Jonathan Williams (26 October 1942 – 31 August 2014) was a British racing driver.
Born in Cairo, Egypt, he participated in one Formula One World Championship Grand Prix, on 22 October 1967. He finished 8th, scoring no World Championship points.
His racing career began in the early 1960s, competing in saloons and various junior formulae, graduating to Formula Three in 1963 and in 1966 drove for the de Sanctis team. During this time he worked with the young Sir Frank Williams, Sheridan Thynne and Piers Courage.
In 1967, he was signed by Scuderia Ferrari, initially competing in sports car racing. That year, Ferrari lost several drivers, including team leader Lorenzo Bandini who died from injuries sustained at that year’s Monaco Grand Prix and Williams’ sports car co-driver, Günter Klass, killed during practice at the Mugello Circuit in July. Later that year, Williams was offered a drive in F1, but after only one Grand Prix he was dropped by Ferrari and a subsequent F1 project with Abarth did not come to fruition. However, he did compete in some Formula Two events in 1968 winning the Rhine Cup race in a car entered by Sir Frank Williams, before driving the works Serenissima. In 1969 he helped develop the De Tomaso F1 car for Frank Williams as well as continuing to compete in F2.[2]
He continued also to be active in sports car racing. At the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans, he co-drove the Porsche 908/02 which carried cameras for the Steve McQueen movie Le Mans.
Williams retired from racing in 1972 and became a pilot, (initially for Alessandro de Tomaso) an occupation he claimed to dislike and subsequently a writer and photographer.
Williams died on 31 August 2014, aged 71. He appeared in the documentary film Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans, released nine months after his death and which closes with a clip of Williams driving in the 1971 film Le Mans. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Jonathan William’s racing career began in saloons in the early 1960s and after competing in Formula Junior and Formula 3 his performances led to a works Ferrari drive at the Mexican Grand Prix in 1967. The son of a Royal Air Force Squadron Leader, he was born in Cairo, Egypt, on the 26th October 1942 when his father was stationed there though was brought up in England and later attended Chelsea College. His racing started with a Mini and he would eventually became part of a group of racers that included Piers Courage, Charlie Lucas, Frank Williams and Charlie Crichton-Stuart.
In 1962 he raced an Austin A40 and took twelve victories in a Brands Hatch saloon car series, finishing second overall, before switching to single-seaters in Formula Junior the following year. Despite having a big accident in a Merlyn-Ford MkV at Monza, later races in East Germany saw him finish seventh at Sachsenringrenn and fourth at Dresden-Hellerau with a Lotus 22. He raced an Elva Formula Junior in a Sports Car Club of America National event at Courtland Air Base, finishing nineteenth though he and Sheridan Thynne retired their Mini Cooper at the Nurburgring 500km. The following season saw him in Formula 3 when he and Piers Courage founded Anglo-Swiss Racing and based themselves in Lausanne, Switzerland. They competed in a number of European races but before this his first race came in the UK in March, where he finished eighth with Team Speedwell’s Lotus 20 in the Daily Mirror Trophy at Snetterton. Driving the Anglo Swiss Racing Lotus 31 in Europe, he retired at Monaco, was sixth at Zolder and tenth at Monza’s Gran Premio while his best results were third and fourth at the Nurburgring in April and September (with a lotus 22) plus second in the Preis von Tirol at Innsbruck in October. The team contested a number of British races and he was fourth in August at Brands Hatch’s Guards International Trophy with a Lotus 22 then third with a Lotus 31 in the Norbury trophy at Crystal Palace in September.
He and Piers Courage then raced for their friend Charles Lucas in 1965, driving Brabham BT10s, and the team also included Roy Pike, Charles himself on occasion and Peter Gethin. The well run squad made an impression, with the Lucas Brabhams featuring a red, white and blue livery and the drivers wearing tailored overalls in matching colours, and Jonathan would make an impact in winning several high profile Continental races. His first race came in the UK at the end of January and he was second at the Knorr Bowl event at Brands Hatch, though crashed at Silverstone in March’s Senior Service 200 race. He was third in April at Goodwood’s Chichester Cup (behind second placed team mate P.Courage), then fifth in October in the Silver Salver Trophy at Brands Hatch (with Peter Gethin third in a Charles Lucas Lotus 35). In the European rounds contested, he retired in the first race at Monza though was fourth in the next race at Imola and in April was fourth at the Coupe de Vitesse at Pau. Then came wins in May at Zolder and Monza and he followed this with second place in June’s Grand Prix des Frontiers at Chimay in Belgium. June also saw him back at Monza where he took fourth in the Lotteria race (behind team mate P.Courage in third) while a later return to Monza in September brought a third place finish. He also raced a Ford powered de Sanctis at the Formula 2 season’s final race at Syracuse though retired with engine failure after 29 laps.
