BMW and Williams paired up in Formula 1 at the start of the 21st century with sky-high ambitions, yet after six years together and only one meaningful shot at the championship, they split with BMW buying Sauber for 2006. So how did it go so wrong? In this video we look at the key reasons BMW Williams couldn’t make the step from decent frontrunner to world championship-winning force. What do you think was the biggest reason Williams didn’t win a championship during the early 2000s? Let us know in the comments!
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– Should have been mega: BMW Williams https://the-race.com/formula-1/shouldve-been-mega-bmw-williams/
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37 Comments
BMW: 'Heavy panting as he pulls his pants back up
Sauber: will you call me?
BMW: I won't be around for a while …
Easy to answer. BMW sucks, even for passenger cars.
2:58 A warning people won't understand until nearly two decades later.
How the mighty has fallen
Because FIArarri.
To sum it up BMW was doing a brilliant job in building the best engine and also being a sponsor and giving williams money but Williams was doing a shit job building a car that without the engine couldn’t compete against the best.
I truly would love to see BMW come in the sport as a constructor because they make such great engines and I'm sure would give Mercedes a run for their money
It's funny how BMW like to talk about Motorsport, but unlike similar brands like Mercedes or Renault they aren't even in F1 would respect of they at least turned up or were sponsors.
Short-sightedness is never a recipe for success. Just look at Honda, Renault, BMW, and Ford (Jaguar) and compare them to the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari on the engine side or to McLaren and Red Bull on the team side.
The late season FW26 is one of the best-looking cars of that era and/or decade.
4:15 this picture brought back so many memories…As a kid I had all those cars as minitures
That 2003 FW25 was a gorgeous car. Should've won the Constructors that year.
I wish they were still in F1
In 1994-2005 is not mercedes is Ilmor 🙂😀
failure would only describe post BMW – just Maldanados win— despite Toyota, MORE a case of Ferrari super success
I think the term "failure" is harsh. Really it wasn't bad at all, if you don't count 2000, they were a great partnership who brought many victories. With BMW having the most powerful engine, and quite reliable, Michelin being very good, especially after 2002, Montoya clearly a world champion material, Ralf a fantastic number two, even often ahead of JPM. The only thing that lacked competitiveness was Williams car manufacturing. Their chassis and aero were average, they had no genius designer, so the cars themselves were good but nothing special.
But as you said, this period was that of extrem dominance by Ferrari and their dream team. In order to be able to compete with them, a team had to get everything perfect. McLaren had great cars designed by Newey, and great drivers with Mika then Kimi as n°1, and DC as a great n°2, but Mercedes produced a good but not fantastic engine, extremely unreliable (from 97 to 2006 it was painful to watch and cost Kimi 2 titles).
Williams for their part, had an almost perfect engine, but the fact that Williams had lesser infrastructure, a lesser designer and team of engineers, and a budget slightly lower than Ferrari, meant that they didn't have it all to compete with a perfect Ferrari team. However, had Ferrari one real weak point, the battle between the 3 from 2001 to 2004 would have been legendary I think.
And this period was obviously the beginning of the fall of Williams, with the incapacity to have state of the art infrastructures, a budget further and further away from the richest teams, a management that got worse with years passing, and drivers that got worse with years. Their number 1 going from Montoya, to Webber, to young inexperienced Rosberg, to Maldonado u_u.
With the 2014 new regulations, the insanely ahead of competition Mercedes engine and two very solid drivers, they were able to overcome their big difficulties in the chassis and aero departments, but it quickly vanished until they reach the absolute bottom of F1 standings. In 2018-19-20 they were simply nowhere, with especially the Stroll-Sirotkin duo that was probably the worst drivers partnership in the history of the team.
Fortunately, things are changing and going in the right direction for the first time since 30 years, with real solid foundations in progress. This year they'll finish 8th it is now almost certain. However their future remains very hard to predict. Will they become a middle of the pack team, or do they have any chance of going back on top?
Wait & see
2002 was a season not dominated by ferrari. Williams had 7 poles they couldn't convert poles into wins
I have a theory that both Williams and especially Head were way too stubborn, beginning with not giving Newey the proper respect he most deserved. Loosing Newey was, by all means, the kiss of death for Williams F1, and we now see, with Red Bull how he should have been treated by Williams all along.
That 2001 Williams was a thing of beauty 😍
The “keep your distance” on the rear wing is hilarious
Why did BMW and Williams fail? Same reason Williams failed with Newey, Mansell, and Hill. Patrick Head and Frank Williams did not collaborate well with anyone other than themselves and they completely lacked the strategic and management skill to build Williams into a successful modern-era F1 team.
Lost Newey was bad
And later the fight against Ferrari with Michael and they was on a top Level at That Time … so it was close but it wasnt engouh
It's same reason as why Newey left – Frank and Patrick not wanting to give away control and losing Newey meant that they never had an outstanding car afterwards
"The tyre rules were clarified before the Italian GP" – ahhhhh clarification from Ferrari International Assistance
Knowing all of this makes the fall of Williams all the more sadder.
Chris Bangle styled the cars.
BMW split with Williams, because Williams couldn´t deliver a car fast enough to win the championship. Even when Williams had good weekends, they did many mistakes. For example in the 2001 Belgian GP Williams had the fastest car, a 1-2 on the grid and Ralf was fighting his brother for the win, but at the restart after a red flag they forgot him jacked up and he had to start from the last position. BMW didn´t see a championship winning team in Williams, didn´t see the chance Williams could build the fastest car and Williams didn´t want BMW to have any influence, so BMW left.
No they are not that bad
The Bavarians aren't too preoccupied with such things.
Williams seems to have fucked up every time they got close to being good.
It failed because it's a BMW, Ultimate driving machine my ass. More like Ultimate disappointment of a machine. After all, we all know that BMW makes the most reliable engines ever😂
I think the Schumacher/Ferrari dominance hurt Williams more than the Williams chassis design. Also kinda think that Ferrari dominance stifled a lot of talented drivers (Kimi, Montoya, Button, to name a few) and ruined a few potentially great team/driver partnerships (Kimi/Mclaren, Montoya/Williams) just because they were untouchable as a winning team.
Failed? They have some championships on their record… Title should add "in the last 25 years" to be accurate 🤷
i wouldnt say they failed they just had the f2002-f2007 to deal with
Imagine if we had
McLaren Bmw
Williams Audi
Sauber Porsche
What could have been
Failed? I mean those BMW Williams Cars were dope. What you on about?
Thempst powerful engine also consumed the most fuel, which makes cars look less competitive in the race. Why people always forget about this simple thing? This is also why williams tended to use 3 stop strategy when others did 2 stops, quite often losing the winning chances.