Patrick Head on the Williams Fight to Return to the Top of Formula 1

On how his life has changed recently at the team he helped found 30 years ago, and after handing over the title of technical director to Sam Michael:

In early May 2004 I stood down as technical director for Sam, and although I was still operating and working in a way supportive to Sam, I pulled myself out of quite a lot of the activities at Williams. I was still present, but I ordered myself a sailing boat, and I went and did some sailing and stuff.

But obviously with 2005, and then 2006 was a terrible year, with some encouragement from Frank, and also myself, I have sort of come back to spending much more time in a much stronger supporting role to Sam. Sam is still the senior executive engineer in technical terms, but I’m much more present than I was.

On whether the break changed his view of things at the team:

Well it wasn’t really a break. But certainly I don’t take our capability or the design of the vehicle personally. It enables me to have a much more detached view and probably play less of a, less of being the – I certainly don’t want to be a pessimist – but less of being continuously optimistic that we are going to do better at the next race. I think it helps me to see things a bit more pragmatically.