Williams has outlined that it has a “healthy racing budget” for the 2020 Formula 1 season, in spite of its poor on-track results and subsequent reduction in prize money.
Williams slumped from fifth to last in the 2018 Constructors’ Championship, a position it repeated in 2019, taking just one point after problems with its recalcitrant FW42.
Williams lost Unilever to McLaren over the winter while ORLEN has followed 2019 racer Robert Kubica to Alfa Romeo.
However Williams last year extended its title partnership with ROKiT Group and has also taken on fresh sponsorship from Sofina, Lavazza and Royal Bank of Canada, courtesy of Nicholas Latifi.
It has also secured fresh funding from selling a majority stake in Williams Advanced Engineering while test driver Roy Nissany comes with financial backing.
“Sponsorship is hard, it’s not easy, we all know that,” deputy team boss Claire Williams said.
“I don’t think any team’s finding the sponsorship market in Formula 1 very easy at the moment.
“Our business model is actually that it relies heavily on sponsorship. And it’s never easy, but it hasn’t been for the last decade, but we still manage to find a healthy racing budget to do what we need to do over the course of the year and we have that going into this year.
“Obviously, as you all know we sold a majority stake in Advanced Engineering, the proceeds of which come into the F1 team in order to bolster the budget as well. So I’ve no concerns over the racing budget for 2020.”
Williams also defended the appointment of Nissany as its test driver.
Nissany, 22nd in the 2018 Formula 2 standings, will participate in three practice sessions this year, as well as the post-season tyre test.
“There’s no point putting a driver in a car that you think isn’t going to do a good job for you, and particularly when you’re in the position that we’re in,” she stressed.
“So, clearly we’re only going to take drivers that we know are going to be able to understand what’s going in the car to translate that to help with development.
“And Roy proved that when he did the Abu Dhabi tests for us at the end of the year.”
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