Atlassian Williams F1 Team Champions Roll Call – Meet the drivers who took us to glory
Five decades of history, seven names that took us to a new level – these are our champions
Published
15 OCT 2026
Est. reading time
15 min
Atlassian Williams F1 Team are set to celebrate our 50th anniversary season in 2027, with a full calendar of celebrations to mark the moment we become just the third constructor to reach this landmark.
However, we are the first independent challengers to reach five decades – no roadcar division behind us as we compete at the pinnacle of motorsport.
Over the years, we became a team of driving legends, but seven names stood above the rest, taking us to glory with their Drivers’ World Championship titles. These are our World Champions…
1980 - Alan Jones
Alan Jones became Williams’ first Formula 1 world champion driver thanks to his tremendous 1980 season where he would join the legendary Jack Brabham to become an Australian F1 title winner.
The Melbourne native has motorsport coursing through his veins thanks to his father, Stan Jones, who raced and won the Australian open-wheel championship.
Unlike his father, who had rejected the allure of Europe in his youth, Alan headed over in his early twenties to try his hand at fighting his peers on racetracks around the continent.
Jones clawed his way through the junior ladder, battling with financial barriers that limited the impact he could make while still showing enough flashes of potential to attract some sponsorship for a British Formula 3 championship seat.
His results in the UK took Alan to Formula Atlantic, which, in turn, led to a drive for a privateer team who would hand an F1 debut drive to him in 1975 at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Now a known quantity in the sport, other doors began to open. Alan would find a full-time drive for 1976 at Surtees Racing before switching to Shadow in 1977, where a maiden win at the rain-affected Austrian Grand Prix awaited.
The ability Alan showcased caught the eye of the rebuilding Williams team, and the two joined forces for the 1978 season where he would take the first Williams podium at the United States Grand Prix with a P2 finish.
Wins were just around the corner, though, and Williams would become a force of F1 in 1979. Alan's four victories took him to third in the drivers' championship and his team to P2 in the constructors'.
Building on that upward trajectory, there was only one way the 1980 season would go. Alan would glide his way to the championship ahead of Nelson Piquet. The margin of victory saw Jones outscore every other constructor by himself to ensure Williams took their first Constructors' Championship with ease, too.
Although a second successive title would Williams’ way in 1981, Jones fell just short of taking the championship himself - despite bookending his campaign with Grand Prix wins - and chose to depart F1.
Although his F1 retirement was short-lived, thanks to some brief returns for Arrows and a failed season with Team Haas in the ‘80s, his glory days were over, and he'd never reach the rostrum again.
Like a proud Aussie, Alan would later return to his homeland to race in the V8 Supercar championship as well as lend his voice in the commentary booth for Australian Formula 1 broadcasts.
1982 - Keke Rosberg
Finland's very first Formula 1 world champion is the sport's original Flying Finn, Keke Rosberg, who famously took his title with a solitary win for Williams in 1982.
In a sport driven by numbers, and you won't find Keke Rosberg high on any lists for wins, pole positions, or fastest laps, but he sits alongside the greats thanks to his blistering pace that beat out Alain Prost and Niki Lauda en route to his crown.
Keke, or Keijo by birth, was born in Sweden to Finnish parents who passed on their love of motorsports to their son who, in turn, began racing and winning in karting.
He arrived on the grid in 1978 and, even by 1970's standards, did so as an older driver. His Formula 1 debut came at the age of 29 for the short-lived Theodore Racing.
The backmarker proving grounds wouldn't bring Keke much joy. Repeated struggles to qualify for the race events with low finishing positions or retirements in the handful of rounds he did qualify for ensuring his first two F1 seasons ended pointless.
A move to Fittipaldi in 1980 immediately turned into Keke's first F1 points and podium, with a third-place finish in the season-opening Argentine Grand Prix behind the Williams of Alan Jones and Nelson Piquet's Brabham.
The break that Rosberg needed to take his F1 career to the next level came thanks to Jones surprisingly retiring at the end of the subsequent season and Williams seeing Keke as the best replacement for the outgoing Australian.
