Toto Wolff says he will sell his 16 per cent stake in the Williams F1 Team, ‘when the time is right’, after securing a senior position at rival outfit Mercedes.
Wolff was appointed to motorsport boss at the German outfit earlier this year, leaving his executive director role at Williams as a result.
However he retained his stake in the team, but he will now sell this after agreeing to buy a stake in Mercedes AMG.
“The commitment I gave to Mercedes was that I would look at the shareholding, as you don’t want to have that conflict of interest,” said the Austrian.
“Even if operationally it is not a conflict, as here [at Mercedes] I am a director and I am not there any more, it does not give a good light.
“But I owe it to Frank [Williams], the family and the whole team to care with responsibility. I cannot just go to the market and say: ‘who wants to buy those shares?'”
He doesn’t want to sell such a large stake in the team to anybody though, which is why he says he’ll wait for the right person to ensure the future of the team and its share price remains stable.
“I have to find someone who is responsible enough, who is coming in for the sport, and who understands how the team functions,” he added.
“Hopefully it will be a sponsor, but it is not so easy to find somebody who is suitable.
“So the point is that I need to look for somebody at a certain stage, but it is not that I am under pressure.
“What we agreed with the Mercedes guys is that I won’t have a certain timeframe to sell them.”
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