CLIP: Why The Williams F1 Team Had To Be Sold.

0:00Olly Fawcett:Kind of leading up to that, I guess, you know, the team needed to be sold or you were looking to sell it. That kind of period of time, you're obviously looking for the right buyer, right? That was a big part of, I remember you saying that quite a few times from the kind of TV and media stuff. That process must have been a very difficult six months, of course. But what were you looking for in the right buyer when you said that? Good, you just triggered a memory. I remember when I used to go to the press conferences and for those all four press conferences, the team was supposed to go. And for some reason.

0:28Olly Fawcett:The one where you're sat on the stages. yeah for some reason there was always the question like 2018 i think i was always asked when are you selling the team are you selling the team there was rumors circulating at that point there was no way that really it would have entered my no i just came from really angry about really the for sales do you i think my stock answer whenever i do you see a for sale site outside our motorhome you know because it just used to really tick me off it was like come on can we stop asking this question this team is not for sale and it never will be but then obviously we did have to put it up for sale in 2020s you just reminded me of that it must be frustrating because that was obviously time where you're struggling with some day-to-day stuff the team's trying to keep going forward and keep moving upwards and yeah it's amazing how little comments like that can just trigger because why wouldn't you yeah so you're going through some really hard stuff exactly just because you're going through hard stuff it doesn't mean you're going to put the for sale sign outside i mean there was a team recently with all the rumors around that in formula one where you know they were struggling and it's the first thing that kind of comes up.

1:25Olly Fawcett:It's just that thing, isn't it? Which is odd because Formula One people, anyone in a team, anyone running a team, they don't have the mentality of, oh, well, it's a bit hard now, we'll give up. You know, the mentality doesn't even enter a Formula One person's head. So for a journalist to think, oh, well, times are hard, they're going to sell, it's quite weird. Do you think it was, though, because you weren't backed by a manufacturer? Yeah. Is that the reason why you think that kind of was more reeling its head? I think so. And the sport was really changing. We were going through this massive regulation overhaul as well.

1:59And the budgets were just crazy at the time. And just to give some perspective, from 2018 onwards, teams at the upper end of the grid were spending close to half a billion dollars to go racing a year, half a billion dollars. And there was no cap. There was no control on what teams were allowed to spend. The more money they had, the more money they were putting in. And so the teams that didn't have that, you know, the support of a car manufacturer or a major drinks brand, you know, the independent teams in Formula One like mine and my family's that relied on prize fund money and sponsorship alone.

2:35We all know back in 2015, 16, brands were not falling over themselves to sponsor, certainly not sponsor Formula One teams unlike they are today. Yeah, we were scrabbling trying to secure 60 million in sponsorship and prize fund money, you know, was not at the level. It's gone up a bit now, courtesy of the new regulations. But when you are trying to compete against teams that can spend twice as much as you, how on earth are you able to compete? It was nigh on impossibility. Yes, I will hold my hands up. We had other issues that we weren't doing things right. But the external factors were really causing us major headaches that were almost, they were not creating a playing field that was level from the off.

3:21You know, any sport should always have a playing field for its competitors that is level at the outset. When it's not, like it wasn't in Formula One at the time, how then can teams like Williams compete? How can they compete? How can they thrive? you know they are looking at survival at that point and that's what we were facing down a barrel of a gun going into 2020 we had a number of factors just all came and colluded conspired against us so we had our title sponsor that didn't pay their bill and when you've got a gap that you know you can imagine how much money a title sponsor pays yeah when it is that big a percentage of your budget and you're going into the the following racing year without it you know what do you do yeah fortunately we were able to plug that gap um but then covid came and we didn't go racing and when you don't go racing you don't get paid and so that was you know we up until that point managed to keep the lights on for a really long time in what were very difficult circumstances yeah and then it was game over it was the final nail in the coffin unfortunately covid um i never would of thought that that would have been the demise of the Williams family in Formula One but it was

4:36Olly Fawcett:it was a difficult time I think when when you kind of first announced it especially in a lot of interviews you were definitely leaning on it being your decision in terms of you made that leading decision to make that move did that take you quite a long time to obviously make it but then actually fully press the button I imagine it's not as simple as like walking into your senior team and saying right this is what we're doing it's quite a process that happens behind the scenes and very emotional as well yeah so you know for you was there a moment where you kind of knew right we're gonna have to we're gonna have to look for you know someone's purchased the team that period of time do you remember that or it must be a bit of a blur so it's really hard at the time because that was covid like covid had literally just hit in march 2020 you know what yeah we were in australia we'd gone to the grand prix of course and that was the most extraordinary race weekend because we'd made it to australia as a team we didn't we'd heard about covid but And going, I think, probably for the week or so ahead, it was like, should we really be going?

5:32This is all getting really close now. But obviously Formula One made the decision that the race was going to go ahead. We all flew to Australia. And then on the, I flew in, I got in on Thursday morning, went to the circuit. It was all everyone was really doing very much, keeping themselves to themselves, having these power rounds in their motorhomes. And then I went out for dinner with my husband that night. and um we got back and i was like oh thank god i can go to bed now get ready for practice the next day i was you know i was really boring when i was i like turning lights and um i got a phone call um probably just as i turned out the light saying we're having a team principals meeting downstairs in wherever it was the hotel we were staying in um in half an hour i mean i'm in my pajamas taking my makeup off this is why it's so hard being a woman in business because you know all the other team principals if they had been in bed you know just chuck on a pair of jeans and go downstairs i'm there and i'm like really do i want the world to see this i just like yeah so anyway went downstairs and we're you know all the tps are there with f1 with um and saying we are we racing are we not racing and there was saying there was a big hoo-ha and some people did some

