Frank Williams Does Thames Town
Interview: Peter Windsor / F1 Racing Magazine
This grey, sticky Monday morning in Shanghai finds Sir Francis Owen Williams in Thames Town, about 20 miles out of town, staring at he protruding jaw of Sir Windston Spencer Churchill.
¡°Top man. Right man at the right time,¡± says Frank in that strained, understated, measured way of his. The conversation turns naturally to Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese generalissimo who annoyed Churchill back in 1942 by involving himself in Indian politics for the war against Japan. Frank recalls a subsequent incident in New York, when Madame Chiang Kai-shek invited Sir Winston up from Washington but took umbrage when he suggested that they meet half way.
¡°As I say, top man,¡± he repeats with a smile-much as he as been repeating such anecdotes for the past 40 years or so, maintaining his position as the most historically aware, detail-conscious and beautifully articulate F1 team owner in Motorhome Alley.
Now, though, we are visiting this amazing Chinese government sponsored development-a tribute, if you like, to western imperialist architecture of pre-Mao China-there are nine Euro-towns in the master plan-and Frank is fascinated.
¡°Extraordinary,¡± he says, taking in the red phone boxes and Kensington-and-Chelsea waste-paper bins. ¡°You have to tip your hat to them. I can¡¯t imagine anything like this happening anywhere else in the world-and that¡¯s the point, isn¡¯t it? There¡¯s no country-no continent-quite like China. In 25 years it will, by most forecasts, be the world¡¯s largest economy. That may seem a long time in F1 terms but it¡¯s nothing in terms of the global economy. It¡¯s an exciting time to be here.¡±
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