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When you think of Williams it's hard not to imagine Nelson Piquet or Nigel Mansell on a blistering qualifying lap at Silverstone. That iconic yellow, blue and white Canon-sponsored livery in a blur, flat-out around the old Club. Or picture those angular blue and gold Rothmans machines with Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve duking it out victoriously against Michael Schumacher in the mid-1990s.
Co-founders Frank Williams and Patrick Head were an obsessive mix of passion and regimented order, Head happily barking instructions to anyone within earshot. Once, when a journalist wanted to know why the engine cover was off the back of a Williams shortly before the start of a race, he asked Head what the problem was. "We're not quick enough" came the reply. With Patrick you always got a straight-talking, no-nonsense answer. A racer at heart.
But those days are in the distant past. Williams's last world title was two decades ago and its last two victories were Pastor Maldonado's triumph at the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix and Juan Pablo Montoya's win in Brazil in 2004. Williams has found that winning is a virtuous cycle, but equally, losing can be a vicious one.
