Williams

After a three year run with Toyota engines which were frankly underpowered in comparisons with competition, Williams declared that it would be returning to the Cosworth engines in 2010. With new engines, and Rubens Barrichello and Nico Hulkenberg behind the wheel, Williams saw reasonable success finishing 6th ahead of Force India by a solitary point.

Williams F1 is one of the more successful teams in Formula 1. It is also one of the oldest ones having debuted in 1978 and has enjoyed a rather successful run of it till date.

Williams is one of the few teams in Formula 1 that saw success fairly early. In just their second season, they secured their first podium finish (US GP, 1978) and finished 1978 in 10th place with a respectable 16 points. This was also the year when Patrick Head designed his first Williams car, the FW06. For 1979, Head designed the FW07, the team's first ground effect car as Williams acquired membership of the Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA).

FOCA regulations insisted on each team having two drivers and Alan Jones, Williams' driver since 1978 had a new partner in Clay Regazzoni. As the two started making headway, they acquired the team's first instance of both drivers scoring points when they finished 4th and 6th at Dijon. Williams were getting close to their first win with improved performances and they achieved their first win in their home GP, the British GP, when Regazzoni finished 25 seconds ahead of the nearest car. In the next race in Hockenheim, Williams achieved their first on-two finish and then went on to register a third win at the Osterreichring.

A good season turned great when they won their fourth race two weeks later in Zandvoort and they capped off a memorable season when Jones won in Montreal. Alan Jones had improved the standing of Williams considerably and was second only to Giles Villeneuve and the 1979 champion, Jody Scheckter. Regazzoni was not too far behind and finished just two places below Jones. Williams had taken a major leap ahead finishing the season with 59 points.

1980 was the year when Williams 'arrived' on the F1 circuit winning the Constructor's title. The season started with Jones winning the first race of the season in addition to Paul Ricard, Brands Hatch, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and the final round at Watkins Glen. He went on to become Williams' first World Champion driver in 1980.

Williams continued its progress winning its second Constructor's title in 1981 beating Brabham but the drivers could manage only four race wins among them. 1982 was a tougher year with Alan Jones retiring from F1 and Williams hired Keke Rosberg who had had a bad time in 1981 not scoring a single point. But in 1982, thanks to the superiority of the Williams car, he won the title. But the season wouldn't be the greatest for Williams as constructor as they finished fourth. A major shift was about to happen in the Williams line-up and Frank Williams went and signed with Honda since Turbo engines were the order of the day.

The period between 1983 and 1988 would be the toughest test for Williams. Their Honda-powered cars would be moderately successful and there was significant improvement on the car front with the first carbon-fibre body on the FW10 in 1985, but wins and titles were becoming elusive. To add to this, in 1986, Frank Williams suffered an accident that kept him away from the Paddock for the entire year. Despite this, though, the team rallied and won 9 Grand Prix in the year to clinch the Constructors title and Nigel Mansell only narrowly missed on the Driver's championship.

What Mansell could not do in 1986 was achieved by Nelson Piquet in 1987: a Driver's title. This would be the only Driver's title for Williams with Honda engines. But as Constructors, their stock rose with a second successive title. The Honda deal ended in 1987 and Williams could not sign up a major manufacturer in time for 1988. For the 1988 season, they ended up using naturally aspirated Judd engines. This move did not go down too well with Piquet who moved to Lotus (they had the Honda engines) and Williams, with a depleted team and poor car, struggled to finish seventh in the Constructor's championship race.

Learning from his mistakes, Frank Williams inked a long-term deal with Renault that would see the two benefited over the next decade winning four Driver's five Constructor's titles. After a tough initial period in 1990 and 1991, the team got back to its winning ways with the return of Nigel Mansell. Williams would finish second in the Constructor's race and Mansell would miss out on the title again, finishing second.

1992, though, was to be the year of Williams. Winning eight races, Mansell romped to title beating Ayrton Senna and team-mate Ricardo Patrese. Williams would win their first Constructors title in while and hang on to it in 1993 too. The line-up for the 1993 season, though, was totally different. Mansell left for IndyCar racing while Patrese moved to Benetton. Williams brought in Alain Prost and promoted test driver Damon Hill. Prost dominated in his final season and won the title 26 points clear of Ayrton Senna.

Williams signed the odds-on favourite Ayrton Senna for the 1994 season but tragedy at Imola where Senna lost his life haunted them through the season. Things got tough when Frank Williams and Patrick Head were accused of manslaughter, a charge they would be acquitted of only in 2005. Nigel Mansell would come back for Williams in 1994 but it was Damon Hill, in just his second season, doing the running. He was keeping up with the pace of the Benetton Ford of Michael Schumacher and a luck break midway through the season that saw Schumacher being disqualified allowed Hill to close the gap. By the time the final race came around, Schumacher led by just one point. A controversial accident (some say caused by Schumacher) saw them both retire and Schumacher was the champion. There was a silver lining to the cloud, though, as Williams won the Constructor's title for the fourth time running.

1995 would see the end of Williams' dominance in the Constructor's race but Damon Hill would continue his rise finishing second to Schumacher again. But his time was around the corner! In 1996, Schumacher moved to Ferrari and Williams had built the strongest car on the circuit. They also had Jacques Villeneuve join the team when Coulthard moved to McLaren. As in 1994, Hill and Schumacher would race till the last race of the season to decide the champion and this time, it was Hill who won in Japan and secured the championship.

For 1997, Hill moved to Arrows and in moved Heinz-Harald Frentzen. But his two years at Williams would be almost fruitless. The battle between Williams and Ferrari raged on as Villeneuve picked up the gauntlet and challenged Schumacher. Another controversial accident involving Schumacher denied him the title and Villeneuve, in just his second season, was champion. Williams also retained their Constructor's title.

In 1998, Williams' contract with Renault expired as they reduced their full-time involvement in F1. Constant changes to the drivers' line-up and an unreliable rebadged Renault engine would make the Williams team uncompetitive. A change of engine starting 2000 coincided with the start of the Ferrari dominance and Williams would continually play second fiddle. Ralf Schumacher, Jenson Button, Juan-Pablo Montoya would all try but fail in front of the Ferraris of Schumacher and Barrichello. The team performed just about average consistently finishing in the top five, but the fire was missing. 2006 was their worst season since debuting in 1978 and this has led to some wholesale changes. Toyota engines had been brought in and Alexander Wurz along with Nico Rosberg would be the two main drivers.

The team did not fare particularly well in the seasons that followed and the Toyota power-plant was not performing as well as it had promised. In the 2009 season, Nico Rosberg managed to score 34.5 points for the team which were all the points that Williams as a team scores. A good mid field standing, but that's not what we'd expect from a former championship winning team. The team needed a boost in terms of power and performance from, both, the engines and the drivers. As Nico now moves to Mercedes GP, Rubens Barrichello, who finished the 2009 season quite strongly will partner Nico Hulkenberg who was promoted from his test driver position.

The 2010 season saw mixed results for Williams. They initially was sidelined by the likes of Force India and Renault. But soon with a few upgrades, the team began to improve and finally managed to out perform and finishing 6th ahead of Force India by a mere point.

Will Williams rise up and become a front runner? Will the team be sidelined by the midfielders? With Rubens still behind the wheel and Nico replaced by Pastor Maldonado, the performance of Williams is bordering on uncertainty.