Williams

One thing I learnt early on in this documentary was that Sir Frank Williams is from the north east and came from a poor working class background.

This documentary could have explored a lot of areas about the Williams racing team. How in the early 1990s they dominated Formula 1 but Frank Williams could or would not keep hold of his best drivers.

It was as if having the best car was enough for him and the driver's role was secondary.

Wisely it concentrated on Frank Williams the man, his early years in racing and then up to his accident with the immediate aftermath.

Williams is a great name in Formula One but the glory days are behind it. Frank Williams started out as a racer. A poor man living with posh Eton educated racers.

However although Frank loved speed he was not a skilled enough racer. He made money in spare parts, buying old racing cars, refurbishing them and selling them on, usually back to the people he bought it off from in the first place. In short he was a bit of a hustler.

Frank got enough money to start his own racing team in the late 1960s but he did not have enough money to keep it going. His cheques usually bounced.

His first racing driver Piers Courage died in 1970 at the Dutch Grand Prix. An incident that still haunts him even now.

Williams getting Patrick Head in his team in 1977 saw the team moving from making up the numbers to winners. They had the fastest car and won their first world driver's championship in 1980 with Alan Jones.

In the 1980s the Williams team cemented their status as one of top outfits in F1. They had some of the best drivers but in 1986, tragedy struck as Frank Williams ended up paralysed in a car accident in the south of France.

A traumatic time for the Williams racing team and his family. It was his wife Virginia who first had to fight to keep him alive and then keep him going so he could return to his team wheelchair bound.

It is clear in this documentary that like other F1 team owners. Frank Williams is a driven man with a narrow vision. He eats, breathes and lives for his team.

Family was a distant second. I think he preferred to go on a long run than spend times with his family. He wooed his wife Virginia who left her husband for him. After their wedding he went straight to work, there was no time for a celebratory lunch.

Virginia took her children to Spain for a holiday for 16 years, Frank did not accompany them once. You felt that this has caused issues with some of his children.

Even Virginia was upset that once the team became successful, Frank had his head turned by the beautiful women who hung around Formula 1.

Frank Williams shows few emotions and claims to have little regrets about the past and his accident which was his fault. I find that doubtful.

Now widowed he has little time for his family home. He still lives and breaths F1 even though the Williams team is a shadow of what it used to be.

This was a warts and all documentary. It was truthful up to a point. I did sense there were some family issues that were held back. Obviously I sensed Frank Williams was reluctantly to talk about the death of Ayrton Senna.

As an avid fan of the sport and typically enthralled by documentaries, this review might have some slight bias. I must profess that you do not have to be a petrol-head to enjoy this, it is incredibly accessible to everyone. Having said that...wow! This actually might just be the first time I teared up to a documentary. Chronicling the life of Sir Frank Williams, founder of the Williams construction team for Formula 1, journeying through both the sport and his family affairs. Initially, I underestimated what I was in store for. A typical sporting documentary this is not. Matthews carefully portrayed Williams' personal backstory and intertwined it with his addiction and aspiration to the motor world in what is a perfect equilibrium. The two sides bounce off of each other where any incidents or scenarios in either life affect the other, as if Williams' story is its own ecological structure. Mesmerisingly breathtaking and incredibly moving, honestly. One man's ambition has lead him to create one of the sport's best engineering teams, and this film illustrates just how much of an impact he has made. "The accident" that occurred is intricately embedded to showcase his unstoppable personality. It didn't deter him away, he came back more focussed than ever and I really admire the way this film captures that. It's never melodramatic, it's an honest frank (pardon the pun...) look into a broken family. It doesn't stop there, it dabbles into the lack of female empowerment within the sport and how his daughter is a leading figure, not just in the team, but the entirety of F1 racing. There is a touching moment towards the end where his daughter reads a book to him about her mother, and for a moment I was stunned. The ferocious amount of emotion that was conveyed overwhelmed me. The tangible heartache for this family is astronomical. I would've like to have seen more of the racing and it could've been cut shorter for a much tighter narrative. However, the pace speeds along to an emotionally complex finish line with grace.

