Frank Williams’ son says Williams once lost a driver who could have ‘delivered’ a Max Verstappen-esque 2023 F1 season

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Williams might be on the rise this season, but it’s been a long time since they’ve been championship contenders.

Pastor Maldonado was the last driver to win a race for Williams in 2012, although that result was very much a one-off for the Venezuelan driver.

The last time Williams finished in the top three of the constructors’ championship was in 2015 with Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa at the wheel.

However, behind Ferrari, no team has won more championships than Sir Frank Williams’ outfit, level with McLaren on nine titles.

That doesn’t mean that the team haven’t made some questionable driver decisions in the past.

Alex Zanardi was considered a mistake by Williams despite his pedigree in CART.

Williams regretted releasing Damon Hill before he went on to win the 1996 championship for the team, but his son Jonathan Williams believes another driver would have been utterly dominant had he not walked away from the manufacturer.

READ MORE: All to know about Williams Racing from team principal to Mercedes ties

Jonathan Williams thinks Nigel Mansell could have been as dominant as Max Verstappen at Williams

Williams was a guest on The Intercooler Podcast and spoke about the team’s relationship with Nigel Mansell.

Mansell joined Williams in 1985 and finished runner-up to Alain Prost and Nelson Piquet in 1986 and 1987 respectively.

He left Williams at the end of the 1988 season to race for Ferrari for two campaigns before returning in 1991.

A year later, Mansell won his one and only F1 championship and Williams was asked whether he thinks Mansell would have run away with the 1993 world championship had he not left the team and been replaced by Alain Prost.

He said, “I don’t mean to be disrespectful to the two guys that delivered us 10 out of 16 wins and both world championships in 1993, which I think it’s fair to say should have been the natural course of things.

“I think if Nigel had stayed with a big red one on the car to defend the championship, and it’s a little bit of a sacrilege to talk about Ayrton Senna not winning races, but I think if Nigel is in the FW15C in 1993, we deliver a season akin to Red Bull two years ago, or McLaren in 1988.

“I think we win 13 or 14 of those Grand Prix and probably 10 or 11 of them with Nigel.”

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Why did Nigel Mansell leave Williams ahead of the 1993 Formula 1 season?

Williams developed a reputation during the 1980s and 1990s for their drivers to immediately leave the team as soon as they won a championship.

After Mansell quit ahead of the 1993 campaign, Prost made his Formula 1 comeback in his place, won the title, and then retired again.

Hill is another example of the phenomenon, but Mansell’s exit could have been easily avoided.

Mansell previously believed Williams torpedoed his chances to win a title before he joined Ferrari, and in 1992, he insists the team gave him no indication that they were going to sign Prost for the following year.

The pair were previously teammates at Ferrari which didn’t work out well for the Brit, and on top of this Ayrton Senna had also expressed an interest in a move to Williams, although he was even less likely to partner Prost given their history.

Williams played chicken with Mansell, believing he would drop his high salary demands off the back of Senna’s interest, but when he announced his retirement from the sport, a late offer to keep him was snubbed as he decided to race in CART, winning the title on his first attempt.

Mansell insisted he would have destroyed Prost in Williams’ 1993 car as Jonathan Williams suggested, but Formula 1 never got to witness that particular battle.