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Williams may be one of the big three these days but they started from humble beginnings in the 1970s.
To be frank
Frank Williams was an amateur driver who struck up a close friendship with Piers Courage and entered a privateer Brabham for him in 1969.
Williams was devastated when Courage was killed at Zandvoort a year later but struggled on until 1977 when he founded Williams Grand Prix Engineering with designer Patrick Head.
Head designed the FW06 for the 1978 season, in which Alan Jones produced some excellent performances including second place at the US Grand Prix East.
Getting ahead
A year on, Head designed a superb ground effect FW07, with which Clay Regazzoni scored the team's first win at Silverstone.
From then on there was no stopping the team and Jones won four of the last six races of the year to clinch third in the championship.
Such a run of success meant Williams entered 1980 in great shape - and so it proved. Jones won five times and Carlos Reutemann once as Williams won both the drivers' and constructors' championships.
Keke Rosberg then pulled off an unlikely championship win in 1982 - despite winning only once and being saddled with a normally-aspirated engine when all his rivals had turbo power.
The Honda years
It was becoming increasingly obvious that Williams needed turbos if they were to continue their success so they linked up with Honda.
Nigel Mansell won his first race for the team at Brands Hatch in 1985 and from then on the Williams-Honda combo was the class of the field.
The team should have won the 1986 drivers' title but Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet took points off each other all season and when the Brit suffered a blown tyre 18 laps from the end of the race, the championship fell to Alain Prost of McLaren.
Williams made no such mistake in 1987 when Piquet clinched his third and final title. It was to be their final success with Honda, who switched their allegiances to McLaren at the end of the year.
By this time, Frank had been paralysed in a road accident - but this did nothing to dull his phenomenal drive and will to win.
Total domination
After a disastrous 1988 with Judd engines, Williams struck up a relationship with Renault the following year. It paid immediate dividends with Thierry Boutsen winning in both Canada and Hungary.
Mansell returned to the team in 1991 after two years at Ferrari and this - combined with the arrival of Adrian Newey from March - saw the team's fortunes escalate rapidly.
Mansell was the man to beat by the end of 1991 but early season unreliability meant he was unable to catch Ayrton Senna's McLaren in the championship.
However, the Brit dominated the 1992 season, ushering in an incredible period
in which the team claimed four drivers' and five constructors'
crowns.
Tragedy at Imola
Prost claimed the title in 1993 before Ayrton Senna arrived to create a partnership that many thought would be simply unbeatable.
Sadly, the Brazilian was killed in only his third race for the team, promoting the inexperienced Damon Hill to team leader. The Brit rose to the challenge magnificently and only narrowly lost out in the championship to Michael Schumacher.
Schumacher prevailed again in 1995 before his move to Ferrari allowed Hill to make history by becoming the first son of a world champion to win the title himself.
Jacques Villeneuve took the last of Williams-Renault's titles in 1997 before the French manufacturer decided to quit the sport.
The BMW link
After several unproductive years using old Renault powerplants, Williams were forced to rebuild and from 2000 signed a deal with German manufacturer BMW.
It was a smart move. Since then Williams have well and truly re-established
themselves as one of the sport's big hitters, finishing as constructors'
championship runners-up in both 2002 and 2003.
With the might of BMW and all the guile and determination of Frank the team are looking in fine fettle once more.
Drivers: Rubens Barrichello | Gerhard Berger | David Coultard | Giancarlo Fisichella | Heinz-Harald Frentzen | Mika Hakkinen | Eddie Irvine | Olivier Panis | Michael Schumacher | Ralf Schumacher | Jacques Villeneuve
Teams: Ferrari | Jordan | McLaren | Renault | Williams