For the first time in Formula 1, Keke could regularly push for points, podiums, and wins in a car capable of delivering results and, after another blank scoreboard in 1981, his four years with Williams had plenty of each.
Knowing what an opportunity he found himself in, Keke drove with everything he had in the 1982 season to clock up enough points to take the championship ahead of Didier Pironi and John Watson while taking just one victory all season to produce Williams’s second drivers' champion in three years.
In his remaining time in F1, Keke would take P3 in the 1985 standings for his final year at Williams before a winless last season at McLaren saw him close out his time in the sport.
Formula 1 would feel Keke's influence for decades after his farewell, thanks to his management of double-champion Mika Hakkinen and his handling of his son, F1's 2016 champion, Nico Rosberg's early motorsport journey.
1987 - Nelson Piquet
Some overlook Nelson Piquet when considering multiple Formula 1 world champions, and yet the Brazilian driver defeated Alan Jones, Alain Prost and Williams Racing teammate Nigel Mansell to earn every one of his championships.
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Nelson's sporting accomplishments may have come in tennis if not for compatriot Emerson Fittipaldi, who had inspired and later advised the young Piquet to become a race driver.
After moving to Europe in 1977 to race in European Formula 3, it took just one year before Nelson sat in F1 machinery, where he made a debut in the 1978 German Grand Prix for Ensign.
Some additional entries during the latter part of the '78 season were enough for Brabham to offer Nelson a seat for 1979. He would partner Niki Lauda in an underperforming car that took only three points-scoring results all year.
Fortunately, better times soon arrived, and Piquet became a podium finisher at the 1980 season opener in Argentina and an F1 race winner at the United States Grand Prix West in Long Beach, California, earning second in the final standings.
Nelson's first world championship followed in 1981, where, despite a lower tally than the previous year, he would clinch the title by a single point ahead of Carlos Reutemann at the Caesars Palace Grand Prix season-finale.
Another four years at Brabham brought home one more championship by another slender margin - this time two points - ahead of Renault's Alain Prost in 1983. But a downturn in results ended the long-term partnership, and Nelson joined Williams for 1986.
With Nigel Mansell as his new teammate for what would be a two-year spell at Williams, Piquet also found a new title rival in the Englishman thanks to the potency inside the FW11 and FW11B.
Williams would comfortably win the 1986 constructors' championship thanks to the frequency of wins the two brought home, but neither driver would become champion after Prost stole the crown after winning the season-ending Australian Grand Prix.
Nelson would still triumph at Williams thanks to the regularity of his points-scoring and podium finishes over the 1987 season in comparison to Nigel, who had won twice the number of Grands Prix but was more inconsistent, and he became Brazil's first triple world champion.
Piquet left to race for Lotus in 1988 and 1989, before two seasons for Benetton, taking his last race win in the 1991 Canadian Grand Prix. He retired at the end of that season, entering the record books as a Formula 1 legend.
1992 - Nigel Mansell
Nigel Mansell became the first driver to break the 100-point barrier in Formula 1 history in a spectacular season together with Williams in 1992, guiding the iconic FW14B to become, at long last, a world champion.
The Birmingham-born racer had to fight in F1 for 13 long years before taking the sport's ultimate prize, during which he competed amongst legendary names like Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Nelson Piquet and Michael Schumacher.
'Our Nige', as his fans affectionately call him, grew from humble beginnings to become the regular race winner he turned into. The speed he showed in junior racing was enough for then-champions Lotus to offer Nigel a test in 1979, where his performance earned a test driver role for the 1980 season.
Although Nige would make his debut during the Austrian Grand Prix that year, his first full season of F1 would follow in 1981 when Mario Andretti left, leaving a seat open that Mansell happily filled.
The four years spent at Lotus, with teammate Elio de Angelis consistently outperforming him, didn't showcase the potential he had as a driver. Still, Nigel would take his first silverware in a P3 at the 1981 Belgian Grand Prix.
Things improved for Mansell in 1985 when he joined Williams alongside Keke Rosberg and took the first of 31 Formula 1 victories at the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch.
With one win under his belt, Nigel was unleashed and took the most wins of the season for both the 1986 and 1987 seasons alongside Williams’ Brazilian Nelson Piquet, but had to settle as runner up in both years.
