Sir Frank Williams is “supportive” of the decision to consider a sale of the Formula 1 team bearing his name, daughter Claire says.
On Friday, after announcing a £13m loss for 2019 and predicting much worse for 2020, the Grove-based team began the “formal sale process”, which opens the company up to potential investors or buyers.
Williams also announced it was splitting from title sponsor ROKit with immediate effect just 15 months into the four-year partnership.
However, it is the possibility of seeing the end of an era for one of F1’s greatest teams that is unsurprisingly gaining more attention, but Williams insists the family is on board.
“Frank has always ensured he puts the team, business and our people first, and that’s what we’re doing now,” Claire told select media in a Zoom call.
“Frank is always aware of and up to speed with every decision the board takes and is supportive.
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“I feel very much that seeking inward investment at this juncture is absolutely in line with that philosophy we’ve always had — to protect our team’s future, to protect the people that work for us.”
The process is expected to take three or four months, and Williams also reassured that the team has the required funds to race a full season after it eventually begins in July.
Of course, the catalyst for this has been Williams’ woeful on-track performance the past two seasons, with the team only scoring a single point in 2019 and spending the entire year at the back of the grid, well off the pace of the midfield.
That has led some to call on Claire to move aside from her role as the team boss, amid concerns Williams is heading for disaster.
“We’ve had two bad years,” she said. “Any team can have two bad years and it’s what you do as a result of those two bad years and learn from your mistakes and pull yourself up. That’s the work that we’ve been doing over the past year and into this year.
“Unfortunately because we couldn’t go racing this year, we couldn’t show people that we’ve made progress.
“Obviously prior to those two years we’d had some quite considerable success in ’14 and ’15, finishing third and third and then ’16 and ’17 finishing fifth and fifth.
“So I think to say that Williams has been in a long term spiral of decline is probably slightly exaggerated or erroneous.”