Claire Williams: “We could lose many teams”

La F1 is hit hard by the coronavirus crisis, as shown the first results revealed this Thursday, May 7 by Liberty Media. If the owner of F1 has made advance payments to certain teams, the situation of the most modest structures remains worrying since its revenues depend largely on their on-track activities.

Claire Williams, the director of the British team, renewed her fears in an interview with Sky Sports.

“It’s scary to see that we could lose many teams, and not just one or two, if we don’t resume racing, confided Claire Williams. The financial model that we have means that we are dependent on the money received from the results obtained in the Manufacturers' Championship. If you take that away, and add the fact that sponsorship deals are not at the usual level in F1 or any other sport, raising the necessary budget becomes incredibly complicated. »

F1 plans to resume the championship with Grand Prix contested behind closed doors in Europe from July. The championship nevertheless wants to eliminate as many risks as possible in the midst of a pandemic by creating a biosphere in the paddock where each person will be tested.

“We have to deal with the need to run to ensure the survival of the team in the face of the very concrete reality of keeping our staff safe, summarizes the director of Williams F1. We're certainly not going to send our staff out racing if it's not appropriate. I really hope this doesn't cost us our team, but the safety of Grove staff and those on the road will be paramount. I know that F1 is working hard and expending a lot of energy to return to competition safely. »