Williams fears financial issues with lost Formula 1 races

Williams deputy team principal Claire Williams fears that the loss of Formula 1 races due to the Coronavirus outbreak could cause issues for the team financially with a lack of prize money.

From events that have been cancelled F1 cannot keep the hosting fees paid to them in advance by promoters.

The income that the promoters pay are shared by the teams and Liberty Media but with a race not taking place it could cause issues for teams’ funds.

Williams haven’t had the best two years in the sport at the back of the grid and have put measures in place to “safeguard” its business surrounding the impact of Covid-19 on them and the sport.

"We're obviously, like F1, like everybody in every responsible business, monitoring the situation incredibly closely," she said to Autosport. "We've got a steering committee at Williams.

"That's been in place for a couple of months now to make sure that we're acting responsibly and safeguarding everybody that works at Williams, and doing what we need to do based on the World Health Organisation's guidance. And that's all we can do at this stage.

"We have not got a case at Williams, we haven't. But we've got to make sure that we safeguard our business.

“And that comes in a variety of different ways to ensuring that we've got the capability for remote working, should we need to send our people home.

"I suppose the main consideration for any team is around manufacturing, because you can't manufacture parts at home. So if we have to shut down our factory that can be incredibly difficult.

"There's also the consideration around if we don't go to races, then what happens with prize fund money? Does that then decrease, which obviously would be incredibly difficult to manage? And I suppose at the moment, we're just hoping that that is not the case."

Williams has had talks about claiming on insurance should it come to it with its employees occupying most of the team’s expenditure.

"And obviously, we're having conversations about insurance if it is the case, but it's not an easy situation to manage,” she added. “We're in discussions at the moment [regarding insurance]."

"You've still got wages to pay. Most teams their wage bill is the largest proportion of their monthly expenditure. So you still got to pay wages."