Williams has helped many drivers make their Formula One debut in recent years: but in the early years, things were quite different
There are difficult tasks and there are even more difficult tasks in Formula 1. But David Coulthard had to overcome what was probably the most difficult debut for Williams. In 1994, the Scot had to replace Ayrton Senna, who had died in an accident in Imola.
At the following race in Monaco, the traditional racing team had only entered one car, driven by Damon Hill, but in Barcelona, Williams had already found a driver to fill Senna’s shoes.
The choice fell on test driver David Coulthard, who received a phone call from team boss Frank Williams and was allowed to test for four days in Jerez for his Formula 1 debut. The Scotsman was on course for points in Spain when his engine gave up the ghost. However, he made up for the points in the next race in Canada.
Although the Williams team has existed since 1977, Coulthard was basically the first driver to make his debut for the team and take over the cockpit in the long term. Before Coulthard, only two other drivers had driven their first race for Williams. However, they had only competed in one Grand Prix for the team.
As a top team at the time, they naturally wanted to attract more experienced drivers like Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost or Nelson Piquet.
However, the example of Jacques Villeneuve, who joined Formula 1 with Williams in 1996, finished runner-up in his debut season and went on to win the world championship title a year later, shows that you can also achieve great things with a rookie.
In recent years, however, the further back the team was in the table, the more often rookie appearances at Williams occurred. Since 2017, a total of eight drivers have made their Formula One debut with the team from Grove.