Though frustrating to come so close, his 11 wins over those two seasons were preferable to his disastrous 1988 where Mansell completed just two Grands Prix and thus opted to leave and join Ferrari.
Mild success driving for the Italian outfit never reached the same level of competitiveness as his glory years at Williams, who had since moved to Renault engines, and by 1991 Nige was back for a second term at Grove.
Another P2 finish in the championship showed that the '88 campaign was a blip, and in 1992 Nigel would end Britain's 16-year drought of waiting for a British Formula 1 world champion.
The level of dominance Mansell and Williams held over the competition that year almost defies belief, with 14 of 16 pole positions belonging to Nige as he took nearly double the points of second-placed Riccardo Patrese.
Nigel would leave to race in CART, now called IndyCar, the following season and become a rookie champion and has kept close to motorsport with a Le Mans appearance and occasional driver-stewarding roles for F1.
In 2026, his 95 Grand Prix starts for Atlassian Williams F1 Team – a record that had stood for 32 years – was finally surpassed by Alex Albon, who ran a Mansell-inspired helmet to mark the landmark.
1993 - Alain Prost
Many still consider Alain Prost the greatest Formula 1 driver in history with four championship wins, his last coming for Williams in 1993 when he retired from the sport.
Known as The Professor for his methodical and clever approach to motorsport, Alain's F1 record is as consistent as it is impressive, with the Frenchman being a regular title contender and taking wins in all but two seasons of his 13-year career.
Born in central France, Alain did not come from a racing family. His road to sitting in the cockpit came on the back of winning a season in Formula Renault as his prize for taking the 1975 French karting championship.
While synonymous with McLaren thanks to his three titles there between 1984-1989, Prost was on the British team's radar much earlier thanks to his year-after-year championship wins across the junior series.
By 1979, and a European Formula 3 win, McLaren beat out other F1 teams to sign Alain for 1980, where he would take a point in his debut at the Argentine Grand Prix in an otherwise frustrating season, which led to him moving to Renault in '81.
The new team allowed a breakthrough win at Alain's home French Grand Prix in Dijon. The Renault-Prost partnership would take eight more top step appearances together in subsequent seasons but failed to deliver a world championship, and a return to McLaren for 1984 followed.
The Professor's first F1 title in McLaren colours came one year later. Alain decisively became the 1985 victor by a 20-point margin over his nearest rival to become France's first Formula 1 champion.
Wins, podiums, and two more titles would follow in Alain’s time at McLaren – but so did Ayrton Senna. The Brazilian somewhat defined Prost's career thanks to the fierce rivalry they shared, and Alain’s relationship with his team soured.
He would leave for Ferrari in 1990 and lost out to Senna in the championship fight that year, before enduring a winless season in 1991 where he infamously was sacked by the Scuderia for criticising the car.
After a sabbatical in 1992, Prost returned to F1 for a single, final season with Williams where he took the win at the South African Grand Prix in his very first race back despite his year on the sidelines.
That 1993 season would be prolific for the team as he and new teammate Damon Hill ensured at least one Williams driver stood on the rostrum at every single Grand Prix in the 16-round calendar, taking ten wins between them.
With two races to go in the season, Alain would take his fourth and final world championship crown after piloting his Williams FW15C to seven wins, five further podiums, and a staggering 13 pole positions before bowing out of F1.
Alain would go on to own a Formula 1 team, Prost Grand Prix, for a spell in the late '90s.
1996 - Damon Hill
Damon Hill became the first son of a Formula 1 champion driver to win the championship when his 1997 triumph for Williams matched the 1960s accomplishments of his celebrated father, Graham Hill.
It was two wheels, rather than four, that appealed to Damon as the British racer began his motorsports career competing in motorbike events before moving to single-seaters in 1983.
Financial troubles hampered his early years in car racing, but three years in British Formula 3 allowed Damon to establish himself as a driver while looking for possible routes to progress his career.
While competing in the 1991 Formula 3000 championship, an opportunity to drive F1 machinery opened up when Williams picked up the Londoner to be a test driver for them in support of Nigel Mansell and Ricardo Patrese.
