Sir Frank Williams has admitted it was a mistake to let F1’s most respected engineer Adrian Newey leave his beleaguered team more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n
Aerodynamic specialist and Briton Newey, who has since built championship-winning cars for McLaren and Red Bull, left Williams in 1997 — the year Jacques Villeneuve won the Grove based team’s last title.<\/p>\n
Williams, a woeful ninth in the constructors’ standings last year, has not won a race since 2004.<\/p>\n
“He (Newey) wanted some shares that I didn’t want to give to him at the time,” Williams told F1 Racing magazine.\u00a0 “(That) was arguably, with hindsight, a mistake.<\/p>\n
Wheelchair-bound Williams, 69, also admitted that last year’s Cosworth-powered car was not good enough, triggering a restructuring of the famous team and a switch to Renault engines.<\/p>\n
“It (the FW33) was deficient in most of the areas that matter, but we were completely lacking in the most important one of all, which is aero,” he said.<\/p>\n
“And probably a bit of horsepower.\u00a0 It just wasn’t a quick car.”<\/p>\n
But Williams admitted that there is one element his team will continue to lack in 2012.<\/p>\n
“There’s only one of him,” he said, referring to Newey.<\/p>\n
“Adrian is quite a remarkable individual.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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