28/08/2020
NEWS STORY
Today's press conference with Franz Tost, Claire Williams and Frederic Vasseur.
Claire, following the sale of the team to Dorilton Capital, what can you tell us about the new owners and the structure of the team going forward?
Claire Williams: First of all, I think it's important to say that we are delighted that we have managed to secure this outcome of the strategic review process. In this kind of financial environment, it's never easy to undertake these transactions but we are very happy at Williams that we have managed to secure new owners, but also owners that we know are hugely passionate about this sport and also about Williams. They have very clear ambitions for where they want to see this team and they are prepared to put that investment into the team in order to do that. For the moment, it's business as usual, nothing changes in the here and now, and we're looking forward to going racing this weekend.
And Claire, knowing how passionate you are about your team, how difficult has it been for you to sell these shares?
CW: I won't be lying if I said it hasn't been emotional over the past few months, 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. We have always in our family put this team first. 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. I think most importantly for the fans out there, you will still see the Williams name racing in Formula 1.
Thank you Claire. Fred, coming to you next. A frustrating morning for Antonio Giovinazzi. What can you tell us about his issues?
Frederic Vasseur: Ah, he had a water leak on the engine side. It's a shame because he was not able to do a single lap today. Let's see what happens with the weather also, because it's a big shame if he is not able to do some laps with slicks before the quali. But it is what it is.
Can I ask you about the new Concorde Agreement. How pleased are you with the new deal and what kind of opportunities does it present for a team like Alfa Romeo?
FV: I think it's not just for Alfa Romeo or for another team. It's good for Formula 1, it's a good step forward for the championship. The sustainability of the small teams it's probably also an important topic for the big teams. They have to avoid just being focused on themselves. At the end of the day we have to have a complete grid of 20 cars and we have to be sustainable. I think it is a good step forward in the right direction. I think that everybody would like to get a bit more here or there, but at the end of the day it's a good compromise.
We had Kimi in the press conference yesterday and he spoke about his future, saying that he has yet to decide whether he wants to continue in Formula 1. If he wants to continue, will you have him?
FV: I think the most important thing is the motivation, the motivation on the driver's side first, because I think it's difficult for Kimi to struggle with the pace when we are at the back. Now that we did a good weekend last weekend in Barcelona, the pace was much better. This morning was also much better and we have to continue to improve and to do small step by small step and to be back into the fight. This is the most important thing but not just for Kimi, but everybody in the team. The main motivation in a racing team is coming from the results and nothing else, from the drivers to the mechanics, to the engineers, to myself and we need to get results.
Are you impressed with the job Kimi has done for you this year?
FV: Yeah, yeah! Honestly, Kimi is far from being the biggest issue! He's doing a good job. We saw last week in Barcelona that the pace is there, this morning again - he is in front of the two Ferraris. It is a good reference for us. Let's see what happens tomorrow and Sunday and we have to continue to push and to get the last tenth on every single topic and I think that Kimi is pleased when we have this kind of motivation.
Franz, let's start with the Concorde Agreement if we could. It's the final part of the puzzle that's hoped to level the playing field in Formula 1. Are you confident that it's going to do that?
Franz Tost: Yes. I must say that we are really satisfied that the Concorde Agreement is signed now. Good job done by the teams and also the FOM and the FIA, because it was not so easy. It was long negotiations. We from the midfield teams, especially AlphaTauri, now are really happy that this Concorde Agreement is signed because the money distribution is much better nowadays than it was in the past and I think in combination with the cost cap and the much fairer money distribution the field will come much closer together, which should guarantee interesting races.
Thanks. Now a question about Yuki Tsunoda. Have you been impressed by what he is doing in Formula 2 this year and are we likely to see him in an AlphaTauri any time soon?
FT: I'm not only impressed with his driving in Formula 2, I was impressed with him last year in Formula 3 as well and the years before. He is a high-skilled driver and he has all the ingredients together to become a successful Formula 1 driver. For sure, he will test for us in Abu Dhabi at the young driver test. Whether he will drive for us next year or not, this is being decided by Red Bull and it depends also whether he gets a Superlicence. If he continues like now then he will be within the first three or four drivers in the Formula 2 championship and it shouldn't be a problem to receive the Superlicence and the rest then we will see.
(Christian Nimmervoll - Motorsport.com) Claire, Dorilton Capital made the transaction through an investment vehicle that is called BCE Ltd, that is coincidentally the initials of Bernard Charles Ecclestone. Can you just clarify if there is any connection or any link in this deal with Bernie, if he's involved in it in any way? And also, can you comment on if you're going to be team principal beyond this season?
CW: Yeah, I saw this. I spoke to Mr Ecclestone earlier in the week and I did ask him if it was him behind it. That's a joke, by the way. Bernie has nothing to do with our new ownership. Dorilton Capital is completely independent. Bernie is not the new owner of Williams and, as I said earlier to Tom, I am in my role, I'm here, I'm doing my job, I'm actually deputy team principal, not team principal. My father is team principal still and it is business as usual.
