Williams that year. A late-season charge, helped by a two-race ban for Schumacher, enabled Williams to claim their third straight constructors' championship. However, Williams were unable to take a third consecutive drivers' title, and with possible manslaughter charges for Senna's accident in prospect, cracks began to show in Newey's relationship with Williams team management. By 1995, it was clear that Newey was once more ready to become technical director of a team, but with Head a share-holding founder of Williams he found his way blocked. Loss of both drivers' and constructors' titles to Benetton in 1995 saw further distance put between Newey and Williams, and by the time Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve secured both titles in 1996 Newey had been placed on gardening leave prior to joining McLaren. His career at Williams ended with his cars winning 59 race victories, 78 pole positions and 60 fastest laps all from 114 races from 1991 till 1997. These seven years saw four drivers clinch world championship titles. McLaren (1997–2005) Unable to influence the design of the 1997 McLaren, Newey was forced to attempt to improve on the Neil Oatley design while concentrating his efforts on the 1998 car. A win at the 1997 European Grand Prix saw McLaren enter the off-season on a high, and when the racing resumed four months later the McLaren MP4/13 was the car to beat. Titles followed in 1998 and 1999, and Mika Häkkinen narrowly missed out on a third drivers' title in 2000. In the spring of 2001, Newey signed a contract with the Jaguar F1 team managed by Newey's friend and former CART colleague Bobby Rahal. Despite having a signed contract, Rahal was unable to complete the deal when McLaren boss Ron Dennis persuaded Newey to stay. Newey and Rahal later stated that the deal failed due to Rahal's position within Jaguar being undermined by Niki Lauda and internal politics at Ford. Rahal was fired from the team several months later. Despite remaining with McLaren, rumours persisted that Newey wanted to leave the team, and by late 2004 his future began to look uncertain when speculation began that the engineer could return to Williams or even leave the sport completely. Despite strenuous denials from Ron Dennis stories continued to circulate during the 2004/2005 off-season that Newey's departure was imminent. In April 2005, it was confirmed that his contract with the team had been extended