PARIS: Frank Williams was a colossus of Formula One, but lurking beneath all the success the British racing legend’s life was touched by tragedy.
Williams, who died on Sunday aged 79, was left a tetraplegic and confined to a wheelchair after a road accident in France in 1986.
The courage, energy and determination with which he dealt with this cruel roll of fate’s dice drew admiration from his family, friends, colleagues and the wider public.
With technical guru Patrick Head he created, from scratch, one of the greatest Formula One teams of all time.
Williams captured seven drivers’ titles, the last claimed by Canadian Jacques Villeneuve in 1997, while the team’s nine constructors’ crowns places Williams second only to mighty Ferrari.
His noted dry wit and charm, indefatigable spirit and resilience served him well on his journey from being a trainee sales rep for Campbell’s soup earning £10 a week, to the pinnacle of the high-octane world of F1.
Francis Owen Garbett Williams was born in South Shields in northeast England on April 16, 1942.
In his early days in motor racing, he had to conduct business from his local red telephone box when cash wasn’t flowing.
He established Frank Williams Racing Cars in 1966, competing in F3 and F2, and F1 with a borrowed chassis from 1969.
The death of his first driver Piers Courage, driving for Williams at the Dutch GP at Zandvoort in 1970, was said to have marked him for life.
The first all-Williams built F1 car had an inauspicious start, when with Henri Pescarolo at the wheel, it was destroyed in a crash in 1972.
With funding an ever-present problem and having lost control of his company he left, with Head, to set up the team that is still racing today, in 1977.
Clay Regazzoni drove a Cosworth-powered Williams to its first F1 success, fittingly at the British Grand Prix, in 1979.
Australian Alan Jones won the team’s first drivers’ title the following season. Williams also collected the constructors’ championship that year.
Keke Rosberg took the 1982 title, with five more captured in a golden period between 1987 and 1997, all after Williams’ ill-fated 1986 dash to catch a flight in France that led to the car crash.
“I was late for a plane I didn’t need to be late for, I got the French time mixed up with the English time,” he was to recall.
Williams lost control of the rental car, causing it to leave the highway and drop 2.4 meters into a field. Williams suffered a spinal fracture between the fourth and fifth vertebra after being pressed between his seat and the crushed roof.
Williams was consigned to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
“But life has to go on,” he said. “I was able to continue in the business I was already in, but generally speaking it’s been a handicap in the true sense of the word.”
At the height of their powers, Ayrton Senna, who had won three titles with McLaren, came on board for the 1994 season, only to perish in a horrific high-speed crash at Imola.
Williams had a deep connection with the Brazilian great and was never able fully to come to terms with his death.
“Frank had a love affair with Ayrton,” his daughter Claire, who would later head the team, told The Sun newspaper in 2019.
“He got into his heart, got into his mind, and he always wanted to put him in his race car. Dad’s wish then came true, but it ended in the worst possible way.”
Not for the first time personal anguish failed to diminish Williams’ single-mindedness to succeed, with Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve capturing the 1996 and 1997 world championships. He was knighted in 1999 and became Sir Frank.
“It’s been a great journey, one I’d love to do again if I was younger. I wouldn’t try and do anything different except try and avoid the accidents,” Williams told the BBC in 2010.
His death comes after his family ended 43 years of involvement in the team in September 2020, following its sale to Dorilton Capital.
Former Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone told AFP shortly before the sale that the team had lost its raison d’etre when Williams stepped down from the board in 2012.
Both of them were among the co-founders of the Formula One Constructors’ Association in 1974.
“Dear old Frank had to work so hard to make sure the team competed and that happened,” he said.
“Frank was hands-on in the way he managed the team.
“He could get things done.”
Frank Williams, F1 pioneer who fought adversity to build dominant team
https://arab.news/jua5z
Frank Williams, F1 pioneer who fought adversity to build dominant team
- Williams’ dry wit and charm, indefatigable spirit and resilience served him well on his journey from being a trainee sales rep for Campbell’s soup to the pinnacle of F1
- Frank Williams: ‘It’s been a great journey, one I’d love to do again if I was younger. I wouldn’t try and do anything different except try and avoid the accidents’
How Saudi football scored in the runup to 2026 FIFA World Cup
- Saudi Pro League asserted global dominance with star-studded lineups and record-breaking performances from Asia’s elite top-tier clubs
- Domestic leagues reached new heights, yet the national team faces mounting pressure ahead of a high-stakes global tournament
DUBAI: FIFA President Gianni Infantino seemed full of optimism on Dec. 21 when he said Saudi Arabia had become a major hub on the global football stage and that the Saudi Pro League was on track to become one of the top three in the world.
With players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema and a nation crazy about the great game, this endorsement perhaps comes as little surprise.
Infantino also predicted a successful World Cup in 2034 when the tournament will be hosted by Saudi Arabia. With infrastructure being built and upgraded, the Expo 2030 venue under construction, and reforms underway, the World Cup seems destined to be a success.
The FIFA boss also praised the progress made not only at the senior national team level and across youth categories, but also in the women’s game, thanks to the backing of football authorities in recent years.
While this paints a positive picture of the game in the Kingdom, it follows the national team’s 1-0 loss to Jordan in the semi-finals of the 2025 Arab Cup. Many supporters will need far more convincing of the team’s prospects going into the New Year.