(Luke Smith - Autosport) Another question to Claire: I think it has been quite a momentous couple of weeks for Williams in terms of everything that's happened with the sale, with the Concorde Agreement, and also the clarification regarding car copying, which you said was the reason for withdrawing the appeal. How much brighter do things look for the team now, moving forward? How much more confident and excited are you about the team's future, even compared to, say, a month ago?
CW: Yeah, that was... the whole purpose behind this strategic review process was in order to secure this team's future. It has been an incredibly difficult few years for us for a number of reasons, both on track and off track. 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. We have secured the investment that was the whole purpose of this strategic review process. We have great new owners who are willing to put the money in that's required in order to take this team forward and so couple that with the new Concorde Agreement that kicks off in 2021 I think Williams can really start to start moving further forward up the grid and making some good progress and that's all we want to see.
(Adam Cooper - Motorsport.com) Claire, in the sale announcement you said that Dorilton are 'people who understand the sport and what it takes to be successful. Can you expand please, on what sort of knowledge they have of Formula 1?
CW: As I said, the Williams family have always put this team first and we wanted to make sure that we would be able to find new owners for it that did understand this sport. I can't go into a whole lot of detail as to the people behind Dorilton. That will become clearer over the... we will be able to make that clearer over the coming weeks and months but they've done a huge amount of due diligence since the start of this process. 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 on Grove with our team there currently in order to understand what's required moving forward. So I have absolute confidence that they are the right people to take this team forward.
Check out our Friday gallery from Spa, here.
(Dieter Rencken - Racing Lines) Franz, I wonder if you could clarify whether AlphaTauri, Toro Rosso or Red Bull have recently sold any of your older cars and if so, how many and why?
FT: (Chuckles) We have sold one, two, three or four older cars. One or two are being raced, as far as I know, from some gentlemen drivers. We just sold them because we have many of them; every year we build around four cars and the philosophy from AlphaTauri is that we keep one car and the other three cars, if there are customers, if there are people interested in buying them, they can have them. If you want to have a car, please come with the money and you will get them, no problem!
FV: The same for me.
(Ben Hunt - The Sun) Sorry, just another question for Claire: I just wondered what's stopping you from explaining more about... you said it will all become clear but what is the reason why we're not finding out more about them now? Secondly, I just wanted to know, with reference to a question which was put to you earlier on. Remaining as deputy team principal or even Frank remaining in control, was that part of any of the negotiating when the sale went through?
CW: I think, Ben, your question about Dorilton... I'm not sure what more we can reveal about them. They are a US-based investment firm. Their chairman is a gentleman called Matthew Savage. Their CEO is another gentlemen called Darren Fultz. They own a number of different businesses. They've been in operation since 2009. They have 60 businesses under management; within that portfolio there's a broad spectrum of industries across which they work and obviously they haven't been in motor sports before and they are very excited about this opportunity. I'm not sure that there's much more that we can explain about who Dorilton actually are and I'm sure you're going to be seeing them at a race track soon. And I think the second question as about my role, Frank's role. This is very early days, obviously, and for the moment though, it is business as usual. I'm here in my capacity that... I was running the team in Barcelona and the races prior to that and that will continue to be the case.
(Andrew Benson - BBC) Can I ask about the future of Mike O'Driscoll as well?
CW: Exactly the same: it is business as usual.
(Joe Saward - Autoweek) Claire, along the same subject, I'm afraid. On their website, Dorilton say that they are a family office, in effect they are spending the money for a family, so the people you've mentioned are just managers of the fund, not the actual money. Can you confirm that's the case?
CW: I can confirm that's the case, yes Joe.
(Abhishek Takle - Mid-Day) Claire, could you talk a little bit about how contact with Dorilton was initiated, once you started the process and were there ever any other parties, be they investors or potential buyers, involved?
CW: As I think I talked about, over the duration of this process, which started back in April/May time, we had a number - a considerable number of interested parties in the team who we talked with throughout the process, over the past few months. We were very happy with the level of interest that we received and I think that is also a great barometer for the health of our sport, as well, that there is interest in our teams and our sport as a whole. I think that clearly the new regulations are helping that. Dorilton approached us, initially, and I think in fact all of the bidders that we were talking to made the approach to us, versus us going out to the market, making those approaches.
Franz, this race marks the anniversary of Pierre Gasly's return to the team. How has he developed over the last 12 months?
FT: No, I must say it's exactly one year ago when Pierre came back to us. I remember when he came the first time to the factory, I said to him, hey, it looks like you were here yesterday, because we were so familiar together and he knew his engineer quite well, his mechanics, he felt familiar from the very beginning onwards. And fortunately our car last year was also quite competitive and therefore he immediately got some results, some good results and of course the highlight was the second place in Sao Paulo and he made really good progress during the last year, but also this year you can see that he gets more and more self-confident and I am also convinced that he will show very good races the rest of the season.
