships yet they found a way to get around those obstacles in order to succeed. The teams today have things much more simpler as the finances are in place due to what the others have had to do in the past.
I have listened to about 8 hours of podcasts and picked out the most interesting bits to create this post so the important bits like dates don't really mean much as it is the story behind the teams that I think is more important. How teams and businesses are formed and how they succeed through sheer determination along with loads of luck is what I find more relevant.