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The Belgian Grand Prix weekend is the Williams Formula 1 team’s race outside of family ownership and has revealed a few more details about the “new era” that’s beginning.
Deputy team principal Claire Williams insists it is “business as usual” at the track and she remains in her role as a result, but it is already known that the new owner’s comprehensive company review includes the prospect of a management change.
Founder Frank Williams remains team principal but daughter Claire runs things on a day-to-day and race-weekend basis, and as such she faced the media on Friday at Spa and endured a constant inquisition into Williams’s sale and the new, mystery ownership.
Selling was a ‘no-brainer’
For a long time, the prospect of Williams not being family-owned has seemed a nonsense – even post-Frankfurt stock exchange listing and amid the shifting dynamics of F1 that moved the balance of power ever further away from traditional independents.
But now Dorilton Capital has bought the full shareholding of Williams and thus assumed 100% ownership. The family’s role in F1 has transitioned towards being totemic.
“I would be lying if I said it hasn’t been emotional over the past few months,” Claire admitted.
“But it has been a few months so we have all managed to get our heads around it and this can only be a good things for Williams.”
Williams’s difficult on-track form in recent years has come at a financial cost, as revenue has slumped in tandem.
But given its history, its infrastructure, its knowledge and its skillset, it always remained a sound investment as far as F1 teams go, as its assets are in one place and it is responsible for everything it does minus the engine.
Putting the team on the market, at a time F1 is trying to change for the fairer and better, invited a number of interested parties to approach – including Dorilton. Williams did not need much touting as the bidders came to the team rather than the other way around.
Putting everything in context, the once-impossible prospect had become clearly the most pragmatic move.
“We have always in our family put this team first,” said Williams. “It’s always been at the heart of the Williams family.
“We’ve put our people first and we’ve put the success and the future of our team first in making any kind of decisions in what we do.
“So this was almost, I suppose, a no-brainer for us. The team needed the investment and the team now has a really bright future under its new owners.
“Most importantly for the fans out there, you will still see the Williams name racing in Formula 1.”
More details about mystery new owner
A few key details were already known as soon as Dorilton’s takeover was announced. It’s a US-based investment firm that manages many companies. The people in charge include CEO Darren Fultz and chairman Matthew Savage, who is a director of all those companies and is therefore expected to take a senior Williams board role as well.
But the people ostensibly in charge are not the people with the money. They assume control on behalf of a fund, with Dorilton itself owned by a family – one Williams will not name.
Dorilton has been described as “new owners that are hugely passionate about this and also about Williams”, with ambition and a willingness to invest. But exactly who they are and what their plans are remain something of an unknown.
Claire Williams said she shouldn’t “go into a whole lot of detail as to the people behind Dorilton” but said it will be made clearer in the coming weeks of months and personnel will be seen at the track soon.
“They’ve done a huge amount of due diligence since the start of this process,” she said. “They were in the process from the beginning, they have spent an awful lot of time behind the scenes going through everything that you would expect them to go through to understand our team but also to understand the sport.
“They have some very strong advisors as well, who have been helping them through this process to build their knowledge and of course there’s still going to be a learning process for them but they are already within the team, they’re working in Grove with our team there currently in order to understand what’s required moving forward.
“I have absolute confidence that they are the right people to take this team forward.”
One thing Williams did address explicitly was the rumour that started as soon as it was public that the fund Dorilton manages that has purchased Williams is registered to BCE Ltd – triggering suggestions that ex-F1 chief Bernie (Charles) Ecclestone was involved.
Williams joked that she spoke to Ecclestone in the week to ask if he was behind it, then more seriously stated: “Bernie has nothing to do with our new ownership.
“Dorilton Capital is completely independent. Bernie is not the new owner of Williams.”
Management under review but ‘business as usual’ for now
Williams did well to navigate choppy waters given the circumstances, though that meant leaning on the phrase “it’s business as usual” a few times when it came to questions about team management.
When Frank stepped back it was Claire who assumed responsibility for the team, and since 2013 she has worked in tandem with Williams group CEO Mike O’Driscoll.
Williams insisted it was also “business as usual” for O’Driscoll but would not address for how long that would be the case.
These are Williams people not Dorilton people, and it makes sense for the new ownership to review the management make-up and determine whether or not existing personnel are right for the new era.
Keeping family ties makes sense on one hand, further justifying the continuation of the name, but on the other hand Dorilton has assumed 100% of financial control so may wish to assemble a new leadership structure in its own image to reflect that.
Rocking the boat in-season would seem to make little sense though, which may be why reiterating the status quo is the order of the day for now.
“This is very early days,” said Williams. “And for the moment though, it is business as usual.
“I’m here in my capacity [as deputy team principal], I was running the team in Barcelona and the races prior to that and that will continue to be the case.”
Asked if that would be the case for the “foreseeable future”, she replied: “You’re asking the same question that everyone else keeps asking me and my answer remains: it is business as usual for the time being and that’s all I can really say.”
New Concorde is key to ending survival mode
Williams remains one of the most successful teams in F1 history so its continuation is a win-win scenario for the family and for F1.
But the harsh modern-day reality on-track is that Williams has not been a multiple race winner in one year since 2003, and only won two races in the 17 seasons since then.
It has had its peaks in that time, certainly, including the mini-revival at the start of the V6 turbo-hybrid engine era in 2014 that launched it into regular podium contention.
In truth, that was just papering over the cracks, and while Williams is responsible for some of its own decision-making that led to its decline it was also hamstrung by the terms of the previous Concorde Agreement that gave other teams much more financial power, and hurt the smaller organisations.
“It has been an incredibly difficult few years for us for a number of reasons, both on track and off track,” Williams admitted.
“I think we have done an extraordinary job keeping the team going in what has been a very difficult financial environment for it and this is the dawn of a new era for our team.”
The new Concorde Agreement signed by all 10 teams will be a key part of that as it rights a lot of the wrongs of the previous commercial terms. A team like Williams will get a bigger slice of the pie even if its on-track results don’t improve. Each team’s individual value has been raised.
Linked to this are the regulatory changes that will enforce a budget cap bringing bigger teams back towards Williams before all-new cars come into play in 2022.
This gives Williams legitimate hope for a bright future. But it also has a sense of frustration around it, as without the damage of the previous Concorde, and being forced into survival mode, perhaps Williams could have remained a family-run, independent team as a good sustainable going concern – rather than having to sell in order to stick around and be part of F1’s fairer new world.
When asked by The Race’s Edd Straw if there was any frustration on this regard, Williams replied: “I read your article about Williams’ decline over the past 10 years, it may have dated back earlier, and I think you probably hit the nail on the head.
“I don’t think the new Concorde Agreement [in 2013] helped our team and I’m sure it didn’t help a number of other teams either, just purely based on the financial disparity I suppose between the prize fund distribution.
“We’ve been able to work with Formula 1 in order to restore greater balance, I think.
“Whether it’s frustrating, it is what it is, I think. I personally am really pleased that the Concorde Agreement and most importantly the financial regulations that are coming through.
“The cost cap and the redistribution of that prize fund money are going to make it a lot fairer playing field for teams like ours and whether the Williams family own it or not, that doesn’t matter.
“This new Concorde Agreement certainly puts our team in a much better place moving forward and that’s the only thing that matters.”
