The Williams Database Winter Challenge 2024
Now in its seventh year, The Williams Database Winter Challenge is a bit of fun for the off-season. For 14 weeks between the 2023 and 2024 F1 seasons from 29th November 2023 – 28th February 2024, there will be one Williams related question for you to answer a week.
Unlike previous years questions will be posted here every Wednesday at 8 AM GMT (ish!) – you have 24 hours to submit your answer using the form below so no need to rush. Everyone who gives the correct answer within 24 hours of positing the question will get ten points. The person with the most points at the end of the competition will win. If more than one person has the same number of points at the end there will be a quick-fire tie-break round.
So that means to be in with a chance you have to answer as many questions as you can over the ten weeks but you don’t need to rush to answer.
What you can win
This year there is a bumper prize on offer that includes:
- A cap signed by Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant
- An 800 races 1970 poster
- Frank Williams biography
- Jim Bamber ‘The Pits’
The competition is open to anyone, anywhere as I will post on to you.
Current Positions
This Weeks Question
Week Thirteen
The answer, according to LEGO owned bricklink is 1483 and here’s what it looks like:
Previous Weeks Questions
Here’s a reminder of the previous questions:
Week One
Over three seasons (2020-2022) Latifi made 61 starts for the team.
Teams
| Year | Team |
|---|---|
| 2020 | Williams |
| 2021 | Williams |
| 2022 | Williams |
Stats
| Williams | All Teams | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts | 61 | 61 |
| Wins | 0 | 0 |
| Points | 9 | 9 |
Week Two
In 2022 Logan Sargeant took part in three FP1 sessions but missed out in Mexico by 5.312KMs so secured only two super licence points.
Week Three
It was a one-off design that Albon was going to use at the 2022 Italian Grand Prix but he fell ill with appendicitis (poor sod). Of course, this is also the race where Albon went on to be replaced by Nyck De Vries who went on to score points and an AlphaTauri drive. In an alternative universe, Albon didn’t fall ill and went on to win the race.
Week Four
1982 was at the height of the FISA-FOCA wars as the two sides battled for the heart and soul of Formula One. It is against this backdrop that Rosberg won his one and only F1 Drivers Championship and it affects how you reach the answer to this weeks question.
There were 16 rounds on the 1982 calendar but the San Marino Grand Prix was boycotted by the FOCA teams which included Williams. Rosberg won only the Swiss Grand Prix, the 14th round of the season.
There are potentially two answers to the question: 6.25% or 6.67% depending on whether the San Marino Grand Prix is included. I would argue that as the San Marino race is part of the official results then it should be included making the answer 6.25% but others, including @f1_stats below, exclude it.
Therefore, I have decided to accept either 6.25 or 6.67 (or close variant of that) as acceptable answers!
Week Five
The answer I was looking for was 3 Churchward, Southmead Industrial Park, Didcot, OX11 7HB. The team did initially operate out of the same premises as the F1 team but that wasn’t their own dedicated space.
Week Six
Before she married Frank Williams, Virginia (née Berry) was married to Charles Sawyer-Hoare. According to her excellent book, it doesn’t sound like her parents were too pleased about the match: “I had avoided telling my parents about Frank for as long as I could but decided to come clean when we moved to Mortimer. They were dismayed. In their eyes, Frank seemed an even less suitable match than Charles.”
Frank didn’t commit much time to the wedding it seems: “It was all over in minutes. Frank likes to say that he left the factory for the registry office at five minutes to two and was back at the factory at two thirty. It could well be true. He looked very subdued when we came out. He gave me a brief kiss, glanced at his watch and said, ‘Okay. I’m off back to the office. I’ll see you later.'”
Here’s the official entry for Virginia’s first marriage.
Week Seven
The length of the last Williams touring car, according to this excellent resource, was 4508mm. I was there for the very last outing of Williams Touring Car Engineering at a very grey Silverstone which was a huge disappointment for the team. Here are some pictures from the day.
Week Eight
The answer was, as Scott pointed out, a year and a day ago: 16th January 2023. What a nonsense it all was with people seeing what they believed to be a fuzzy Frank Williams’ face in the video that accompanied the post. It was, of course, a tyre! You can read more on the sorry tale here.
Week Nine
Massa stopped on laps 1 (wets), 2 (wets), 3 (wets), 17 (intermediate), 24 (ultra soft) and 37 (ultra soft).
Week Ten
Really, who IS Maisy Kay? In your answer I don’t just want her profession but what’s her relationship to Williams?
As many of you pointed out her name appeared on George Russell’s helmet. RoKit is part of the ROK Group. ROK stands for “Return Of Kendrick”. The group’s owner is Jonathan Kendrick. Maisy Kay’s full name is Maisy Kay Kendrick, she is Jonathan’s daughter. I note that her career seems to have taken the same trajectory as her father’s company… If you can be bothered you can read about her tie-up with Russell here.
Week Eleven
It’s amazing that a place as small as King’s Lynn (pop. 42,800) should spawn two drivers that both made it into F1 and both drove for Williams at one point in their careers. Martin Brundle stood in for Nigel Mansell at the 1988 Belgian Grand Prix as the former had chickenpox. Brundle should have also done the following race at Monza too but TWR wouldn’t release him. Bet McLaren wishes that Walkinshaw had!
George Russell raced 59 times for Williams from 2019 to 2021. Again it should have been one race more than that but Williams loaned Russell to Mercedes to stand in for the ill Hamilton at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix.
Week Twelve
13th October 1996 at Suzuka, Japan. It was also the last race for another Williams old boy – Martin Brundle.
From Wikipedia: The 1996 Japanese Grand Prix (officially known as the XXII Fuji Television Japanese Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held at Suzuka on 13 October 1996. It was the sixteenth and final race of the 1996 Formula One World Championship.
