Williams Page #9

worry about a thing here,

we're gonna win the

next races for him.

And it's go.

A superb start for Nigel Mansell,

who has already passed Nelson Piquet.

And it's Senna, Manse, Piquet is

the running order at the present moment.

Manselfs touching wheels

with Ayrton Senna.

We went to the first race

and Nigel crashed on the first lap

whilst trying to overtake Senna

in a very stupid manoeuvre.

Mansell appears

to be out of the race

so up into second position ifs now

Piquet and Moretto is up into third place.

And through

into the lead goes Nelson Piquet,

Nelson Piquet leads on lap three,

this one is for you Frank.

Nelson Piquet wins

the 1986 Brazilian Grand Prix

and you will hear

the crowd go absolutely mad.

I can say

it was a very special day for me,

I think it's a good present for Frank,

I think he's there

lying in a bed and uh...

I think he will

be happy to watch the race and uh...

Uh... we hope uh...

that god help Frank also.

It was clear we had the best car

and the only thing that

was gonna come between us

and winning the championship

was lots of intra team rivalry

between Nelson and Nigel.

I think that, that was used

actually to motivate Frank,

we need you Frank,

to manage these two guys,

because there's gonna be problems if,

if we just let them race free rein

and we need

to get on top of this quite quickly.

Nelson claimed

that Frank had said

you will be number one driver,

you will always have the spare car

and the team will revolve around you.

I came there to win the championship,

I came there as the number one driver.

Problem was, Nigel didn't sign

as a number two driver.

So he drove as fast as he could

and quite a lot of the time

that was faster than Nelson was going.

Nigel used

to drive straight at him,

because Nigel was pretty aggressive,

I mean a couple of times

Nelson said to me

I had two choices, be second or die.

I must've been a nightmare

to drive with as a number two,

being as quick as I was at times.

I mean that was horrendous.

You know, they hated each other.

Nelson insisted that we went

into the hospital and saw a,

an almost dead, croaking Frank.

Saying, Frank you said

that this and whatever

and Patrick is running the team so

that we're equal number ones with Nigel.

"And that's what,

not what you said to me."

And Frank was, I mean I don't think

Frank could reply to him.

He was almost out of it.

When things didn't go

as well as they should've for Nelson,

in other words

when Nigel was quicker,

Nelson assumed that

it could only be because

Nigel Mansell had

been given preferential treatment.

100% the English team

wanna win the English driver,

Williams for sure wanted to make

an English champion, not me.

Nelson thinks that there was

a bias towards Nigel

because he was British.

I think that's not true, um

there could've been but Nigel

was such an arse

that it was very difficult

to have a natural bias to him,

I mean on one occasion, I do remember

he was whinging about something,

Oh did you see what he did

to me then?", on the radio,

and Patrick said, on the radio,

For f***'s sake, stop whinging Nigel

and switched his radio off.

Patrick carried the business

in my absence, it was very hard on him.

Paddy was left lumbered,

an enormous amount of responsibility,

he wasn't ready for.

I was up to my eyebrows with two guys

that both were determined to be

world champion that year

and were not gonna take

for me saying.

"Sorry I can't make a decent job

of running your car"

because I'm too worried

about Frank Williams so uh...

It was a very stressful,

very difficult time in the team.

And uh... everything went

completely disaster for me,

but uh... Frank was not there

and I couldn't come

to the hospital and say

Frank, this has happened this,

this has happened that, it's not fair,

his problem was much more

than my problem.

Frank was still in intensive care

and he remained in intensive care

for quite a time and it was another,

I think it was 12 weeks

um before he eventually came home

but they were the longest weeks

you could imagine.

We all were just relieved

and thrilled that dad made it

and he was home

and we got him home.

Yes it was a very different kind of life

but we had dad still

and we were a family still

and he still had Formula 1

and that's what kept him going.

Frank Williams is quadriplegic,

from his shoulders down

he has no control

over the functions of his own body.

Less than six months

after the accident

he had ruthlessly

forced enough movement

into his partly functioning shoulders

to push himself along,

but his arms are just pistons of

flesh and bones, with no feeling.

He's paralysed from

his shoulders literally downwards,

he can lift his arms

and he can, for example,

if he wants

to scratch him in his face

he pushes his hands

against his face um

but he can't, he can't use his fingers.

Why does it say

hell on wheels?

Um...

Um it's because Dad's life

is hell in a wheelchair.

He's always in

a lot of pain all the time,

I don't think people realise that,

how much pain Frank is in, every day

of his life, every minute of every day.

You wouldn't know

it though would you?

No you wouldn't think he has anything

to complain about.

Dad never does think he has anything to

complain about.

That's a lovely picture of mum and,

well not so good of dad, lovely of mum.

And what about Ginny,

how did Ginny react?

Well it was tough, tough, very tough

I think. Very tough lady.

Um but she didn't fall apart,

she took very good care of me.

It must've been very hard for her,

suddenly you're not

a proper husband anymore

and have to spend a lot of time

looking after him.

It's very difficult for anyone

who hasn't lived with a quadriplegic,

to know what it's like to almost lose

your husband but not quite.

Well their relationship clearly

was likely to change

um in that Frank needed care

at all times of the day and night

so if it was

a different kind of life for, for Frank

it was gonna be an equally different

kind of life for, for Virginia.

'l'm not usually given

to making New Year's resolutions,

but at the end of 1988 I decided that

I would spend the following year

setting down everything

that has happened to Frank and me

in the last two decades.

Both before and after the car accident,

which left him permanently paralysed

from the neck down.

I felt it might act as an exorcism.

A way to put it all behind me

and start to look forward again.'

Reading it, it was like, Jesus Christ,

she went through this

and she didn't tell anyone,

you know she didn't share

that burden with anybody.

Why do you think

she shared it, then?

She says that it was

a cathartic exercise for her,

because Dad's the star isn't he?

Dad's the one in the spotlight,

Dad's the one that everyone goes

Frank Williams is amazing,

Frank Williams is wonderful

and for all those years

Mum had been in the background,

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