Former Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone paid tribute to the late Frank Williams as a pioneer who helped to build the modern sport and without whom it might have ceased to exist.

Williams, who had been quadriplegic since a 1986 car accident in France, died on Sunday aged 79, his family said in a statement. The eponymous team he founded, still the second most successful in terms of constructors’ championships and third oldest, was sold to US-based Dorilton Capital last year.

Williams came from an era where title-winning teams were run by their founders, men such as Enzo Ferrari, Ken Tyrrell and Lotus boss Colin Chapman who are all long gone. “Without those type of people I doubt whether Formula One would have still been going now. Probably Ferrari would have stopped and that would have been it,” Ecclestone, 91, said.

Ecclestone, who took over and ran the Brabham team in the early 1970s, recalled Williams as an old friend who got over life’s financial and physical obstacles with charm and determination.

“Things were never really bad as far as Frank was concerned, he never complained about things.

“He got on with things the best way he could. And that’s the reason he was so successful. He was a rfacer through and through,” Ecclestone said.

“He was always ahead of the game. He knew about cashmere sweaters when I’d never heard of cashmere. That was Frank,” said the British billionaire.

“He’d say to me ‘Could you lend me 2,000 pounds’. And I’d say yes. And he’d say ‘I’ll pay you in 10 days’. As sure as anything, Frank would return in 10 days with 2,000 pounds… I would trust him with my life.”