AT&T Williams F1

GP originally stood for “general practitioner” in the Newton household, but developed an alternative significance when the family moved house in 1966. “That’s when we relocated to Silverstone village,” says Williams team manager Tim Newton, “My father practised locally and became the circuit doctor, too, so I grew up with the racetrack more or less in my back garden.”

Newton spent many a happy childhood summer savouring the sights, scents and sounds of motorsport – and liked what he saw. “I didn’t bother with further education after leaving school,” he says. “I worked in a road car garage for a while, then joined Hesketh Motorcycles before preparing cars for legendary saloon racer Gerry Marshall in the early 1980s.”

Tim subsequently spent time with other respected preparation companies – including Dowson Engineering and GTi – before moving to Austria to work for Helmut Marko, the former F1 racer who nowadays manages Red Bull’s young driver programme.

“I was team manager, chief mechanic and engineer all rolled into one,” Tim says, “and sometimes I drove the truck, too. We were running Mercedes 190s in the DTM, Germany’s touring car championship, and we had some good drivers, including Jörg van Ommen, Volker Weidler and Karl Wendlinger. It was a small team, but we did quite well. We worked flat out, but it was very good fun. I lived out there for five years, doing the DTM and a bit of F3 with Karl, and when I came back I found that many of my former colleagues had progressed to F1. That seemed like the thing to do, so I joined Arrows at the end of ’89 and spent five years on the race team. It was a bit of an eye-opener, really, because I just had to make sure my one little bit was OK, rather than doing absolutely everything as I had with Marko.”

Tim moved to Williams in 1994, as chief mechanic on the team’s new touring car arm, set up in partnership with Renault. He stayed there for the balance of the decade – until the programme’s conclusion – and ended up as technical operations officer, “a sort of Patrick Head-type role”, as he puts it.

“We had some very good results,” he says, “but I’d been in the sport for 20 years by the time the touring car project ended. I thought that was probably enough, so I went away and did an RYA (Royal Yachting Association) Yachtmaster course – a sailing qualification. I thought I’d make a career out of skippering and delivering yachts, and teaching others how to sail them, but then Williams rang and asked whether I’d like to run its F1 test team. I knew it wasn’t an offer that would stay open for ever, so I thought I’d better accept.”

He remained in that role until the end of 2005, when he switched to the race team to replace the long-serving Dickie Stanford, who had just retired. He spent one season as race team manager and became team manager 12 months later.

“I have fingers in lots of pies,” he says. “It’s a privilege to work here, with so many really good people, and I like to encourage them to get their jobs done. If they are missing a vital piece of information, I’ll try to help them find a quick solution.” Then he pauses for a moment and adds: “Williams has an absolutely fantastic track record, so I must be the worst team manager we’ve had because we haven’t won anything with me at the helm. I promise you, that’s quite a spur…”

In his own words: “I see myself as a service provider. I make sure everybody has what they need to get the job done.”