Although the return of Herve Renard as coach of the Green Falcons following Roberto Mancini’s disappointing stint has resulted in a second consecutive World Cup qualification (and seventh overall), failure to win the Arab Cup in Qatar and some less than inspiring performances means the jury is still out on the Frenchman.
At the 2026 World Cup, Saudi Arabia will face Uruguay, European champions Spain, and Cape Verde in their three Group H matches, taking place in Miami, Atlanta, and Houston respectively.
Saudi fans sharing Infantino’s positive outlook will hope Renard’s men can emulate the historic win over Argentina on that memorable night at Lusail Stadium in 2022. But that is far easier said than done, and many remain unconvinced.
For a start, just as Poland and Mexico were alerted to Saudi Arabia’s potential following that humbling of Lionel Messi and co in Qatar, their opponents in the US will likewise be on their guard this time around.
Worryingly for Saudi fans, the team has rarely, if at all, hit the same highs since Saleh Al-Shehri’s equalizer and Salem Al-Dawsari’s stunning strike brought about arguably the most famous win in the Green Falcons’ history.
The 2023 AFC Asian Cup, played in early 2024 and only months after Mancini’s arrival, saw Saudi Arabia eliminated by South Korea on penalties in the round of 16.
World Cup qualification was eventually secured but not before the team needed to negotiate a fourth round group that included Iraq and Indonesia in October.
The semi-final exit at the Arab Cups prompted rumors — immediately denied by the Saudi Arabian Football Federation — that Renard’s job was under threat. Still, it was hardly a ringing endorsement of the way things had turned out on his second stint as national team coach.
Outspoken Saudi-based football pundit Battal Algoos has been scathing in his criticism of Renard and his employers, and in particular of the excuses for the Arab Cup disappointment.
“It seems to be a contagion that has affected the Saudi camp,” he said on the football show “Filmarma” on Al Arabiya.
“Everyone justifies (their position) through others’ failures. We brought you to win a championship, not to say ‘those before me didn’t win championships, I’m no worse than them’.
“It seems to be contagious, from (SAFF President) Yasser Al-Misehal to Renard. Or their thinking is one and the same.”
Paul Williams, Australian journalist and founder and presenter of “The Asian Game” podcast, was at Lusail Stadium the day Saudi Arabia beat the eventual world champions, but believes urgent fixes are needed by Renard this time round.
“There are a multitude of areas that Saudi Arabia need to improve,” he told Arab News. “The obvious is in the final third, where there are still issues finding a reliable avenue to goal, an issue that blighted most of their qualification campaign.
“But they also haven’t yet found a capable replacement in midfield for Salman Al-Faraj, and the entire narrative around Saudi football has changed since before 2022.
“There has always been pressure and expectation from the fans, but that is even more intense now and it feels like that sits heavily on the squad, who are yet to prove they are capable of delivering under that burden of expectation.”
The team’s main concern remains, as it was four years ago in Qatar, its lack of fire power up front and an over-reliance on Al-Dawsari for goals and inspiration. In that sense, at least the 34-year-old talisman can still be relied on.
The Al-Hilal and Saudi Arabia captain provided one of the highlights of 2025 when he was named AFC Player of the Year at the awards ceremony in Riyadh. Al-Dawsari is the only Saudi to have won the Asian award twice.
On an individual level, he enjoyed a stellar 2024-25 season with his club, although Al-Hilal lost out on the Saudi Pro League title to a Benzema-inspired Al-Ittihad.
Al-Dawsari and Al-Hilal came back strongly in the summer to reach the quarter-finals of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup in the US, along the way drawing 1-1 with Real Madrid in the group stage and brilliantly beating Manchester City 4-3 in the round of 16.
Domestically, however, it is their local rivals that have stolen all the headlines, with their lead at the top of the SPL delighting millions of fans around the world and perhaps in the process reinforcing Infantino’s estimation of the league.
Al-Nassr, now managed by former Al-Hilal boss Jorge Jesus and inspired by the relentlessly enduring Ronaldo, look near invincible at the top of the table, having won all nine matches during this campaign.
The coronation that their fans and the Portuguese legend’s army of global followers had envisioned since he landed in Riyadh three years ago is looking increasingly likely to happen in May. Their end of year report card is glowing 9 out of 10.
Al-Hilal, the self-styled Real Madrid of Asia, can never be counted out however, and the title race in 2026 could be one of the most exciting and close in recent years.
Reigning champions Al-Ittihad, on the other hand, have put up a dismal defense of their title resulting in the sacking of Laurent Blanc, who was succeeded by Sergio Conceicao. Their card will read “must do better.”
Al-Ahli provided further evidence of the SPL’s continental dominance by claiming the 2025 AFC Champions League Elite after beating Japan’s Kawasaki Frontale 2-0 in Jeddah last May.
Elsewhere, Aramco-owned Al-Qadsiah and newly promoted NEOM provide intriguing plot lines as they sit in fifth and eighth respectively, while Al-Taawoun continue to punch above their weight in third.
One of the standout personalities of the season has been US investor Ben Harburg who — through Harburg Group — acquired 100 percent of Al-Kholood in July, making it the first Saudi club wholly owned by a foreign entity. The purchase opens up new possibilities for the SPL.
There is little debate now that the SPL is the most powerful and entertaining in Asia and could in future years, if Infantino is right, become one of the world’s best. The national team’s standing however, until the 2026 World Cup at least, remains up in the air.
