The evidence that shows Williams' F1 recovery is real

It's gone from powerhouse to its current position holding Formula 1's wooden spoon. But, while Williams recognises that there are no silver bullets to getting back among the points, it was already showing that it's on the right track for recovery in 2021

Published Feb 4, 2021, 10:07 AM

Formula 1 fans will be very familiar with Williams's plight. Once the championship's powerhouse squad, it faded from the front a few years into the new millennium, its early turbo-hybrid-era revival stalled, and then it crashed to the ignominy of the back of the pack.

The tale of the descent rings loudly to F1 observers because it has only just finished. In 2020, the team repeated its last-place finish in the constructors' championship of 2019. And for the first time in the squad's history running its own cars (from 1978, a year after its first F1 outings with a March chassis), it scored no points - down from the one it had picked up, by luck, at the 2019 German Grand Prix.

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Author Alex Kalinauckas

Alex Kalinauckas is Autosport's Grand Prix Editor, covering every Formula 1 race since the start of 2020. After completing a master's degree in journalism at Goldsmiths College University of London in 2014, he worked for a range of motorsport and technology publications while covering national racing as an Autosport freelancer.

A lifelong motorsport fan - no one in his family can explain quite how or why such a development first occurred - Alex joined the Autosport staff in April 2017 as the magazine’s Assistant Editor covering Formula 2 and GP3, before being made Formula E correspondent and Autosport.com’s Plus Editor in March 2018. He lives in north-east London and is constantly frustrated by the Central Line.