Damon was 32 by the time he first raced in a Grand Prix when a seat at the ailing Brabham team became available at the Spanish Grand Prix. But a race start would have to wait until his home race at Silverstone where he first qualified for an F1 race.
A jump to the front of the field in 1993 changed his fortunes considerably when Williams promoted Damon to be their second driver alongside triple-champion Alain Prost after Nigel and Ricardo left the team.
A maiden podium visit followed in only Damon's fourth F1 start, as he took second place at the Brazilian Grand Prix – one of ten top threes that year, including a dominant first win at the Hungaroring where he lapped all but two rivals.
Prost won the 1993 championship and retired, leaving Damon to become the championship challenging driver in 1994 against Michael Schumacher, who collided with the FW16 in the season finale, ending Hill's hopes to emulate his father that year.
Although he had helped Williams to two Constructors' Championships in their two years together, Benetton were peerless in 1995, leaving Damon to take another P2 as Schumacher stormed to a second consecutive, and less contentious, title.
Hill’s championship-winning season had Williams with the advantage all the way, and Damon took seven victories in the first 11 rounds to enter the final round in Japan with a nine-point lead over his rookie teammate Jacques Villeneuve.
Although the Canadian beat him to pole position, Damon took the lead into Turn 1 before Jacques retired halfway through the Grand Prix, meaning Hill would be champion no matter where his FW18 would finish.
Damon crossed the finish line in first place, leaving commentator Murray Walker with a lump in his throat at seeing Graham Hill's son reach the history book amongst the greats.
A season at Arrows and two with Jordan followed before Damon retired from the sport. In 2026, he returned to Grove 30 years on from his title-winning season, joining as an Ambassador.
1997 - Jacques Villeneuve
A racer through and through, Jacques Villeneuve is the most recent driver to be a Formula 1 World Champion for Atlassian Williams F1 Team after his captivating title fight with Michael Schumacher in 1997.
Son of the six-time Grand Prix winner Gilles Villeneuve, Jacques hails from Quebec and followed an unconventional route to F1, finding success in America before joining the grid as an accomplished 25-year-old.
With three seasons of Italian F3 to his name, Jacques returned to North America to compete in the single-seater Toyota Atlantic Championship before stepping up to CART, now called IndyCar, in 1994.
His first category win came at Road America that year, before finishing as the top rookie with P6 in the standings, even after racing against F1 world champions Nigel Mansell, Emerson Fittipaldi, and Mario Andretti.
Jacques rejected offers to join F1 in 1995, instead opting to challenge for the CART crown, which he would take in a season where he clinched four race wins, including at the iconic Indianapolis 500.
While en route to the '95 championship, Jacques tested for Williams and signed a two-year contract to join the F1 team from 1996 onwards.
Jacques clinched eye-catching results immediately, taking pole position in his first Grand Prix in Australia, before completing a Williams 1-2 finish behind teammate Damon Hill. He didn't have to wait long to take his first Formula 1 victory as a top step visit came at the Nurburgring in Round 4 at the European Grand Prix, with three more wins on his way to being F1's first rookie vice-champion behind Damon in the sister Williams.
The F1 crown would be his one year later as Jacques fought a fierce championship with Ferrari's Michael Schumacher that culminated with a slender one-point gap between the two title antagonists going into the final round at Jerez.
After losing out to Schumacher off the line, Jacques found pace in his FW19 and passed the Ferrari to take the lead, despite the two coming together and ending his German rival's season. He took third place; enough to become the first Canadian Formula One champion.
The partnership with Williams lasted one more year before he moved to BAR in 1999 and would race for Renault and Sauber before leaving F1 in 2006 to try his hand at NASCAR.
Jacques continues to race stock cars, in a part-time capacity, in the NASCAR Cup and Euro Series.
In 2026, Jacques returned to Grove as a Team Ambassador.
Who’s next?
It’s been 29 years since Atlassian Williams F1 Team last delivered a Drivers’ Championship, a fact that the 1,100+ people at Grove are itching to update. Our ambitions to return to the front are as strong as ever, but who will be out next champion? That chapter is yet to be written…
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