Rubens Barrichello has blamed Williams’ recent downfall on their decision to put pay drivers in their line-up.
Over the past decade, the financial situation at the British team has been a growing issue as they tried to keep up with the increasing costs and spending of those around them.
To do that, Williams has often tried to have a balance of an established driver alongside one who brings big backing, such as Pastor Maldonado, Lance Stroll and now Nicholas Latifi.
And Barrichello, who himself had to retire at the end of 2011 after Williams replaced him with Bruno Senna, believes the focus on money has hurt them.
“Unfortunately, this past 10 years the story has been a little more on the money side,” the Brazilian explained on the Rusty’s Garage podcast.
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“Instead of paying a driver, they received some cash and survived and thought it was a good idea.
“And if you see where Williams is now, you see they took the wrong decisions at those times with money and just kept on going.”
The problem with Rubens’ argument is, while of course money may have been a major role in taking on the likes of Maldonado and Stroll, Pastor actually scored Williams’ most recent win in 2012 while Lance has their most recent podium in Baku in 2017.
Also, even though many believe Robert Kubica’s comeback last year was a great story, it only happened because of his sponsorship from PKN Orlen after Sergey Sirotkin’s backers pulled out, so it just proves how misleading that argument can be.
And anyway, if Williams didn’t have the millions that those sponsors did bring, it’s not impossible to think one of the great names of F1 history may no longer exist.