6:48Olly Fawcett:people didn't because as unfortunately what happened to you it's a big deal to just not go racing you know it's it's it's not just the entertainment and we know we want to win the constructors this year or whatever we want more money it's in order for some of you is in order to survive what we need to know what we're doing yeah you know exactly and so for me i'm sat there and i've kind of got people the camp that want to go home shouting at me the camp that want to stay shouting at me and the arguments you know for the camp that wants to stay well what would your father do you know he's a racer he we'd go racing under any circumstances that's what you should do and part half of me that's yeah we're races we go racing yeah and then it's the other half that's i've got you know 150 people here that i've got to keep safe and that's where my priority as well i want to get them home before they close borders so what do i do but then i've got the money issue you know if we don't go racing if i pull my team and yet there's still a race on sunday i'm losing 20 million dollars and i've just lost more than 20 million dollars in sponsorship you know it's an impossible decision it is so impossible yeah um but anyway we all agreed the rate let's do practice in the morning let's see what what tomorrow brings because it was so fast moving at this this pace anyway so I go back to bed and at four in the morning my phone rings going um when we've decided we're not racing so a few of them had stayed back I think and they decided for everybody that we weren't gonna race so we had to go into the circuit the next day and I had to I remember should have been given some crates to stand on because i don't have a platform i'm so small stuff wants some like beer box or something um yeah i had to tell my team we're going thanks for turning up for a day and we're leaving and so that night i was on a flight home being having been in australia for about 12 hours and then on a flight back and then having to deal with our business in covid i was gonna say because you're going back not to further everyone and kind of chill you're going back to work out where the business is going to go from there well it was it was how are we still right are we still running is the business still open if it's not how on earth do we pay people when we haven't got money coming well anyway i mean it was it must be so every business leader in that time had i think the the hardest decisions or trying to get an understanding of what the art of the possible was was so difficult.

9:13And to have to do it all remotely, not to be able to see anyone. You know, I went out and bought one of those big clunky old conference phones because really Zoom and Teams didn't really kind of take an off at that point. It was like, how am I going to do any of these calls when I got to dial in 16 people? It was really hard. I mean, it was hard for everybody. And then, you know, we tried to, we all, we had these team principal Zoom calls. I've still got a photograph from the first one we ever had. It's brilliant. um but we're there and we're going what on earth we can do trying to like should we all should we just go and race in zanvort because red bull can make that safe for us and we'll just have the whole championship there you know that was that was on the table yeah yeah all these scenarios but then you know we'd kind of i suppose got through this covid point but then and understood what we were going to do as a business but then it quickly became apparent as covid kept happening and we weren't going to go racing again for a good few months that that was going to be it and i think it was actually my board said this is it you've got to make that decision that it's game over unfortunately and so that was where that decision um came from but at the time obviously I then had to go right well how do we sell a team in COVID um how do we do that and how do we sell one of the greatest legacy teams in Formula One when it's in the position that it's in in COVID all the while at this time as well I was um clearly still trying to run the business in the team and we were still negotiating the final regulations for 2021 and that was three years worth of work um that we were trying to finalize and then figure out how we were going to get to go racing again and then finally figure out how we were going to sell the team I mean it was an absolute um mind

10:56Olly Fawcett:boggle yeah put it like that I mean I think the actual selling of the team is pretty well documented you know in terms of the process you went through and i mean what you just described there sounds like so much stress stress and pressure that you must have had on your shoulders sorry well we were going i was going to the when we did finally get to going racing i'd be a day at the track and then i would come back to the hotel because obviously i was in team kit i'd have to change into business kit and get on my on a zoom call with prospective buyers and these the presentation process normally took three hours at a time and i would be leading it during most of the talking so i've been at the track for all of the day and i'd have to come and do these presentations and sometimes i would be doing two or three in an evening and then have to go back to the track the next day yeah and then i'd be sitting there having to sell my team like please buy my team and then in my heart going why am i doing this this is absolutely hideous yeah it was awful yeah yeah because i didn't want to sell no of course i didn't no my my i had lovely you know fantasies about Williams going into the third generation of Williamses, my son or my nephew or niece running the team.

12:05And, you know, that was always my plan for the team. And I never even contemplated that that wouldn't happen, I suppose, because Williams had been around forever. So why wasn't it going to continue to be around forever? And it all came really quickly.

12:20Olly Fawcett:Brilliant. Six months is not a long time, is it? That's kind of the period of time. Exactly. I thought kind of when I'd secured the money to replace the rocket money, the title sponsor that we lost, I thought that was kind of it. We were okay. We were going to be okay. Because my dad had always been okay. He'd always taught me, someone will come. You know, my mum was the one that panicked over the winter about, you know, we got the budget to go racing, Frank, and be panicked that we wouldn't. And my dad would always be just like, oh, something will come along, Virginia. Don't you worry about it.

12:48So I'd inherited that. You know, I had CFOs that would be panicked. You know, my CEO would be like, oh, my God, this is a disaster. what we're going to do in November every year something will come along and it always did and so something did come along I was we were very lucky that someone kind of come and came and bailed us out um at the start of that year and then you know COVID did hit and that killed us

13:10Olly Fawcett:was there a possibility where you could have stayed involved in the team at all yeah they um the new owners did kind of um throw that around yeah quite quietly I didn't know whether they were convinced by that when they said it whether they were just saying it to be nice I don't know yeah but I was quite clear that that was not the path that I wanted to go down I was very resolute about that when I look back now I think oh gosh was that the right decision you know it would be quite fun to run the team with someone else's money why did you have to worry about it yeah you know what one idiot why didn't I accept that what I think I would if I'm honest what I was most concerned about was that they would fire me after six months and I wanted to go out on my own terms.

13:56Fair enough.