The team’s progress led to Charles Lucas being invited to run the works F3 Lotus 41s for Colin Chapman in 1966 though Jonathan was not part of the team. He felt his racing career lay in Italy so moved there to drive for the Rome-based F3 constructor de Sanctis, as “I always thought that road circuits were much more interesting and fascinating. Avoiding drain covers, kerbs and trees was a much more stimulating business and gave me a sense of achievement that I could never feel at Brands Hatch and Mallory Park. Caserta and Mugello were circuits that I particularly liked.” It proved a shrewd decision as his season with the squad brought a number of victories. However, the start of the year actually saw him in the Lucas Brabham BT10 in Tempoarada races in Argentina, finishing fourth in Buenos Aires though he retired at Rosario, Mendoza and Mar del Plata. Following this he moved to Rome to start testing the new car although initially it took him some time to become accustomed to the Italian way of working. They started at 9.30 in a bar with an espresso and croissant, then around 11.00 they went across the street for another coffee, then at 12.30 went to a trattoria for a two hour lunch, which was hosted and paid for by Gino De Sanctis. They would then return to the workshop and work on with various breaks until around 21.00, by which time various friends and supporters would have arrived in time for another long meal and a debrief at the trattoria. However, he found that things got done and in a very civilised way. Their workshop was in a suburb of the city, with Gino De Sanctis living in a large apartment above it and the personnel consisted of ‘Sor’ Gino, plus Lucio, a mechanic, Marcello, and his apprentice, Ezio. Other specialists came in when they were required and there was a dynamometer in a shed, where Lucio tested their engines out in the open, with the noise, dust, heat and smell. Jonathan said their success that year came from dedication, knowledge and meticulous preparation. Most of their testing was done at Vallelunga, but never on Tuesday as Lucio considered it an unlucky day and Lucio always stopped at a church on the way to the circuit at Monza. The car would be towed to the races on a trailer behind a Fiat 2100 wagon driven by Marcello and Ezio, while Lucio and Gino drove there separately in a Lancia Aurelia and Jonathan drove in his Porsche 356 Cabrio. His first race for de Sanctis came in April at Imola’s Coppa Bruno Deserti, where he finished sixth, though the season would prove to be a productive one and he won a number of races, including several at Monza. After Imola, his next race came in May and brought a second place result at Monza, while the rest of the month saw victory at Garda and fourth at Monaco though he retired at Vallelunga. In June he won at Caserta and Monza, then was tenth at Reims and second at Vila Real and took another victory at Mugello in July. The following races saw him win twice at Enna, and a further three wins at Monza and he rounded his season off with victory at Imola in October. Of all his races, his favourite victory was at Lake Garda, “around 15kms a lap, walls and trees to hit, ravines to fall down into, but magic at the time.” Apart from the visiting drivers, he said the best Italians were “Geki Russo who had a lovely driving style, Ernesto Brambilla was a hard racer, Andrea De Adamich was a thinker and good in the wet” while his own team mates, Romano Perdomi ‘Tiger’, and Antonio Maglione “were quick, and great people to be around.” 1966 would be one of the happiest periods of his life, as he enjoyed his team and team members plus the lifestyle, where “you could park your car easily, eat fantastic food anywhere for a very small price, walk home safely at night, see beautiful things every few metres.”
