Williams believe they’re proof that huge budgets aren’t needed to succeed in Formula 1 following their successful 2014 season.
The British team finished third in the Constructors’ Championship this season behind Mercedes and Red Bull, but crucially ahead of long-time rival Ferrari.
Deputy team principal Claire Williams says that’s a huge achievement for an outfit which has a budget of around £100 million compared to Ferrari which is nearer £200m, and proves that money isn’t necessarily everything.
“For us, from where we were last season, it’s such an amazing achievement against the likes of Ferrari which is operating on a budget twice the size of ours,” she said.
“That’s such an achievement and, for me, that says everything that we need to say around all of the conversations going on at the moment,” she added in regards to the various meetings between Lotus, Force India and Sauber about how F1’s prize money is distributed.
Williams also addressed recent comments from Ron Dennis after he stated that a customer team has almost no chance of competing for the championship when going up against manufacturer teams, hence McLaren’s switch to Honda power next year.
“We have a great engine supplier in Mercedes and we’re lucky to have a great relationship with them. At the moment that works but if an engine manufacturer came in and talked to us, why wouldn’t you have that conversation? Of course you would.
“I know there have been comments in the press recently saying you can’t survive unless you’ve got that backing, it’s totally not correct. We’ve survived for many years – in fact for all our time in Formula One – without having an engine manufacturer solely looking after us and there’s no reason we can’t continue to do that.”
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