- 984
- Riyadh
- l1stPlacel
http://www.williamsf1.com/Team/Heritage/1980/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_FW07#1980
STATISTICS:
Car: FW07B
Engine: Cosworth V8
Drivers: Alan Jones, Carlos Reutemann
GPs contested: 14
Wins: 6
Podiums: 19
Poles: 3
Fastest laps: 5
Constructors’ Championship: 1st, 120 points
Drivers’ Championship: Jones, 1st; Reutemann, 3rd
The FW07B is the car to beat. Jones dominates the season en route to winning the world title and he’s ably supported by his new team-mate, Carlos Reutemann. The constructors’ crown falls to the team as well, leading Frank Williams to comment: “This is the best feeling in the world.”
The team takes six victories (5 for Jones, 1 for Reutemann) and 19 podiums during the year.
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http://www.thenational.ae/sport/formula-one/arab-investment-drove-williams-team
"When the 1980 Formula One season ended at Watkins Glen in upstate New York, Sir Frank Williams's eponymous team, the newly crowned constructors' champions, celebrated by unfurling two flags in their pit garage: those of Great Britain and Saudi Arabia.
It was a momentous occasion for motorsport in the Arab world, but also a sweet success for the team principal, who had earlier struggled to maintain the team's presence on track alongside high-profile manufacturers such as Ferrari.
Three years previous to his team's first championship, Williams had travelled to Saudi Arabia in an attempt to persuade the country's national airline, Saudia, to invest in his embryonic racing marque.
It was no surprise that the former travelling salesman, 35 at the time, negotiated determinedly and flew home happy.
By the turn of the decade, with a pair of cars covered in several Saudi sponsors, Williams watched his rebranded team win six of the calendar's 14 races, helped Alan Jones, his Australian driver, secure the world championship and witnessed his team finish with more points than ever before - almost double that of the team in second-place.
"I went to Saudi Arabia for the first time in late 1977 to try and secure sponsorship," the team owner, who turns 70 in April, said yesterday on the sidelines of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. "It took a while, but I got a deal with Saudia, which appeared on the cars in '78. That was very important for us."
Williams said he was "lucky" to reach an agreement - through a third party - with Prince Muhammad bin Fahd, whose father was then the crown prince.
Unlike modern times, when carriers such as Etihad and Qantas sponsor grand prix racing, airlines three decades ago were not keen to associate with a sport that made as much news for accidents as achievements.
Once Saudia were on board, Williams said, his relationship with the kingdom snowballed.
"It was very new, but it was also very exciting," he said of his early trips to the Middle East. "The Saudis had a lot of money arriving because they were increasing the oil prices and there was a lot of independent wealth. The downside was they didn't really understand what Formula One was, so it took quite a while to educate them.
"But the younger groups of princes picked up the baton pretty enthusiastically, while, at the same time, I was quite successful with Saudia, and when you had Saudia on the cars, it was a badge of authority and appropriateness."
In the early 1970s Williams had resorted to operating his team's business out of a telephone box after the office line was disconnected for outstanding bills. He knew only too well the importance of tapping into the Middle East market if his team was going to have any chance of competing for championships.
In a bid to secure further sponsorship from Albilad, one of the kingdom's wealthiest companies, he whitewashed one of his cars, had the Albilad emblem embossed on its side and parked it at the entrance to the Dorchester Hotel, where a Saudi investor was residing. Soon after, Williams had another sponsor to complement Saudia and a promise that more companies would be advised to get involved, also.
"It's never easy to obtain substantial sponsorship from any one company," Williams said. "But if you are well prepared with a good marketing team and a good story, they will generally look at it keenly, at least, if not buy it."
When asked about his guerrilla sales pitch, he continued: "It was just an obvious thing to do. Your customer wants to see the car he is going to buy, so to speak. We did the same at Riyadh to clinch a further deal and it worked again there. They want to see what they are buying because Formula One was totally alien to them in those years."
With several sponsors on the 24 racing cars coming from across the Middle East and the Formula One calendar now featuring two grands prix - Abu Dhabi and Bahrain - motorsport is no longer an unknown quantity in the region. Qatar hosts a round of MotoGP, and Saudi Arabia has built a state-of-the-art racing circuit in Riyadh.