His success in Italy led to an offer to drive for Ferrari in Formula 2 but problems with the project meant it was a difficult year, and his main success came with a de Sanctis F3 car in the Monza Lotteria. He was involved in some of the early test and development driving on the F2 Dino 166 (which Ernesto Brambilla and Andrea de Adamich later used to dominate the Argentine Temporada series at the end of 1968) and did a considerable amount of test driving at Modena, of the sports cars and the 6-litre V12 Can-Am machines. He had several outings with a Ferrari Dino 206 and was fourth when teamed with Vittorio Venturi in the Targa Florio though retired from the Monza 1000km and the Sebring 12 Hours, with Mario Casoni. In July he and Paul Hawkins raced a Ferrari 330P4 to sixth in the BOAC 500 at Brands Hatch though originally “they were going to pair me with Jackie Stewart, but I said ‘hey, he’s a bit on the quick side, give me a break!’ So they put Stewart with Amon and I drove with Paul. Talking of Stewart, I must say I was impressed with the way he handled that P4. Old ‘Jock McArmco’ might have had his detractors, but he couldn’t half hustle a car round a circuit.“ Later in the year came his Formula 1 debut, when Enzo Ferrari brought him in to race in the Mexican GP though he told how “I’d never even sat in the car..I’d only driven the previous season’s for half an hour. Going to Mexico, I had no idea that I was going to drive. I was told to bring my overalls just in case but not that there was a 50 per cent chance I would be in the car. Typical Ferrari-they loved to keep you in the dark.” He admitted to being nervous about the situation as he “was about to mingle with some very exalted people, on a track I didn’t know, in a car I had never driven…After a few laps, the inevitable happened. Upping the pace, I misjudged a corner and ran over one of the half moon tires set in concrete to discourage people from doing exactly that. Back in the pits they sheared off the damaged nose cone and bandaged it with duct tape-there wasn’t a spare cone to replace it with. I went out for what remained of the session, qualifying dismally near the rear of the grid. The race the next day was scarcely more fun. I remember being ahead of Jackie Stewart in the H16 BRM, eloquent testimonial to how bad that car must have been…I spent a lot of time looking in my rearview windows to see what JP Beltoise was plotting, and, more importantly, to make sure that I got out of the way of Clark, Amon, Brabham, and Hulme when they came up to lap me. At the finish it was Jim Clark first over the line ahead of Jack Brabham, with Hulme a lap down. I finished in eighth place behind Beltoise whom, to my great chagrin, I had allowed to slip past. Poor Chris, who had been in contention throughout, and could have won, ran out of petrol and was classified behind me in ninth position. Most unfair.” He spoke later of being ashamed after Mexico and “was walking around in dark glasses hiding from people. But in hindsight, I don’t think I did too bad a job.” Chris Amon had had four podium finishes with the car at Monaco, Belgium, Great Britain and Germany and the two enjoyed a good relationship, with Jonathan describing him as an extremely nice person and “a good driver, with all the qualities necessary to win-except that he was too nice. He didn’t really hate his rivals badly enough to need to win..” They were teamed to contest Can Am races in America with the 6.3-litre V12 612 sports coupes, with the cars entered by Bill Harrah. Before the races there was only “time for a bare minimum of testing at Modena before the cars were shipped off, which indicated that they were impressively quick in a straight line, but a bit of a handful to drive. Lack of time curtailed any changes being made.” In the races he was eighth at Laguna Seca though retired at Riverside and at Las Vegas. Unfortunately, further opportunities to race in F1 were not forthcoming and he and Ferrari parted company, while a subsequent F1 project with Abarth did not come to fruition.
1968 was mostly spent in F2 and he was eleventh with Church Farm Racing’s Brabham BT23 at Hockenheim plus eighth at Zandvoort in Merlyn Racing’s Mk12 while in two races with Ron Harris’ Tecno PA68 he retired at Enna and was tenth at Reims. A highlight that year though came with a third victory at the Monza Lotteria with Frank Williams’ Brabham BT23C, which he rated as “the best car I’ve ever driven and the best win of my career.” In other events he raced a Fiat Abarth at the Monza 4 Hours and was paired with Herbert Muller at Le Mans in a Scuderia Filipinetti Ferrari 250LM, though they retired after eighteen hours. He was second in the Coppa Citta di Enna with a Serenissima Mk168 though after the qualifying, he and Jo Siffert (in a Porsche 910) were comfortably the fastest drivers, with Jo being quickest. Jonathan recalled “Before the start, Seppe asked me if I was happy to put on a show for the crowd, on the understanding that he was going to win. I said OK and we had great fun doing just that, changing places a couple of times a lap, giving the spectators sitting on the hills in the 40C temperature something to talk about afterwards.” Serenissima’s factory was located in Formigine, between Modena and Maranello, and in testing for the team he would drive five hours from Rome to Modena and usually stayed with Mike Parkes. A small enterprise, Serenissima’s chief executive/team manager was ex-Ferrari and Maserati Team Manager, Nello Ugolini, while the workforce consisted of Stirling Moss’ legendary former mechanic Alf Francis in charge of the technical side, Bruce MacIntosh as chief mechanic with a young Italian helper, plus two secretaries. The end of the year saw him back in South America for the Temporada races, this time with a de Tomaso-prepared Tecno-Cosworth FVA F2 car. Held through December, he retired in the first race at Buenos Aires (ironically Brambilla and de Adamich won in the Ferrari Dino 166s), was eleventh at Cordoba, fourteenth at San Juan and twelfth in another round at Buenos Aires. Amusingly, he told how, when “a bloke called Reutemann was quicker than me I turned to Frank Williams and said ‘Hey, you’d better sign him up a bit quick’. Frank replied, ‘No, he crashes too much’“.
