Frank Williams, founder of the eponymous F1 team that has contended almost 50 years in motor sport's top echelon, died on this day in 2021, aged 79. In today's Great Read, Doug Nye looks back at Frank's first world title winner, the FW07, which grabbed Lotus' ground effect ball and ran with it...
The line of Patrick Head-masterminded Formula 1 Williams-Cosworth FW07s proved to be the most effective successors to the Lotus 78-79 series' legacy of 'underwing' ground-effect aerodynamic technology. Patrick had joined Frank Williams in his new Williams Grand Prix Engineering Ltd team on its formation in 1977. He had watched the fast-cornering Lotus 78 with growing interest, but felt he didn't quite understand its aerodynamic approach. His fledgling team lacked the funds to invest in wind-tunnel test time to learn what he did not know. Consequently his first Williams FW06 design for 1978 made no attempt to emulate Lotus wing-car principles. But with growing Saudia sponsorship, 1979 would be different.
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