Last August, the New York-based investment firm Dorilton Capital bought the Williams team. It was always a fiercely independent team, and the new owners plan for it to always remain an independent team.
That’s the verdict of the team’s new CEO Jost Capito.
With the progress the team is already making with the investments made by Dorilton, it could make it attractive if a new manufacturer wanted to enter F-1 — is that a long-term goal, a works partnership?
“I would say it is not our objective to improve so to be the primary choice of a manufacturer coming in.” Capito said. “But I think that comes on itself, if we can improve the results, we will be more attractive for OEMs coming in.
“But our clear objective is to remain an independent team, and not being bought by any other team or by an OEM because we see the future in the sport. Williams has always been independent, and what we see A and B teams. For us a B team is a team that doesn’t have independent ownership, it has some ownership from an OEM or another Formula One team. And by that definition we don’t want to be a B team; we want to be an A team because racing is our core business and should stay our core business and independent from a manufacturer who decides to be in or out that would challenge our existence.”
What does Capito think success will look like this year or is success measured by a strong 2022?
“We really need a significant step in ‘22 with the new regulations and the new car, that is where we are aiming at,” he said. “and that means for ‘21 we will still fight and want to make the best out of it. But we are not measuring the success in points or positions. We want to understand the car more, we do some smaller developments when we know something is wrong or can improve — of course we will do that — but not sacrificing on the ‘22 car.”
There had been talk of Williams forming a partnership with Renault/Alpine.
“It’s again the definition — what is fully independent?” he said. “You need an engine from somewhere; we have a good relationship with Mercedes. We have a contract that goes still a couple of years. We respect this contract as we are very happy with this relationship.”
Williams earned just two points in the last two seasons, and it finished last in the constructors’ championship both years. The only way to go from there is up.