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Author Topic: Williams For Sale  (Read 1430 times)

Offline Willy

Williams For Sale
« on: May 30, 2020, 01:24:45 PM »
I read that Williams F1 may be for sale.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/52847040

A sad day if this comes to pass.
Williams has a very long and storied history in F1 as Frank has been everything from driver to team owner.
It all started to go downhill when he handed the reigns to his daughter Claire.
I don't care how much she has been around an F1 team or watched her Dad make decisions, she has screwed the pooch for the last 7 seasons and now it comes to this.
Claire Williams is a wife and Mother and F1 team boss and those jobs are each full-time positions if you wish to succeed at them.
I have said this before and will say it again....Claire Williams should step down as head of Williams F1 and hand the reigns over to a more qualified person and let them rebuild Williams back up to its former glory.



Offline Scott

Re: Williams For Sale
« Reply #1 on: May 30, 2020, 03:16:51 PM »
When Frank stepped back, he should have hunted down the best team principal he could find.  Installing your child is always going to be delicate.  Far too complicated to fire her.  He could have let her be the family representative but give the day to day running of the company to a pro.
The Honey Badger doesn't give a...

Offline John S

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Re: Williams For Sale
« Reply #2 on: May 30, 2020, 06:23:34 PM »
When Frank stepped back, he should have hunted down the best team principal he could find.  Installing your child is always going to be delicate.  Far too complicated to fire her.  He could have let her be the family representative but give the day to day running of the company to a pro.

Not sure it's fair to lay blame with Claire, they hired some supposedly top men to keep them up the order and more than one of those failed to deliver. I'm sure Frank was in on the appointment of these fine F1 people, indeed he may have been the instigator in most cases.

There's more to getting the best out the car for midfield teams in the engineering side than being prestigiously qualified engineering administrators, ask Gary Anderson of Jordan fame, or Andy Green at Racing point or even James Key at Torro Rosso/Alpha Tauri. You might even ask Pat Simmons who did a fairly decent job pulling Williams into the right direction for a couple of years.

As far a I can tell a Team principal's main job, in independent teams, is to see that the funding is there to go racing. well no one could claim that Claire failed to get the money through the door, even in the last few disastrous years. Not sure many others could have done that so consistently. Although it's not been overtly stated it looks like loss of funding from the main sponsor due to the pandemic situation has finally tipped the scales.

Still it's a sad day to see Williams follow Tyrell, Lotus and Brabham and many others into the abyss.

Racing is Life - everything else is just....waiting. (Steve McQueen)

Offline cosworth151

Re: Williams For Sale
« Reply #3 on: May 31, 2020, 04:48:56 PM »
I too hope that Williams can hang on. They're a reminder of a day when a Frank Williams or a Colin Chapman or a Ken Tyrrell could start a team in an old warehouse & take it to the top.

The F1 site has a good overview of the Williams situation:

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.analysis-what-lies-ahead-for-williams-after-shock-financial-news.3jtmzE7GixI3a1DGwiwv3I.html
“You can search the world over for the finer things, but you won't find a match for the American road and the creatures that live on it.”
― Bob Dylan

Offline Jericoke

Re: Williams For Sale
« Reply #4 on: June 01, 2020, 01:16:17 AM »
There's a lot going on here.

1)  Williams is a publicly traded company, not Claire, nor Frank's personal vanity project.  There are employees and stake holders to think about.  Any good business is always 'for sale' to a certain degree.  There are plenty of strategies to raise money, certainly more that Claire and Frank (and other board members) know than I do.

2)  McLaren and Ferrari have survived a string of owners themselves.  I don't see why F1's #3 team couldn't do the same.  If you're going to get into the sport, but don't have the patience to build from scratch, buying a strong name with an excellent facility wouldn't be a bad way to go.

Offline cosworth151

Re: Williams For Sale
« Reply #5 on: June 02, 2020, 03:54:06 PM »
This reminds me of a description of Williams I read in F1 Magazine (I think) a number of years ago. They compared Williams to a little dog fetching a stick. They always come back. They don't always get the same stick but you can't help but hope that they will eventually get it right.
“You can search the world over for the finer things, but you won't find a match for the American road and the creatures that live on it.”
― Bob Dylan

Offline Alianora La Canta

Re: Williams For Sale
« Reply #6 on: June 02, 2020, 06:01:06 PM »
It was the March 2006 preview where they said that, Cos. A great piece of description that's been true for about 2 decades.

I have the feeling the funding gap is basically the size of a large sponsor. This gives me hope that such a sponsor will turn up, or at least a minority shareholder will turn up.
Percussus resurgio
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http://alianoralacanta.tumblr.com (Blog/Tumblr)

Offline Monty

Re: Williams For Sale
« Reply #7 on: June 04, 2020, 12:48:10 PM »
Quote
2)  McLaren and Ferrari have survived a string of owners themselves.  I don't see why F1's #3 team couldn't do the same.  If you're going to get into the sport, but don't have the patience to build from scratch, buying a strong name with an excellent facility wouldn't be a bad way to go.
I agree with Jeri - I used to think Ron Dennis 'was' McLaren and the Whitmash years seemed to prove that. However, with new ownership and management they survived and are now starting to reclaim their position, if not 'at' the top, at least somewhere close. As an enthusiast, I hope the same will be true for Williams (with or without a Williams at the helm.

 


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