Why 'family' still comes first at new era Williams

The appointment of Francois-Xavier Demaison as the Williams F1 team's new technical director is the latest manifestation of new CEO Jost Capito's mission to preserve the team's 'family' feel. It will take time before it can take effect, but he is confident it is the correct approach

Jonathan Noble Mar 26, 2021, 12:53 PM

Upd: Mar 26, 2021, 1:53 PM

When the Williams family made what must have been the painful decision to sell its eponymous Formula 1 team last year, there was an obvious risk that its name and influence would disappear from the sport forever.

Just as the Tyrrell, Stewart and Minardi monikers and identities morphed and disappeared into the current Mercedes, Red Bull and AlphaTauri models, so too would it have been easy for the Williams legacy to fade away as well.

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Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.

Jonathan has won multiple awards for journalism - in 1991 he was the winner of the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Sir William Lyons’ Award for young journalists, in 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Individual accolade for consumer journalism in the Haymarket wards, in 2011 he won Haymarket’s Scoop of the Year, and in 2018 he was awarded a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for his contribution to F1 journalism.