Having watched several documentaries over the years on legends of motor sport. Graham Hill Jackie Stewart Jim Clarke and now Sir Frank Williams. They all strike me as extremely driven determined and selfish individuals who put there need to increase the speed of their cars above all else and in Frank Williams most of all his family. They always came second to his F1 team. Despite having a remarkable wife who stuck by him despite numerous affairs and a near fatal accident that left him severely paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. In this insightful documentary we learn much about this remarkable man who took a struggling team on the point of bankruptcy to a multi million pound business winning several world titles along the way. We also learn much about his daughter Claire who herself has had difficult family decisions to make in her quest to become the most powerful woman in the male dominated world of Formula one. 9/10

Although it may not look like it from the outside, the Williams F1 team is deeply intertwined with the Williams family history, and that's what this documentary does so well. Bringing to life two fascinating sides of the story of the family, it's a riveting and powerfully emotional story that holds your interest from start to finish. It may occasionally get a little muddled when trying to pick a side to focus on, and is possibly a little inaccessible for non-F1 fans, but it's still a fascinating watch throughout.

Now, I'm a big F1 fan. My favourite documentary of all time (and the highest rated film of all on this website) is Senna, a beautiful, elegant and thrilling tale of one of the sport's greatest drivers. Although I can't say that I found the same thrills in Williams as I did in Senna, I have to say that there is a lot about it that bears a likeness, particularly when it comes to the all-important topic of a thirst for competition in motor racing.

The film is a piece about the Williams family, but there's no doubt that Sir Frank, the man who started the team, is the centre. Although he was never a driver, one of the most powerful messages that this documentary brings across is just how determined he was as a competitor, in whatever capacity. Through some incredibly difficult times over his years in F1, Frank's determination and obsession with the sport is so similar to the emotions that dominate Senna, and that's what sets up such an enthralling and emotionally affecting watch.

I do worry that viewers who don't have the same fervour for motor racing may not be able to relate to the film as much, because there is so much focus on Frank Williams' unstoppable obsession despite all the dangers of motor racing, but if you are an F1 fan, or indeed a fan of pure competition, then it's very clear to understand how strongly the man has felt about the sport all his life.

However, the entire film isn't all about Sir Frank Williams. There's a sprinkling of on-track action throughout, delving into the rivalry between Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell in 1986, when the Williams family was at their most difficult moment, but the true focus of the film is how the family itself played a role in shaping the team that has endured very strongly up to the present day.

As a result, the film's three major players are Frank, his wife Ginny, and his daughter Claire. Alongside Frank's racing obsession, we get an enthralling insight into the woman who was always at his side, and the core of the film's emotion really comes from contrasting the thrill that Frank got from being in Formula One to the difficulties that it often caused for his wife.

It's not a story that in any way criticises either party, but it highlights the fates of the people who aren't always at the forefront, and how much of an emotional drain such an intense profession can be on their personal lives, something that I found absolutely riveting.

Furthermore, Frank's daughter Claire offers a very effective and relatable position for you as the viewer. Much of the film focuses on the fact that Frank is a very emotionally introverted character, something that also contributed to a degree of stress in the family, but with the insights from Claire, someone who is both prominent in F1 nowadays, but also has the benefit of being so close to Frank Williams, you get a very clear and collected insight to the whole family saga, and it's her descriptions, along with a collection of fascinating tapes from Ginny Williams, that give the film such a powerful emotional effect.

On the whole, this is an excellent documentary, but it's not without a couple of small flaws. For one, its first act struggles to really tie all of the aspects of the story together well, jumping back and forth a little too much between the three main players, Frank, Ginny and Claire, as well as trying a little too hard to assure you that there will be some racing cars in the movie too. For me, I would have been perfectly happy to see a slightly calmer introduction to the story that focused on the family heritage, and brought in the wider F1 context a little later on.

Overall, however, I was absolutely enthralled by Williams. An excellent documentary that looks at a wide range of stories around the Formula One paddock centring around the Williams family, it will have you absolutely riveted from start to finish, and even tug at your heartstrings, such is the emotional power of the family's story.

A British sports documentary; A story about Frank Williams, a British businessman, former racing car driver, and mechanic. It tells the moving story of how he fought career and personal battles to achieve success as a Formula One motor racing constructor and recovered his health following a motor accident. Using interviews with close friends and family, including audio tapes recorded secretly by his wife during the period she was caring for him, it is a poignant story. It captures two types of determination: one who is entirely driven by passion for their chosen work with consequences, and another who is strong, loyal, loving, and proud, besotted with their partner and the cost that may carry personally.