Claire Williams had to sell race seats during tough times at Williams.
The former boss shared her story on the Business of Sport podcast, explaining how financial issues forced her to make hard decisions. Despite their history as one of the most successful teams in Formula 1, with only Red Bull, Mercedes, McLaren, and Ferrari winning more races, things took a downturn.
Back in 2014, when new rules came in, Williams enjoyed success with nine podiums and a third-place finish in the Constructors’ Championship. Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa were driving for them then. But by 2018, the team fell to last place and scored just one point between 2019 and 2020.
Williams ‘sold’ seats
In 2017, Bottas moved to Mercedes after Nico Rosberg’s sudden retirement. Massa also retired. Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin came in as replacements. Claire explained why this was necessary.
“In my earlier time, I had budget to pay drivers. I had Massa and Bottas, and the expectation was you would pay them. In my latter time, we weren’t really paying our drivers and that doesn’t feel good,” she said. “You can pay them small amounts because that’s the right thing to do to give them some money but it was really difficult.”
She added that many teams weren’t paying their drivers much between 2017 and 2019. “I mean less than a million, like way less, like 100, 150k,” she mentioned. “One of the assets you have to sell when things aren’t going well is a race seat. And unfortunately, that’s what I ended up having to do.”
Fans might feel sad hearing about these struggles.
Takeover
In August 2020, Dorilton Capital bought the team. Soon after that, Claire left Williams. Now James Vowles is leading the team forward again. Next year will see two experienced drivers racing for Williams: Alex Albon will stay on from Red Bull days, while Carlos Sainz joins after winning races with Ferrari .
What do you think about these changes?
