The Weekly Grapevine

Williams-Cosworth

Williams-Cosworth. The name has a terribly early eighties ring to it, doesn't it? And, whilst Sir Frank and Cosworth CEO Tim Routsis downplayed the role the engine company played in Williams' formative years, there exist no doubts that the team owe a large portion of their existence to Cosworth and then-funding partner Ford, for Cosworth's Blue Oval-badged DFV enabled a rather skint Frank Williams to field a converted Brabham for Piers Courage way back in 1969.

Without the availability of a (reasonably) affordable, off-the-shelf, easy to maintain competitive 3.0 litre Formula One-compliant engine it is extremely doubtful whether Williams (the man) could have marshalled the resources to enter F1. By extension, therefore, the existence of Williams (the team) without Cosworth is equally shrouded in doubt. By the same token the survival of McLaren into the modern era can be traced directly to the DFV, but that is another story.