I picked it up on Manipe F1 and details were scant. There should be more details Friday. He will remain chairman. You can only hope that after such a career he's going out on his own terms.
He's 68. You can't help but to look around and wonder who is up to the job of running things 20 years from now. +1
I remember reading an article previously stating that Frank had gotten more and more tired of the flying and hassle of doing the races, and had scaled back on going to most of them. He was said to have wanted to relax his day-to-day duties in general and take a bit more time to "smell the roses" so to speak. Hopefully this is the continuation of that. Frank is an old-school guy as I understand, very honorable and a guy who says what he will do and does what he says.
I forgot where I heard it (Speed TV perhaps?), but I remember some commentator making a comment about Frank to the point that his health is diminishing.
+1, However it doesn't come as a shocker. Now if Sam Michael could get the axe the team might go somewhere...
I was following the team for a while as a former fan and saw him doing one blunder after another (like Dumbenicali today).
Bittersweet. A changing of the guard. Frank Williams gave way more then most to the sport at the highest levels for many, many years. From the lean early days and the tragedy of Peirs Courage some 40 years ago, to the domination of the active computer age cars, to being confined to a wheel chair, to the more difficult struggle of recent years, FW has been a steadfast and determined competitor. He has been looking increasingly frail in recent years. I hope he can take some time to enjoy other aspects of life of the time he has left.
Frank Williams made the huge mistake of turning down BMW's offer to buy his team when they were associated. He thought he could carry on alone as an independent, but the team's fate has declined since. Without a manufacturer's support, it will fade away soon.
Exactly, to this day I cannot understand it as they had a much better Aero and Technical Staff than Sauber had when BMW acquired them. Too bad, but I wonder if BMW would have left Williams or they would have had more success.
Looks like it was a clash of personality that lead to the divorce with BMW: Frank Williams and Mario Thyssen were on different wavelengths and there were recriminations between Williams technical team and BMW engineers. But Team Williams' market value must be pretty low now compared to what it was at the time, on the back of several F1 titles.
I wouldn't be too quick to write off Williams!. They did better than alot of other teams today (despite the Cosworth engine that should have given them a bit of a disadvantage), and they have alot of very talented engineers there. I'm not a big Williams fan, never have been, but I admire their achievements over the years. This "Frank Williams steps aside" headline is slightly misleading anyway as he had already pretty much handed over the reigns of the day to day running of the team, but all final decisions still have to go through him.
They are not slipping down so much as other teams are speeding up. There is a difference. Frank might be OK with that. He was able to pretty much make something out of nothing and do well with it, I am sure he is well-off. Not as well as it once was, but he won't starve. It depends, the value of the dollar and the value of teams' worth back then was probably the same as what it is today, keep in mind those great years were 10+ ago, and I remember 1985-1993 very well, when Williams and McLaren basically WERE the show.
Williams has won more F1 Championships than any other team but Ferrari...on much less of a budget than the top tier team...
