Years ago, I recommended a book about F1 in this column - "Formula".
This is a book I bought almost a year ago, and the reason for buying it was simply to complete the content related to F1. No one asked me to do this, it was all due to the atmosphere, after all, it was the Shanghai Grand Prix, after all, it was Zhou Guanyu's home debut. Looking back, the whole city was a little crazy in April because of the "Chinese driver".
The Formula book cover
However, presenting a sport and watching the game as an F1 spectator are two completely different things. I thought I needed more professional support, and in this process, I found this book "Formula". But in fact, the content of this book did not come in handy in the article "Curious Pai | Zhou Guanyu, April 21st" . Instead, another book I bought at the same time, Haruki Murakami's "Sydney", gave me a lot of inspiration. After all, F1 is still one of many sports, and all competitions quietly follow the same rules.
The book "Formula" gives people who have ten years of experience in watching the race and those who have just started F1 a completely different experience. What is an old story to some people is no less important than the first moon landing to others. It was through this book that I got to know the Williams team again.
At the launch ceremony of the new F1 season, Williams was the second team among all ten teams to unveil the new season livery. Second seems to be good, but it is not. Because the order of the teams' appearance is arranged in reverse order according to the team points of the previous season, which means that Williams is currently a downstream team ranked second from the bottom.
The same thing happened five years ago: in 2019, it was at the bottom; in 2020, it was at the bottom; in 2021, it was third from the bottom; in 2022, it was last; in 2023, it was fourth from the bottom. A medical book says, "When your favorite sports team wins, your body will secrete a certain secretion that makes you energetic." If this is true, then all those who support Red Bull must be more energetic than those who support Williams.
On November 1, 2024, local time, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the Williams team sprint qualifying for the 2024F1 Brazilian Grand Prix.
This is Williams now, but that’s not all there is to it.
In the 75 years since the establishment of F1, Ferrari has been the number one in the number of team championships, and the team second only to it is Williams. This old team, which has been established for nearly 50 years, has also allowed those who support it to spend more fulfilling time than anyone else.
When the Williams FW14B rolled onto the grid for the 1992 season, it was the most complex car F1 had ever seen. … The FW14B’s suspension, engine speed and gearshifts were all controlled by lines of code and could be adjusted by computers in the pits. … Unlike any other F1 team’s car at the time, Williams built a 200-mile-per-hour supercomputer.
…The FW14B was software controlled, so it didn’t require any great driving skills from the driver, just the guts and brute strength to go through a corner at 130 miles per hour, slamming the accelerator and not letting up. The man Williams chose to drive this revolutionary machine was an old-timer. His name was Nigel Mansell.
Mansell's bulky build meant he had the upper body strength to counter the acceleration of high-speed corners, while his record of 32 crashes in 172 races was proof that he was a driver unafraid to push his car to its limits.
Mansell
The FW14B brought Mansell the glory he had longed for in his youth but never had. In the 1992 season, the 39-year-old Mansell won his first and only F1 driver championship. In the 1993 season, Williams built a better, faster and smarter car than the FW14B, the FW15C. The FW15C once again blurred the boundaries between man and machine, and Alain Prost drove it almost like an automatic car. ... All they needed was a driver who knew how to fasten his seat belt and spray champagne on the podium.
The 1980s and 1990s were the golden age of the Williams team. The golden combination of Patrick Head and Adrian Newey realized the dream of Frank Williams when he first founded the team.
Frank Williams always believed that success was just around the next bend.
Another person who holds the same belief is the current team principal James Walls. Before Walls joined Williams, he worked for a team that created eight championship legends for ten years. However, this is the first time he has been the team principal of a team. In the past two years, Walls has been recruiting people to rebuild Williams, just like Hyde did forty years ago. Williams driver Albon praised Walls as "the smart man Williams needs."
Williams unveils new 2025 car FW47
So, is the 2025 season of Williams worth looking forward to? It is likely to be another difficult season. The smart man Walls is ready to sacrifice the 2025 season, both mentally and physically. He and the Williams team are waiting for a comeback in 2026 when the technology is greatly improved.
*The italicized parts are from the book The Formula by Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg
If you are interested in F1, please check out the previous series of articles related to F1 in the column of QIUQI
Curious | The best book about F1 ever
Curious | Zhou Guanyu, on April 21st
Curious｜When we learn about Australia from Ricciardo and Holden
