AT&T Williams F1

Following Frank Williams’ car accident at the beginning of March, the build-up to the 1986 World Championship was one of the most traumatic in the history of Williams F1. Technical director Patrick Head recalls how Nelson Piquet’s victory in the season-opening Brazilian Grand Prix lifted morale.

“Prior to the start of the season we knew that we had a good chance of winning the 1986 World Championship because the FW11 and the Honda engine were both very good. In Nelson [Piquet] and Nigel [Mansell] we also had two good drivers, although Nigel’s pace caused us a few problems internally.

Nelson had agreed to join the team at the previous year’s Austrian Grand Prix. I wasn’t present at that discussion – I think he and Frank agreed everything in a car sitting outside our hotel – and that caused lots of problems at the beginning of ’86, when Frank broke his neck. Nelson was under the impression that he would be the number one driver and that everything would be done to suit him, but Frank hadn’t said that to me and there was nothing in the contract to that effect either.

Anyway, we went to Jacarepagua having shown good pace in testing. Ayrton [Senna] took the pole, with Nelson lining up alongside him on the front row and Nigel in third place. Nigel then decided to try and win the race on the opening lap, but ended up coming off second best to Ayrton and hitting the barriers. Within a couple of corners we’d gone from being a two-car team to a one-car team.

The race then became a battle between Piquet and Senna, but Nelson actually won pretty easily. He overtook Ayrton on lap three and ran away with the race, coming home 35s in the lead. We were on the edge a bit for cooling, so Nelson backed off in the latter stages; had he needed to, I think he could have won by an even bigger margin. It was a great relief to win the race and it was a nice morale boost after a difficult few weeks.

From then on, it proved to be a very gruelling season. Frank clinically died three times and had to be resuscitated on each occasion and it meant that I had a lot to do until he could return to work. As well as being chief designer, I was the liaison with Honda and the sponsors; I think I went to Japan on 10 occasions that year, as well as to all of the races and the tests and all sorts of other things.

Emotionally, 1994 was a tougher season than 1986, but the latter was the most physically exhausting year of my career. And it ended, of course, in the title showdown in Australia. I never regretted making the decision to call Nelson in for fresh rubber after Nigel’s blowout and, to give him credit, he didn’t complain about it once after the race. He understood why I made the call.”