Sir Frank Williams and Patrick Head founded the Williams team in Grove, Oxfordshire in 1977. The team entered their first Formula 1 World Championship race at that year’s Spanish Grand Prix with a single March 761 chassis.

Their sole driver, Patrick Nève, came home three laps down in 12th place. Following this disappointment, their first race as a constructor was the 1978 Argentine Grand Prix where Alan Jones retired on lap 36 with a fuel system problem.

But the team wouldn’t have to wait long for their first taste of success which came at Silverstone the following year where Clay Regazzoni finished 25 seconds ahead of the rest of the field – not bad for a first win! Williams finished 2nd behind Ferrari in the Constructors Championship after adding four more wins to their victory at Silverstone.

The 80’s couldn’t have started much better for the team as Alan Jones took 5 race wins and claimed the 1980 WDC crown. The Australian spent one more season with Williams before retirement and his two victories in 1981 bookended the season for the team as Nelson Piquet took the title. Keke Rosberg joined the team in 1982, bringing them that year’s WDC and one race win per season for the following three seasons.

Rosberg was joined by Nigel Mansell in 1985 and the pair took two race wins each as they posted Williams’ best Constructors finish since 1981. Piquet joined Mansell in the FW11 in 1986 and only retirement in the final race in Australia stopped Mansell taking the crown.

Mansell won twice as many races as his teammate in 1987 yet Piquet took the WDC ahead of Mansell. Race wins would be few and far between at the end of the decade as McLaren dominated for most of ’88 and ’89 but Thierry Boutsen managed 2 race wins after Mansell left for Ferrari in ’89. The Grove outfit finished 64 points behind McLaren in ’89.

The 90’s were – and still is – the most prolific era of the team’s history. Boutsen and Ricardo Patrese took a single win each in 1990 but Mansell return to Williams to partner Patrese for two seasons in ’91.

Seven wins between them and 2nd place in the Constructors Championship built the foundations for ’92 as Mansell took nine race wins as he cruised to his only Drivers Championship, and saw Williams pick up their first Constructors title since 1987.

Damon Hill and Prost replaced Mansell and Patrese after Prost had taken a sabbatical the previous season. The Frenchman took 7 wins and Hill took 3 as Prost wrapped up his fourth Drivers crown and the pair secured another Constructors title.

However, amongst the glory there was also an enormous amount of pain.

After Prost retired from the sport, Ayrton Senna arrived from McLaren in pursuit of his fourth Drivers Championship. A tough start saw Senna fail to finish the first three races before the San Marino Grand Prix at the end of April.

It was a fateful weekend for not only the team, but the sport of Formula 1 in general. Roland Ratzenberger lost his life after crashing his Simtek and then perhaps more tragically, Senna lost his life early on in the race after his car hit the wall at the now infamous Tamburello corner.

The team did not field a second car for the following race in Monaco but Hill won the Spanish Grand Prix two weeks later in what was an emotional win for the team.

Later on that year, Hill took five race wins to finish runner up in the Championship and Nigel Mansell in his final F1 race won the Australian Grand Prix. David Coulthard was an 8 race replacement for Senna and finished 2nd in Portugal.

In 1995, Coulthard became a full time partner to Hill who won four races to once again finish behind Schumacher in the Championship with Coulthard winning his only race for the team in Portugal.

1996 saw Hill win his only Drivers crown and it was Williams’ best ever season with Hill and Jacques Villeneuve taking 12 race wins between them and secured an 8th Constuctors crown for the team.

Hill left for Arrows and was replaced by Heinz-Harald Frentzen for the 1997 season as Villeneuve took the Drivers crown after seven race wins. That season signalled Williams last Drivers crown and Constructors crown but was their 5th Constructors crown in 6 seasons. The close of the decade, and the 21st century, was winless and even a colour change in 1998 couldn’t change the team’s luck.

The first win of the 21st century came, once again at Imola in 2001 as Ralf Schumacher took his maiden race which was one of four wins that season. 2002 saw just the single win for Schumacher in Malaysia but in 2003 the Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya scored two wins each including Montoya’s superb win in Monaco. Montoya won his last race for the team in Brazil 2004 before he left for McLaren as Schumacher missed the middle of the season.

Since 2004 the only race win for the Grove outfit came in Spain in 2012 courtesy of Pastor Maldonado. Current World Champion Nico Rosberg was twice on the podium for Williams in 2008 and Nico Hulkenburg grabbed pole position in Brazil in 2010 but thanks to the dominance of Red Bull and Mercedes, the team has been relegated to Formula 1’s midfield in recent years with 2014 being the best season of recent times with 9 podiums.

The future looks bright with rookie Lance Stroll and veteran Felipe Massa at the wheel of the 2017 challenger with Stroll scoring his first podium in Azerbaijan at the end of June.