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Heads one of the rare technical director/designers who was actively involved with driver selection at Williams thoughout his career.
The initial split in team ownership was 70/30 (Williams/Head), Frank only wanted "Williams Grand Prix" as the team name but Head asked for "Engineering" to be added which Frank agreed to.
He's pretty open and sincere about things he invented/created and those he copied. It bothered Colin Chapman to see the FW07 be dominant ground effects car for 3 straight years considering Lotus invented the technology but their cars fell back on the grid (the Lotus 88 looked very promising though).
Same goes for carbon chassis, active suspension and semi-automatic gearboxs. Head tended to wait and let the technology mature into a potent solutions at Williams.
There is a lot to be said about ownership of intellectual property and some savvy business deals done around F1 and the entire automotive industry. Actually the same things can be said for any industry. What things? Well, use your imagination LOL.
Bottom line in the real world... business comes first, technology comes second. Business drives technology, not the other way around. Head and Williams know that very well, so they became Sirs, and good for them!
PS. You don't become a "Sir" because you invent the wheel. You become "Sir" because you bring tons of money to the UK.
or you bring lots of glory to the U.K. but the exception apparently is Ron Dennis because he's not an MBE or OBE yet and he's done a helluva lot more than Head has done.
^ wondered the same thing, Dennis has brought alot of prestige to British technology worldwide and he's only a CBE. Maybe he unfriended the Queen on FB.
Didn't FW lose his legs because he was speeding in France?
He was in France after a testing session driving without his seatbelt when he crashed and thrown from the rental car and was permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Head took over running the team while Williams recovered in the hospital.
06-13-2015, 12:01 PM
