The Atlassian Williams F1 Team and Komatsu extended their partnership earlier this month, deepening a relationship that first began in 2024.
Under the renewed agreement, Komatsu becomes Williams’s Official Hydraulic Innovation Partner, drawing on its expertise in construction and heavy machinery, including a history of developing components for Williams in its 1996 and 1997 World Championship-winning cars.
James Vowles, Team Principal at Williams, tied the extension to the team’s approaching 50th anniversary when it was announced.
“After three successful seasons together and a relationship which dates back to our last Championship-winning cars, it is fantastic to be expanding our partnership with Komatsu,” he said.
“The relationship with Komatsu is truly special and embodies our approach to working with partners who share our values, believe in our journey and can help deliver success on and off track.”
Alongside the technical role, the renewal extends the Komatsu Williams Engineering Academy, launched in 2024, and adds a new Komatsu Williams Leadership Academy set to launch in 2027, aimed at exchanging engineering knowledge and leadership practices between the two organisations.
Komatsu branding will also extend to Williams’s F1 Team Driver Academy for the first time.
Sector spoke to James Bower, Williams’s Commercial Director, and Todd Connolly, Komatsu’s VP of Global Brand Transformation, to find out what actually sits behind that expansion.
People power
Ask either side what the partnership is really about, and neither mentions the car first.
Bower was explicit that the hydraulics element sits closer to a people exchange than a conventional technology transfer, something he expects to grow organically rather than arrive as a finished product.
“I think it will grow organically in terms of how the business develops, but absolutely it’s ultimately about people and the collaboration between people from Williams and Komatsu in that key area of technology, hydraulics, as we broaden our technical capabilities,” he told Sector.
“It’s going to be more rooted in the personnel collaboration than it is in ‘we’re taking this new product from here, we’re going to apply it here.’
Absolutely it’s ultimately about people and the collaboration between people from Williams and Komatsu.
James Bower
“It’s actually about people and the crossover from different industries, creating innovation.”
Connolly gave an almost identical answer when asked separately about the aspirations of the partnership.
“For us, we’re a people business for 105 years,” he told Sector.
“We’ve focused on attracting and developing engineering talent such that they can develop unique and unrivalled products and technology to help our customers achieve their goals.”
“That’s why this partnership works so well, because our engineering mindsets are paralleled exactly with those within Williams.”
Growing STEM
That people-first framing isn’t new to this extension, it’s been the foundation of the relationship since it was first rebuilt.
Bower traced the current partnership’s roots back to a shared commitment to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education, predating any technical collaboration on the car itself.
“The relationship had always been underpinned by technical collaboration, in so much as a core part of the partnership from its inception was around STEM and encouraging young people into STEM careers,” explained Bower.
“It is something that Komatsu is very passionate about and that we Williams are as well, and also have a legacy in actually running programs.
“So that led to the Komatsu Williams Engineering Academy, which we’ve run successfully for a couple of years.”
He also pointed to the scale of Williams’s own STEM outreach beyond the joint academy, work he said the team had deliberately kept quiet until it could point to genuine results.
“We’ve hosted secondary school pupils at our headquarters in Grove over the last two years for STEM visits,” he said.
“We’ve had several thousand students every year for the last three years coming through Grove.
“That’s something we were actually very private about, because we wanted to wait until the programme was up and running and delivering benefit before we spoke about it externally.”
That programme is now expanding well beyond Grove.
Williams has confirmed it will launch its first STEM summer camps in North America this year, taking a UK initiative that has reached more than 25,000 students over the past three years and building it into a global offering.
Connolly described the extension of Komatsu’s deal as building on that same STEM foundation, with talent development still central to what both organisations get out of the deal.
“For us, the partnership’s built on that shared heritage from the 90s,” he said.
“The shared values and our shared focus on the things that matter the most to us and to Williams, like attracting and developing STEM talent and advanced engineering.
“That provides such a strong foundation, so this partnership expands beyond what a traditional partnership sponsorship arrangement would look like.”
The shared values and our shared focus on the things that matter the most to us and to Williams, like attracting and developing STEM talent.
Todd Connolly
That foundation is now evolving into two distinct academy programmes.
The existing Komatsu Williams Engineering Academy, which Bower said takes 10 university students at a time already pursuing engineering, is adding a specific focus on Formula Student and Formula SAE.
Alongside it, the new Komatsu Williams Leadership Academy is built around direct knowledge exchange between Komatsu’s rising leaders and Williams’s own leadership team.
At scale
Komatsu’s credibility as a genuine engineering partner, rather than a branding exercise, rests partly on the size of the operation behind it, and partly on how it was chosen in the first place.
