Interview with Frank Williams

Posted on Friday 28 Sep 2007 and tagged with frank-williams, team.

Whenever GP2 races, Sir Frank Williams will never be far from a monitor. With the season finale taking place in Valencia this weekend, Matt Youson talks to one of GP2’s most influential observers.

Out on track, GP2 cars stream towards the Rettifilio chicane. Given the length of the main straight at Monza, they arrive in the braking zone at speeds comparable to the F1 cars that will compete later. Unlike that F1 race, rarely a lap goes by without an incident: an attempted pass; locked tyres; a missed chicane. In the F1 paddock, Sir Frank Williams stares up at his motorhome monitors, thoroughly absorbed in the battle. This is not an unusual sight.

Williams’ concentration only becomes truly apparent when it breaks, turning to discuss a race incident with Patrick Head, or anyone else who happens to be nearby. There are shared observations about a particular style or temperament, comments about strategy. Occasionally, there is just the ghost of a smile. It isn’t entirely obvious whether he’s watching for business or pleasure. Earlier in the day, that question itself raises a smile: “My reasons are primarily selfish. I want to see who’s up and coming… though the racing is enjoyable, too.”

The point of view will be repeated up and down the F1 paddock. Many of Formula One’s grandees seem fascinated with GP2 in a way that wasn’t so readily apparent with the preceding format, F3000. So, just what is it that makes GP2 so attractive to the decision-makers of F1? “It’s just very, very good; the format works. Simple as that,” says Williams. “I admire the attitude and approach it takes. It provides entertainment and competitive cars. I also think reversing the grid has been very successful. I like that a lot.

“We – by which I mean the people within this team – respect the format because it has a lot of power. We’re not talking a sterile 300-400 horsepower: these are fast cars, faster than an F1 car of only 15 years ago… maybe faster than an F1 car of 10 years ago. The cars can’t be easy to drive, I imagine, with all that power.

“The racing also seems to be very competitive. It is prone to a lot of aggressive driving, and I think it rewards that aggression – but punishes over-aggression. The most significant thing for people like myself, is that it’s pretty apparent it’s the next best thing to F1 and obviously the place to find the next generation of grand prix drivers. There’s no doubt that if a guy wins GP2, he’s going to be a very worthwhile candidate for an F1 seat. It is the place you automatically look first. It is almost the only place you look.”

GP2 has a habit of drawing winners from many teams, and as has been the case in seasons past, the driver’s championship looks to be decided in a two-horse race: following Rosberg and Kovalainen in 2005, Hamilton and Piquet Jr in 2006, this season sees iSport’s Timo Glock and ART’s Lucas di Grassi emerging at the sharp end over recent races but it isn’t only the winners that catch Williams’ eye. “Obviously winning is tremendously important, but it isn’t the only thing I’m looking for in a potential F1 driver. I want to see who makes the fewest mistakes, who defends a position well, who does the most overtaking. There’s a lot to learn from paying attention to the race rather than just looking at the results.”

It has to be said that Williams didn’t have to look beyond the podium to recruit his current team leader. Nico Rosberg tested briefly for Williams F1 as a teenager (alongside Nelson Piquet Jr) but it was in GP2 that he really caught the eye. “It was obvious Nico had it,” says Williams. “Sam Michael first drew my attention to him, saying that he had become a real charger. I first started to pay attention properly at Barcelona 2005, when he kept setting purple times lap after lap and he kept doing it all season. It was obvious that he was an exceptional talent, and after seeing him in GP2 there was no doubt at all that he would make it in F1. He was racing hard against Heikki Kovalainen and got the better of him. I suppose it’s a shame that Lewis wasn’t there that year as well. That would have been very interesting.”

Nico made a clean switch from GP2 but today the preferred path for those marked out as having potential, is to contest the GP2 series alongside a limited F1 testing programme. Williams F1 have followed this route with Kazuki Nakajima, the Toyota prodigy acting as test and reserve driver, while also driving the FW29 on Fridays at the flyaway races. Constantly switching between two very different, high-performance cars brings with it a burden, but one which Williams has no hesitation in seeing his young charge carry. “It goes back to the earlier point. These cars provide for great racing and it is a great place for a driver to gain experience. Of course, we have a special interest in Nakajima and will continue to do so. The reports he submits and the feedback are useful and our guys value his input. He’s not frightened of the car and isn’t much off the pace of the race drivers. That bodes well for his future.”

There has been a suggestion made by more than one commentator that, with F1 running out of ‘little’ teams, the GP2 series has become part créche, part surrogate home for the young, quick, obviously-talented driver who needs a few rough edges smoothed out before getting into the very serious business that F1 has become. While this is contentious, there is little doubt that GP2 functions as a proving ground.

“We still keep an eye on the British F3 series and the Euro F3 series, but really the only place we’re going to look for new drivers is GP2,” acknowledges Williams. “We prepare our drivers in the simulator before each F1 race, but that only works to a certain extent. There is no substitute for prior knowledge of driving something very powerful, on the circuits where we race, in a competitive environment. That means GP2 or sportscars and the problem with sportscars is that they are not so easy to throw around. GP2, on the other hand, has everything we like to see: 600-plus horsepower, ground effect, grippy tyres… Hats off to Flavio, GP2 is a very good series indeed.”

Interview courtesy of The Red Bulletin. 

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