The Athletic

Williams is an iconic name in Formula One and there's no question its peak came during the V10 era.

From 1992 to 1997, the T-1 four' titles and five Constructors' crowns,

yet only one of the drivers that won a championship for Frank Williams during that spell,

managed to stay on to carry the number one with the team for the following season.

And I won't even name-check him at this point.

Beyond the champions, there were several other memorable drivers for Williams

who starred in Renault or BMW powered machinery. So for our now regular top 10 debate in

series 9, we are arguing over the top 10 Williams drivers of the V10 era. And joining me,

Glenn Freeman, to do just that, we have our usual panel for these episodes,

Ed Straw, Matt Beer and Ben Anderson. A top 10 episode means there's no traditional opening

question, of course, so let's show some love to some of the drivers who just missed out

on making the cut. Ed, you included two drivers who didn't make it overall. Tieri Bootson and Heintzeld Frensen.

Are you particularly sad to hear that either of those didn't make it in?

I'm not completely surprised Frensen didn't. He got in simply because he won a race. I'm a bit

disappointed for Bootson because although he wasn't a very Williams driver, he did have

some success and some pretty good wins in that difficult two seasons. So, yeah, I think boots and merits being in there. I think he's an overlooked driver in general. I'm not saying he should be top three, but yeah, for me, it was never really in doubt he was in the top ten. So the rest of you were all wrong. Well, well, don't drag me into this. He was in mine as well. It's the other two

that we have to blame. Matt and Ben are wrong. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I'm going to say that a lot. No, no, we're not. No, we're not. Right. Ben, anyway, Mark Weber was the only driver you picked who didn't make it in. Is there any sense of injustice there? I'm not too sad about it. Like someone had to be 10th and I felt like Bootson was too tuggy compared to Patracy. But Tracy got smashed by Mansel. But Tracy was a long time in my top 10 and I just thought, nah, for 92, can't be in there. And Weber obviously almost won the championship later in his career very fast. And I was a bit of a, at this point, I was a bit of a fan boy from the Jaguar days. So he's just a kind of nominal top 10 for me, not too sad that he didn't make the cut. Can I throw a quick stats blast in? Bootson qualified ahead of Petraezy more. He completed more racing laps ahead of Petraezy and he finished ahead of him more. So on all those metrics, he was ahead. Yeah, didn't keep him on, though, did they? They stuck with Petraezy, though, didn't they? To me, they're like much of a muchness and not good enough overall. Yeah, the reason Bootson got him for me, I'll admit, I found one to eight quite easy to put together. And then I, it was, what am I going to do with positions nine and ten and

boot them won three races for the team and I felt like you know I'm not sure one win so

like a French in situation one win especially in a very good car that's not enough to get

you in but if you win three regardless of the circumstances you don't win three races by

accident anyway Matt I have to change the question for you don't win three races by accident.

...