Exclusive: Williams F1 team outlines bold recovery plan

“We started talking about the need for new investment last year,” said Claire Williams, “before the virus was even on the horizon. We decided that if we were ever going to punch our weight again we needed support beyond what we could raise from the F1 prize fund or sponsorship.

“Our overriding desire is to find the best outcome for the team. If that means a full sale, it’s okay. If it means sale of a majority as a path to a full sale, so be it. Or if it means someone wants to come in and work alongside us, that’s fantastic. We could probably scrabble the funds together to keep going, but we’ve been doing that for too long. It’s time for change.”

One important part of Williams’ problems stems from the old-school — and under most circumstances entirely praiseworthy — reluctance of company founder Frank Williams and Patrick Head to make excuses for losing. It is now clear that they and others should have protested much more when unfair financial rules were drafted eight or nine years ago by Bernie Ecclestone’s administration, favouring today’s corporately funded top teams to encourage them to sign the then-new Concorde agreement, F1’s package of commercial, financial and technical rules that will be replaced next year.

Racing insiders have previously revealed that under Ecclestone’s arcane system, Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes have been sharing pre-season payments totalling nearly $300million before their cars even turn a wheel. Next year all F1 budgets will be capped at $145million (a late, Covid-19-led reduction from the previously planned $175m) and earnings from F1’s worldwide TV earnings will be much more equitable. 

In 2022 a sweeping revision of F1’s technical regulations will simplify car designs, make the machines look sleeker, more stylish and different from one another. Expensive race-by-race upgrades will go, and new aerodynamic regulations will allow cars to race more closely. Williams’ management backs the whole package.

“The current situation is completely changed by the new regulations,” added Claire Williams. “And funnily enough, the ante has been upped further by the way the virus has affected us all. We’ve come together to realise we have to do a better job of creating parity within the sport and of getting costs down.”

Williams’ impatience for the new order is understandable: the new rules hold a particularly strong potential to restore the competitiveness of so-called independent teams like themselves (as opposed to OEM-backed concerns like Renault and Mercedes, or satellite teams such as Haas and Sauber).

The 2022 rules will pose a fresh challenges for satellite teams most of which currently buy ready-engineered component assemblies from the leading manufacturers. For 2021 teams will race their 2020 chassis (plus unaltered gearboxes and crash structures) which Williams expects to make “an enormous difference” to expenditure. But after that satellite teams will be forced to manufacture much more of their own cars’ components, which will mean acquiring the kind of expertise, equipment and IP Williams has always had as an independent. It is perhaps the most dramatic levelling of the F1 playing field of all.

“Until now, being an independent hasn’t made a whole lot of sense,” said Claire Williams. “But we believe, and thankfully so do the new administrators, that doing your own design and engineering should not be allowed to be a disadvantage.”

Claire Williams isn’t allowed (under stock exchange regulations) to comment on the approaches the team has had beyond commenting that she is “impressed by the quality” of the potential investors. Another source reports that many see the Williams name and heritage as major assets of the Grove team, and would want the family to continue working much as it does now.