Next year marks the 30th anniversary of Williams’ last Formula 1 championship, so what better time to start mining crypto and put an example of the car that delivered that championship in your garage? Part of a sealed-bid RM Sotheby’s auction, this Williams FW19 spent the 1997 season on the sidelines, but it was driven by both Heinz-Harald Frentzen and eventual drivers’ champion Jacques Villeneuve in tests during that memorable season.
Despite the 1994 death of Ayrton Senna and the emergence of Michael Schumacher as a perennial nemesis (both at Benetton and Ferrari), Williams was the dominant force in F1 for most of the 1990s. Its active-ride cars swept Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost to championships in 1992 and 1993, respectively. And the team nearly came back to win the 1994 championship with Damon Hill, who eventually did so in 1996 before leaving over a contract dispute. That set up Villeneuve—son of F1 legend Gilles Villeneuve and already an Indy 500 winner and CART champion—as Williams’ start for 1997.
The car that would take Villeneuve to his sole F1 championship followed the same recipe of Renault V10 power and Adrian Newey design work that had served Williams so well up to this point. Villeneuve and Frentzen drove it to eight wins, 11 pole positions, nine fastest laps, and 15 podiums across 17 races, culminating in a championship decider at Jerez in which Schumacher eliminated himself by crashing into Villeneuve and ending up beached in a gravel trap.
This was truly the end of an era. Newey joined McLaren for the 1998 season, and Renault halted its factory engine program. Williams would make do with reheated versions of the French automaker’s engines before teaming up with BMW for 2000. But things were never the same again. Williams wouldn’t win another race until 2012, which remains its last win to date.
The car up for auction is the last of six FW19 chassis built that turned a wheel (a seventh was completed but never tested or raced). Beginning in June 1997, it was used in test sessions at Magny Cours, Silverstone, Monza, and Barcelona. Those in-season tests, as well as a post-season run at Barcelona, were the only action it saw before being retired to the Williams Heritage collection. It was fully restored in 2017 and sold by the team to its current owner in 2019. Since then, it’s only accumulated 107 miles, well under the 621-mile limit before another rebuild is needed, according to the auction listing.
RM Sotheby’s expects FW19 chassis number six to sell for between 1.1 million and 1.5 million British pounds, or approximately $1.4 million to $2.0 million at current exchange rates. Vintage F1 cars can get a lot more expensive, which might be reflection of this car’s lack of competition history. Regardless of how much it sells for, it’s an important reminder of what Williams used to be.