Following their successful season in 1980, Williams went on to win eight further world championships in the 1980s and 1990s. Yet the last time they stood atop the podium was in October 2004, when Juan Pablo Montoya won the Brazilian Grand Prix."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_FW07#1980
STATISTICS:
Car: FW07B
Engine: Cosworth V8
Drivers: Alan Jones, Carlos Reutemann
GPs contested: 14
Wins: 6
Podiums: 19
Poles: 3
Fastest laps: 5
Constructors’ Championship: 1st, 120 points
Drivers’ Championship: Jones, 1st; Reutemann, 3rd
The FW07B is the car to beat. Jones dominates the season en route to winning the world title and he’s ably supported by his new team-mate, Carlos Reutemann. The constructors’ crown falls to the team as well, leading Frank Williams to comment: “This is the best feeling in the world.”
The team takes six victories (5 for Jones, 1 for Reutemann) and 19 podiums during the year.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.thenational.ae/sport/formula-one/arab-investment-drove-williams-team
"When the 1980 Formula One season ended at Watkins Glen in upstate New York, Sir Frank Williams's eponymous team, the newly crowned constructors' champions, celebrated by unfurling two flags in their pit garage: those of Great Britain and Saudi Arabia.
It was a momentous occasion for motorsport in the Arab world, but also a sweet success for the team principal, who had earlier struggled to maintain the team's presence on track alongside high-profile manufacturers such as Ferrari.
Three years previous to his team's first championship, Williams had travelled to Saudi Arabia in an attempt to persuade the country's national airline, Saudia, to invest in his embryonic racing marque.
It was no surprise that the former travelling salesman, 35 at the time, negotiated determinedly and flew home happy.
By the turn of the decade, with a pair of cars covered in several Saudi sponsors, Williams watched his rebranded team win six of the calendar's 14 races, helped Alan Jones, his Australian driver, secure the world championship and witnessed his team finish with more points than ever before - almost double that of the team in second-place.
"I went to Saudi Arabia for the first time in late 1977 to try and secure sponsorship," the team owner, who turns 70 in April, said yesterday on the sidelines of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. "It took a while, but I got a deal with Saudia, which appeared on the cars in '78. That was very important for us."
Williams said he was "lucky" to reach an agreement - through a third party - with Prince Muhammad bin Fahd, whose father was then the crown prince.
Unlike modern times, when carriers such as Etihad and Qantas sponsor grand prix racing, airlines three decades ago were not keen to associate with a sport that made as much news for accidents as achievements.
Once Saudia were on board, Williams said, his relationship with the kingdom snowballed.
"It was very new, but it was also very exciting," he said of his early trips to the Middle East. "The Saudis had a lot of money arriving because they were increasing the oil prices and there was a lot of independent wealth. The downside was they didn't really understand what Formula One was, so it took quite a while to educate them.
"But the younger groups of princes picked up the baton pretty enthusiastically, while, at the same time, I was quite successful with Saudia, and when you had Saudia on the cars, it was a badge of authority and appropriateness."
In the early 1970s Williams had resorted to operating his team's business out of a telephone box after the office line was disconnected for outstanding bills. He knew only too well the importance of tapping into the Middle East market if his team was going to have any chance of competing for championships.
In a bid to secure further sponsorship from Albilad, one of the kingdom's wealthiest companies, he whitewashed one of his cars, had the Albilad emblem embossed on its side and parked it at the entrance to the Dorchester Hotel, where a Saudi investor was residing. Soon after, Williams had another sponsor to complement Saudia and a promise that more companies would be advised to get involved, also.
"It's never easy to obtain substantial sponsorship from any one company," Williams said. "But if you are well prepared with a good marketing team and a good story, they will generally look at it keenly, at least, if not buy it."
When asked about his guerrilla sales pitch, he continued: "It was just an obvious thing to do. Your customer wants to see the car he is going to buy, so to speak. We did the same at Riyadh to clinch a further deal and it worked again there. They want to see what they are buying because Formula One was totally alien to them in those years."
With several sponsors on the 24 racing cars coming from across the Middle East and the Formula One calendar now featuring two grands prix - Abu Dhabi and Bahrain - motorsport is no longer an unknown quantity in the region. Qatar hosts a round of MotoGP, and Saudi Arabia has built a state-of-the-art racing circuit in Riyadh.
Following their successful season in 1980, Williams went on to win eight further world championships in the 1980s and 1990s. Yet the last time they stood atop the podium was in October 2004, when Juan Pablo Montoya won the Brazilian Grand Prix."
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