In 1969 he joined de Tomaso as a test and development driver and raced their F2 machine in a couple of races. He had become friends with Alessandro de Tomaso while he was at Ferrari in 1967 and they would eat several times a week together at a restaurant across from the Palace hotel where he lived with his wife. He undertook test drives of the Mangusta and Pantera road cars and at a Turin motor show he was demonstrating a Pantera to a potential customer but when he stopped at traffic lights the passenger jumped out and hailed a taxi, as the inside of the car was like a sauna. He debuted the de Tomaso F2 car at Monza in June, finishing ninth, while a further outing with the car the following month brought thirteenth at Tulln Langenlebarn. His sports car races that year had started with a retirement at the Brands Hatch 6 Hours alongside Paul Hawkins in a Lola T70 and he and Antonio Nicodemi retired their Porsche 907 at the Targa Florio. In further races with Serenissima he retired at the Norisring though was sixth in the Preis von Tirol and third at Salzburgring (behind two Porsche 908s driven by Kurt Ahrens Jr and Rudi Lins). Speaking of the Mk168, although it looked beautiful, “as soon as I drove it I discovered it had a dark side. At high speed, it was extremely unstable, movements of more than one centimetre on the steering wheel being unwise. To be honest, it was scary. We tried all the usual things, different springs, shock absorbers, roll bars, tyre pressures, but nothing made much improvement. All this work took time as the engine was quite fragile at first, and kept breaking down. The fact is we never sorted it out. With hindsight, the problem was undoubtedly an aerodynamic one, but in those days, only Colin Chapman and Jim Hall of Chaparral understood the potential of air flow. Everyone else made car shapes that were fast in a straight line and, if possible, beautiful. At Salzburgring, exactly the worst place for the unstable Mk 168. I must have been taking what Peter Coltrin called “brave pills” as I qualified on the front row and finished third.”
He continued in sports car racing and 1970 started with two South American outings in the Serenissima at Buenos Aires 1000km and 200 Mile events, with Maurizio Montagnari, though they retired from both. Back in Europe he and Georg Loos were entered for the Brands Hatch 1000k in April though they did not start with their Ferrari 512S as tyres were unavailable. At the end of that month he raced with A.Nicodemi in a Porsche 907 at the Monza 1000km but retired due to brake problems though soon afterwards he and Giovanni Alberti were seventh in the Targa Florio with the Scuderia Madunina Alfa Romeo T33/2. He contested a round of the European 2 litre Sports Car Championship at Salzburgring, finishing fourth in the Abarth 2000 S and then came a shared drive with Herbert Linge at Le Mans in a Porsche 908 which carried cameras for the Steve McQueen movie plus he also had a small acting role as a character called Jonathan Burton. In the movie, “the car I was to drive was the same Porsche 908 which Steve and Pete Revson had taken to second place at Sebring, but now modified to carry three heavy cameras, one facing forwards, two pointing rearwards, which, as I later found out, had a significantly deleterious effect on the handling of the car…although we were in the race, there would be no question of racing for position, our job was to stay on the track, and bring back as much live film footage as possible. In truth, I was fortunate to have been offered the drive at all, on two counts. Firstly, Steve had wanted to drive the car himself, but his Film Studio’s insurance were horrified by the thought of their valuable asset risking his life in this way, and put an absolute veto on that plan. Secondly, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest didn’t like the idea of having a camera car in the race one bit, and only allowed us to start after considerable argument by the film’s backer, Solar Productions, and numerous technical inspections. A few days before the race, I flew to Paris, and then made my way to Le Mans, met Herbert and the film crew, and settled in. We were briefed about the filming requirements which were to run all the cameras continuously from just before the start, until the film was exhausted, stop to reload (it was faster to change the cameras which had quick release mounts, than to change film reels) and carry on, now filming selectively. The first lap was hugely important, as the complete grid of cars, and the grandstands full of spectators would be impossible to replicate in later filming…Filming during the race would be at the discretion of the driver and would contain shots of the leaders in their Porsche 917’s and Ferrari 512’s coming up from behind, and drawing away in front, runs through the lighted start finish area, night and day, entering and leaving the pits, and anything of interest, such as accidents to other cars.” It did not feature the traditional start as, for the first time, for safety, the drivers sat in their cars with the engines off and started after the flag dropped. Herbert Linge did the early stint and after a couple of hours he took over. It required a lot of