Countdown to Williams' 400th Grand Prix

Frank Williams' first entered Grand Prix racing as an underfunded privateer, running the talented Piers Courage.

When Courage was killed in the Dutch Grand Prix, many expected Williams to disappear as quickly as he had arrived.

He persisted, but his team spent the early 1970's at the tail of the field, always on the brink of financial ruin. After a link-up with wealthy oil magnate Walter Wolf turned sour, Frank Williams was left with nothing.

Determined to succeed in F1, Williams joined up with an unknown designer named Patrick Head to form Williams Grand Prix Engineering. The partnership is now one of the most famous in motorsport history.

The jigsaw puzzle was completed by the arrival of Australian driver Alan Jones, a no-nonsense racer on the same wavelength as Head and Williams.

Poor reliability cost Jones several wins, and it was his team mate Clay Regazzoni who took the first ever Williams Grand Prix victory at Silverstone in 1979. Jones won four races later in the year, but the early non-finishes had cost him the title.

There were no such problems in 1980, as the Williams-Jones partnership beat Piquet & Brabham to the title. However, after losing the 1981 crown because of more reliability problems, Jones abruptly retired from F1.

His replacement was another inspired choice. Little known Finn Keke Rosberg was spectacular and hard-charging, but also consistent. He only won one race, but still took the 1982 title.

With turbocharged engines now taking over F1, Williams formed an alliance with Honda. After some initial teething troubles, they dominated 1986, only for in-fighting between drivers Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell to let Alain Prost steal the honours.

By now it was a very different Frank Williams in charge of the team, having been paralysed from the shoulders down in a road crash.

Piquet took the 1987 championship, but then Honda jumped ship for McLaren. Another new era had to begin, this time in partnership with Renault.

Talented aerodynamacist Adrian Newey joined from the March team, and the combination of his skills, the mighty Renault V10 and Patrick Head's genius meant Williams were utterly dominant in the early 1990's.

Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost strolled to two more titles in 1992 and 1993, and when Ayrton Senna joined at the start of 1994 many predicted a Williams walkover of unprecedented proportions.

Tragically, Senna died after just three races for Frank's team, and Damon Hill was unable to stop the 1994 and 1995 titles going to Schumacher.

But Hill got his act together and became champion in 1996, and Jacques Villeneuve's 1997 successes meant that Williams had now won seven Drivers' and nine Constructors' championship since 1979, a quite incredible record.

Since then, Williams have slumped somewhat. Renault's withdrawal left them with the increasingly uncompetitive Supertec V10's, while Newey left for McLaren.

Ralf Schumacher and Alex Zanardi will be relieved just to score points at Catalunya, but with a new alliance with BMW beginning in 2000 and neither Head nor Williams ready to give up, don't rule out the possibility of more Williams dominance in the new century.