It has been 11 days since Williams announced that it is considering a stock market flotation and big questions still remain. What will the team do with the money raised? How much will it raise? When will it float and, more importantly, will it float? Pitpass has been given a unique insight into the team's public relations strategy and it is unusual to say the least.

The story begins on the 20th January in London's Royal Albert Hall, at a charity event arranged by the circus company Cirque du Soleil. A plethora of F1 stars were present including Sir Jackie Stewart, Martin Brundle, David Coulthard, Christian Horner, Jenson Button, Martin Whitmarsh, Ron Dennis and other McLaren co-owner Mansour Ojjeh. Amongst the dignitaries was also Bernie Ecclestone and, according to Pitpass' source, he asked the boss of a media company if his firm would look after Williams' public relations. Ecclestone said if he was interested then he should meet him and Williams' chairman Adam Parr for lunch the following day.

The following morning news broke that Williams is considering a stock market flotation and Ecclestone's offer suddenly made more sense. The recent departure of Liam Clogger has left Williams with few people in its press office and the flotation is clearly going to increase their workload. At the lunch meeting Parr repeated the offer made by Ecclestone and said he wanted to the media firm on a retainer so that it could help the team convey key messages to the press about the flotation.

Apparently it all sounded perfectly usual except for one small detail: at the end of the meeting Parr said that further contact about the offer should be made over the phone whereas the PR man said he would send an email with details of what services could be offered to the team. Our source says the email was sent on the 25th January and that it yielded a surprising response.

At around 6pm Claire Williams, daughter of the team's co-founder Sir Frank Williams, called the PR man to say that he could not put out a press release saying that his company had been engaged by the team since his work needed to be done "below the radar." Obviously, the PR man was not at all happy with this and no sooner had the call ended than he sent an email to Ecclestone and Williams saying that he would not do the work in secret and there would be a press release if they did engage his firm. Pitpass understands that the PR gave Parr a deadline of the 26th January to confirm his engagement by email but the team was reluctant to do so. Apparently the deadline has been extended twice since but to no avail. It raises a host of questions.

Why would Williams, a company which is considering a public offering, want to engage a PR but not want his firm to tell anyone? Pitpass' source says that the letter sent to Parr made this point rather bluntly by stating that "clearly it is not possible to do [public relations for Williams] if I can not tell people that I am doing it." It is indeed curious if you engage a firm to handle your public relations but you don't want its appointment to be public.

The PR man must have been pretty important for Parr to have agreed to meet him on the afternoon of the day that Williams announced that it is considering a flotation so why did he let the small (and seemingly perfectly reasonable) matter of a press release about this stand in his way?

Perhaps the most bizarre aspect to the entire tale is the involvement of Ecclestone. One wonders why Parr didn't make the first approach himself. It also raises the question of whether Ecclestone often hires staff for F1 teams because, if his powers really do stretch that far, then the man really may be indispensable.