THE 1990 SEASON

There are many similarities to the ’89 season for Williams: the team wins a couple of races and shows a good level of consistency, but it struggles to match the pace of the McLarens and the Ferraris. The team starts the year with an updated FW13 and there are two highlights: Riccardo’s win at Imola and Thierry’s tenacious drive to victory in Hungary, in which he leads the entire race and comes home just 0.2s ahead of Ayrton Senna. However, it’s clear that the team needs to up its game in ’91 if it’s to challenge consistently for wins. Those plans start to take shape in September when Nigel Mansell re-signs for the team and aerodynamicist Adrian Newey joins from July.