Bower said Komatsu had spent plenty of time deliberately evaluating its options before Williams entered the picture.
“Komatsu had been looking at different sports for over a year before we actually met them for the first time,” he said.
“They’d been evaluating different sports, looking at where it made sense for them to consider partnerships. And again, that was multiple teams in the sport, so highly competitive.”
Connolly, meanwhile, set out the scale involved when explaining what Komatsu actually brings to the table technically.
“We’ve got more than 840,000 digitally connected Komatsu machines operating all around the world every day,” he said.
“They’re being supported by 67,000 employees that, for the most part, are involved in technical and engineering support.”
Bower also praised the sophistication of how Komatsu measures the partnership’s success internally, comparing it favourably to sectors far more accustomed to consumer-facing brand tracking.
“The way they measure it is meticulous,” he added.
“For me, their measurement is up there in terms of sophistication as partners that you would see in kind of FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) and business to consumer marketing.
“They’re constantly evaluating how they’re engaging their employees and how they’re helping to attract talent in certain markets.”
Hydraulics
The new technical strand traces back to a specific piece of Williams’s own history, tying Komatsu to the team’s last title-winning campaign.
Komatsu first partnered with Williams in 1996, supplying gearbox and transmission technology that helped power the team to back-to-back World Championships that year and again in 1997, the last time Williams won the title.
Connolly confirmed hydraulics is where that historical link translates into present-day collaboration, while being careful not to give away specifics still under wraps.
“This partnership will allow us to bring that hydraulic, mechanical, electrical engineering to the partnership,” he said.
“As the official hydraulic innovation partner, we’ll be helping work with Williams to develop some pretty cool aspects of the car going forward.
“We can’t go into too much detail just yet on what that looks like, but we certainly will be sharing more about that as we go forward.”
Bower described the extension as the outcome of a genuinely collaborative renewal process, rather than something either side arrived at quickly.
“We actually started discussing last year, and then put down some kind of milestones this year that we would make material progress on what the partnership would look like for the next term,” he said.
“That’s been a really collaborative process with the team at Komatsu, and yeah, led to the renewal that we’ve announced.”
That collaboration is intended to run through people, rather than a one-off technology handover.
Connolly pointed to the existing ‘Day in the Life’ scheme, in which a group of Komatsu’s own technicians join Williams’s pit crew at a Grand Prix each year, as evidence of how embedded that exchange already is.
“Our engineers, for instance, have the opportunity, 22 of them, of our top performing technicians around the world, each year have the opportunity to become an honorary Williams pit crew member at a Grand Prix,” he said.
“That obviously provides the experience of a lifetime for them, but it’s also an invaluable opportunity for learning and growth.”
Strength of renewals
Bower was direct that renewals, not new signings, are what Williams actually treats as the real measure of a partnership’s success.
“The most important thing for us with partnerships is the renewals,” he explained.
“That’s the real success measure. If you distil Formula 1 down to its core, it’s about continuous improvement, and we apply that approach to the partnerships as well.”
“The most important thing for us with partnerships is the renewals. That’s the real success measure. If you distil Formula 1 down to its core, it’s about continuous improvement, and we apply that approach to the partnerships as well.
James Bower
Asked whether the original 2024 partnership had lived up to expectations from Komatsu’s side, Connolly said it had gone well beyond what the company anticipated.
“We’ve had Williams drivers, Carlos (Sainz) and Alex (Albon), as well as ambassadors like Jacques Villeneuve and senior leaders like Pat Fry, James Bower and others.
“They’ve visited 19 of our factories around the world and they’ve given 31,000 of our staff so far the chance to get up close and personal with the world of Formula One and the world of Williams.”
He described the impact as running in both directions, drivers engaging with Komatsu’s own engineering as much as staff engaging with F1.
“When Alex and Carlos have had the chance to operate some of our machines, particularly the very large machines, they have been just blown away by the technology and the quality, the power of the products.”
What next?
With the extension only announced weeks ago, neither side was willing to treat the current scope as a finished picture.
Bower framed Komatsu’s approach to talent as itself a signal of long-term intent, one that has quietly identified where the business will need people in future.
“They’ve literally identified certain markets where there could be skills shortages for certain roles, and they’re raising the profile of the brand and how they can attract and retain talent to build the business for the future,” he said.
“This partnership and collaboration has its origins in the past, but it’s very much set up for the future.”
Connolly was equally direct that Komatsu sees considerably more room for the partnership to grow.
“I would definitely not say that this is the ceiling of the partnership. I think there is a lot more value to come,” he concluded.
“Working with Williams and our team, we are really, really positive and enthusiastic about what it looks like over the horizon.”
