On 14 July 1979, at Silverstone, something happened that many people no longer believed possible. Clay Regazzoni — a 39-year-old Swiss driver already discarded by Ferrari — took his Williams FW07 across the line first at the British Grand Prix. It was the first ever Grand Prix win for Williams Grand Prix Engineering.
By then Frank Williams had been trying for more than ten years to build a serious F1 team. Three times he had been all but bankrupt. He once sold his only Formula 1 car to an Italian privateer to pay the bills. His wife sometimes had to go and collect pay packets in cash. Insiders regarded the team as utterly insignificant — until Patrick Head joined him.
The FW07 was Patrick Head's answer to the Lotus 79, which had been unbeatable the year before. A true ground-effect car, in which the entire underside became an inverted wing that sucked the car down onto the tarmac. Head did not build a copy but an improvement — a stronger chassis, better aerodynamics, better engineered. At the first tests in March 1979 it was immediately clear that this was a winner.
Alan Jones, Regazzoni's Australian teammate, went on to win four more Grands Prix that season after Silverstone — Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Canada. Williams finished the season second in the constructors' championship, a result that had been considered impossible a year earlier. The following season, 1980, Alan Jones became world champion and Williams took the constructors' title as well. Frank Williams' lifelong obsession was finally to be crowned.
- This is the car where it all began.