Williams FW07
In only the second year of the team's participation in F1 , Williams Grand Prix Engineering produced the FW07. This was the car which established a winning sequence for the team, which 18 years later has still to cease.
Although the Lotus 78 had already shown the way forward with ground effect, when Head designed the conventional FW06 chassis, he did so because he wished to keep things simple in Williams's first year as a constructor. It would also allow him time to properly understand how ground effect worked.
The result of his studies was devastating. The FW07 appeared some way into the 1979 season, but by the second half of the year, it was far and away the fastest car in F1. Although ostensibly it looked similar to the Lotus 79, it featured a much stiffer monocoque that was better able to deal with the huge loadings produced by the ground-effect design.
Clay Regazzoni duly gave the Williams marque its first Grand Prix win at Silverstone, while Alan Jones delivered four more before the season was out. In the following year, Jones gave Williams its first title, after a close battle with Brabham's Nelson Piquet.
Into 1981, the FW07 remained a front-runner, Carlos Reutemann leading the championship for most of the year, but falling at the final hurdle. In its last Grand Prix, at Long Beach 1982, Keke Rosberg used the FW07 to take a strong second place on his way to a world title. It had been a glorious reign.