concentration in the rear view mirrors, as with the random stops, it was nearly impossible to know where one was in track position with respect to the fast traffic, whereas in a usual racing situation one’s mental picture of events around the track was usually reliable. Later on, it started to rain, which continued through the night, at times heavily, making conditions treacherous. Sometime after midnight, while I was at the wheel, the car aquaplaned after the Dunlop bridge and without me being able to do anything about it, struck the Armco barrier quite gently on the left side of the track, regained grip, and I carried on. I stopped at the pits for an inspection of the damage which proved to be very minor, so I continued my stint. This was a great relief, as if the car had stopped then, the integrity of the whole film would have been compromised..There was a small caravan parked in the paddock where we could rest between driving stints, which was cramped and cold and with no soundproofing sleep was impossible. I remember sitting there alone in the dark, shivering in my damp overalls, with nothing to do until it was my turn to go out again. At the end of the race the little Porsche was still running perfectly, and we found we had finished ninth, despite all the time lost changing cameras. Then we all went our separate ways for a few weeks, waiting to be recalled for the start of filming. When we returned to Le Mans to start filming we found that an impressive number of genuine racing cars had been assembled, at enormous expense, by Solar Productions..The cars were kept outside the circuit in various garages, the major one being in the town of Arnage, and were driven in by the mechanics for filming with a police escort. The actual filming took place on separate sections of the track, which would later be joined up on film, and were conducted at close to racing speed. This was to reproduce the feeling of total reality which Steve McQueen was determined to capture, but this made it hazardous..Another dangerous time was when simulated rain was needed, and a tanker released enormous amounts on the track just before running the cars. The visual results were perfect but driving was very tricky. We performed overtaking manoeuvres on cue, and minor off road activity. For spins, and the like, Dutch “skid” expert, Rob Slotemaker was used in a variety of cars. In the film, there was to be one big crash scene where a Ferrari 512 leaves the track, and gets airborne, before landing and bursting into flames. Too much even for Rob, so a Lola T70 was clothed in Ferrari bodywork and steered by radio control with a dummy driver inside. The first test was a disaster, with the operator losing control and severely damaging the car, but the next attempt went off perfectly, as can be seen it the finished film.” He was one of the permanent drivers, plus Mike Parkes and Masten Gregory, while “others came and went, according to their race schedules, including Derek Bell, Richard Attwood, Brian Redman, Gerard Larrousse, Jean Pierre Jabouille, Jacky Ickx, to name a few; many others took part. We filmed from Monday till Friday, and had the weekends free to go to Paris or home. Mike Parkes and I usually went further afield in his twin engined aircraft, usually in the company of a couple of pretty girls, selected from the many that seemed to frequent the film set. Life, it is fair to say, was good. I stayed in the beautiful Chateau de Segrais, not far from the circuit, and drove to work in a Porsche 911 on loan from the factory. Usually I had breakfast there, overlooking the moat, with the film’s director, the great John Sturgess who was responsible for making Steve’s reputation with epic films like “The Great Escape”. He would eventually leave after disagreements and Lee Katzin was brought in to finish the movie. Filming went on far longer than initially planned, and the leaves were falling from the trees alongside the Mulsanne straight by the time it was wrapped up, and we all finally went home. It was a fascinating experience for me and, I expect, for all the others who were there, so long ago.”
Jonathan competed in 1971’s Targa Florio alongside A.Nicodemi in a Lola T212 and they came home seventh though this would be his last significant outing and he retired from racing in 1972. By this time though he had already started a new career as a pilot, initially doing air displays and later, based in the South of France, flying executive jets after gaining a commercial licence. At one point he was a pilot for Alessandro de Tomaso athough the venture did not last long. On one occasion, after waiting for four days at Rome’s Urbe airport to fly him to Bologna, he called his secretary in Turin to find out what was happening. The secretary informed him that he was in New York so when he returned, Jonathan thanked him for giving him the opportunity and quit. In 1997 he bought a small motorhome and lived a nomadic life, driving around the coasts of Italy, France, Spain and Portugal plus was a keen writer and columnist on motorsport. Sadly Jonathan passed away on the 31st August 2014 in Southern Spain following a battle with cancer, having spent his final weeks in Cudeca Hospice in Arroyo de la Miel, Spain.
