Founded by Frank Williams in 1977, Williams Racing is the third most successful Formula 1 team in history: the team has taken home nine World Constructor’s Championships and seven Driver’s Championships, outpaced only by Ferrari and McLaren. But Williams fell behind—finally sinking to last place in the late 2010s.
Now the team is rebuilding from the ground up, rising in the rankings, and rebranding as the Atlassian Williams F1 Team. Partnered with AI firms like Anthropic, Williams is betting everything on a high-tech turnaround strategy aimed at becoming race-winning and profitable again by 2028.
But Formula 1 is already the world’s most technical sport. And as it increasingly becomes a “battle of computers,” can teams like Williams balance history, heritage, and human teamwork with technology’s growing dominance?
In this episode of Newsmakers, Newsweek Editor-in-Chief Jennifer H. Cunningham travels from the Miami Grand Prix to the Atlassian Williams headquarters in the U.K., meeting with driver Alex Albon, team principal James Vowles, and others to learn more about the Atlassian Williams’ comeback—and how technologies like artificial intelligence are transforming Formula 1 racing.