(Adam Cooper - Motorsport.com) To all of you: Formula 1 has confirmed that the second Bahrain race will run on the outer circuit with qualifying times of less than 55 seconds. What are your thoughts on that and have your guys looked at it in detail or done any simulations yet?
FV: Yeah, we didn't do any simulations yet but for sure with 55 seconds per lap it will be a big mess on that traffic on the qualifying laps and it will be nightmare but I think it's exciting to have different layouts of the tracks when we have a double event like this, that it makes sense to do something a bit different and the advantage with Bahrain is that you have at least three configurations for the layout of the track. It makes sense, it will be a bit different to the first one. Let's see.
CW: Yeah, I share Fred's views. Firstly, I think that Formula 1 have done a fantastic job to try and get so many races on the calendar and to allow the teams or to facilitate the teams to be able to race in the same location twice obviously helps with a load of logistic issues that we're facing at the moment with all these triple headers. But from what I hear, this new track layout is going to be incredibly fast which is going to make it interesting but clearly it has only just been announced, we haven't started doing any simulation work but I'm sure everybody is going to be jumping on that as quickly as possible.
FT: There's not much to add. You know we haven't yet started the simulation work but it will become... especially in the qualifying, from the traffic, maybe a little bit chaotic but entertaining, we will see, and in the race then we will see how it is with overtaking because all the cars are very close together and then we will see how good the top cars and are how many times they will overlap everyone.
(Christian Nimmervoll - Motorsport.com) Claire, now that the transaction is completed, we basically know that Dorilton Capital is a shareholder in Williams, we know about some shares that are at Frankfurt stock exchange in pre-float; are there any other shareholders remaining? What about, for example, Brad Hollinger, Toto Wolff? And following up on Joe's earlier question, who is the family behind Dorilton Capital?
CW: No, so Dorilton Capital has bought the full shareholding of Williams, so they are 100% owners and I have no comment to make on your second question I'm afraid, Christian.
(Edd Straw - The Race) Claire, obviously with the new Concorde having been signed which is a good direction forward for F1, is it a little bit frustrating almost...because obviously the situation has seen the family having to sell it is partly connected to the terms of the last round of commercial agreements, seven years ago, so is it a little bit frustrating that you couldn't take is a little bit further under family ownership because of that difficult period under those commercial terms, because obviously it could be quite a good sustainable going concern under the cost cap and the new Concorde etc?
CW: Yeah, I think... and I read your article that wrote 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 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 and clearly 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 with 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.
Check out our Friday gallery from Spa, here.
(Dieter Rencken - Racing Lines) To all three: how much did the fact that there's an annual flexibility in the Concorde Agreement make it easier for yourselves or your team owners to sign up to the Concorde?
FV: Yeah, but as we said before, this kind of agreement, with ten teams around the table, the FIA and FOM, it's never easy to sign. I think everybody did compromise and finally I think we found a deal with a good step forward for everybody and OK, we always want to get more and every single team would like to get a different position but at the end I think it's a very good step forward for us and when I say us, it's everybody around the table and it is like it is.
CW: I didn't actually understand Dieter's question. I echo what Fred said.
(Dieter Rencken - Racing Lines): Claire, basically the question was... there's this annual flexibility built in there so it's not really a five-year commitment. How much easier did it make to sign the Concorde Agreement under those circumstances?
CW: Yeah, I think the most important thing is that the Concorde Agreement is signed and the terms within that across the various different elements are what we wanted to see so I'm very comfortable with that.
FT: I must say that all the negotiations for this new Concorde Agreement were much more transparent than in the years before. I must also say that the top teams, at the end, agreed to lose some money because it's not so easy for them. We must not forget that they have built up a fantastic infrastructure the last years and they will also lose some people and I think in the sense that for the future of Formula One all the teams were sitting together, negotiating together which was not always the case in the past and therefore I think we now have a really good basis for the future of Formula 1.
(Abhishek Takle - Mid-Day) Claire, but I just had a clarification on your business as usual comment. Obviously it's business as usual in terms of the management structure of the team but will it be business as usual for the foreseeable future? Is that how you see it as well?
CW: Look, 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.
(Mario Luini - Revue Automobil) Fred, do you know have a better idea of the problems with the C39 and how soon can you correct them?
FV: I'm not sure that we have a big problem with the car. If you have a look, I'm sure we have a lack of performance compared to last year but it's never coming from one single thing, it's coming from different areas and step by step we are improving, we are trying to sort it out and we are doing good steps. If you have a look, last week we were P13, we are one position in front compared to the year before in Barcelona and this morning we were also in good shape. We have to stop fantasising about things like this. The most important is to stay focused and to try to catch up tenth after tenth in every single area with the performance and I think the team is dedicated too.
Check out our Friday gallery from Spa, here.