Williams and Tyrrell
Just over a year ago on EnterF1.com, we looked at the demise of Williams and how the once dominant outfit found itself being forced to hire a pay driver. It marked a significant step in the decline of a team that is now fighting for survival in the sport, rather than fighting for championships. The fortunes of Williams are starting to mirror those of Tyrrell Racing, a team that won championships in the seventies but eventually found themselves at the back of the grid with drivers who brought their own sponsorship.
2011 nightmare
In 2011 Williams finished ninth in the Constructors Championship, ahead of only Team Lotus, Marussia Virgin and HRT. They scored just 5 points (in comparison to Red Bull’s 650) and the team’s best results all year came in Canada and Monaco where Rubens Barrichello finished 9th. This gave Williams its worst ever season as a constructor, a truly horrifying statistic for the sport’s third oldest team.
Williams’ fall from grace began during the significant regulation changes that took place in 1998, the same time they lost their factory Renault engines. The team never has fully recovered its championship winning form and, as a result, has not generated the revenue it requires to remain competitive at the highest level. Williams has been caught in the spiral of poor results equalling poor income, equalling even poorer results. The team is now in a situation where they are fighting towards the back of the grid and have hired two drivers based on their potential sponsorship rather than on-track performance.
Driver choices
Bruno Senna now has two years of Grand Prix experience behind him and has shown some signs of genuine speed. He was able to outrace Petrov on a number of occasions last year and there is no doubting that he is a capable Formula One driver who deserves the seat. However, the decision to hire Senna was certainly influenced by the millions of dollars of sponsorship that he brings with him from Brazil.
The Williams team have gone to great lengths to explain that Senna was given the drive on merit and that his sponsorship dollars are merely a bonus. However, they also said the exact same thing when they replaced the highly talented Nico Hulkenberg last year with the patchy Pastor Maldonado and his significant Venezuelan backing.
Rubens Barrichello might have been a more sensible choice for the team, although perhaps less exciting. Rubens is the most experienced driver in the history of Formula One and is capable of delivering unrivalled technical feedback. It may turn out that Senna’s pure speed is enough to overcome his lack of experience, but that is a big risk for Williams and one that isn’t weighted in their favour – especially with Maldonado in the other car.
Rumours suggest that Williams’ senior technical staff campaigned to keep Barrichello but were overruled by CEO Adam Parr. If so, that is a clear sign of the team’s direction.
The rise and fall of Tyrrell
Williams is not the only Grand Prix team to have descended from the heights of World Championship glory into the battle for survival at the back of the grid.
Although Tyrrell does not have the same sporting legacy as Williams, their story is remarkably similar.
Ken Tyrrell started his own team in 1958 and raced throughout the UK in Formula Three. During the sixties he gave a number of young drivers a chance and became involved in the senior levels of motorsport when he took up a role within the BRM racing organisation. In 1968 he struck a deal with Matra, the French constructor, and together they entered Formula One under the title ‘Matra International’. Like Williams, Tyrrell was instantly competitive and impressively won three races in their very first season.
The following year Jackie Stewart and Tyrrell won their first World Championship together, a mighty effort for such a new team. Within two years Tyrrell had split with Matra and developed a new car completely in house. The design commandingly won two more World Championships in 1971 and 1973.
Tyrrell was arguably the team to beat in the early seventies and won more races over a seven year period than anyone else.
Like Williams, Tyrrell’s downfall from championship contention was partially triggered by the lack of a factory engine supply. At the end of the seventies, turbo engines were becoming necessary and without a manufacturer behind them, Tyrrell was forced to run the ageing Cosworth DFV engine. Not only did this place them at a competitive disadvantage, but also put the team in a difficult position politically. In 1984 they were the only team that wasn’t using a turbo engine and this placed them into direct conflict with all the other teams who were keen to establish turbo-favourable rules with the FIA. When Tyrrell was accused of cheating that year, they were disqualified from the championship which opened the way for their competitors to unanimously vote through the engine rules they had wanted. Tyrrell’s exclusion in 1984 was especially harsh because it was based on a complex interpretation of the rules, rather than a flagrant regulatory breach, and there have always been suggestions it was politically motivated. The expulsion was a setback from which the team never fully recovered.
Tyrrell never bounced back out of the midfield, and that prevented them from regaining the sponsorship that originally helped propel them to championship success. As the eighties turned into the nineties, the team shifted its focus to survival, and fell slowly down the grid until their last season in 1998 during which they scored zero points. British American Tobacco purchased the team’s Formula One entry – its most valuable asset – and quickly implemented its own staff and infrastructure.
Investing in the future
Williams has been following Tyrrell’s path from multiple championship victories towards the back of the grid, but has recently taken steps to avoid falling into the same pit of obscurity.
The Williams Grand Prix Engineering company has diversified by creating a separate entity called Williams Hybrid Power. This new company was formed in 2008 to develop flywheel engine technologies, similar to the early versions of KERS, and has already started producing products for Porsche.
In addition to Williams Hybrid Power, the company has also built a ‘Technology Centre’ in Qatar where they plan to commercialise their own F1 technology.
The idea of these ventures is to generate new revenue for Williams, reinforce the brand, and ensure the Grand Prix team survives long into the future. Expanding the business isn’t without risk though, as evidenced by the fact that battery powered KERS units proved to be more efficient in Formula One than the flywheel systems initially developed by Williams. The Technology Centre in Qatar is also dependent on commercial demand for their services, and a growing Middle Eastern economy.
Williams’ core business is still Formula One racing and the value of the brand is related to success on the track. This year they have taken a big gamble on Bruno Senna and his ability to lead a team with little Grand Prix experience. Hopefully Senna’s appointment marks the resurgence of one of the sport’s greatest teams, and not another step in the same direction as Tyrrell.
How the mighty fall.