Williams F1 has not closed the door on the possibility of fielding a team in Formula E. The electric racing series, which launched in '14, kicked off its second season last month in Beijing. Williams already has a foot in the door through its advanced engineering business, which supplies the batteries for the series. Williams Deputy Team Principal Claire Williams told SBD Global at the Mexican F1 Grand Prix the reason the team didn’t join the championship when it launched was because of issues within the F1 team. “We didn’t want to dilute any of the work we were doing by going and doing another team in another championship,” she said. “[But] it’s not anything that we would rule out.” Williams Grand Prix Holdings reported a loss of £34.5M (EBITDA) in ’14. Williams added that the Formula E project has been hugely successful, as it has proven the work of the advanced engineering business. Williams Advanced Engineering contributes only a small fraction in terms of revenue to the team, somewhere between 5-10%, according to Williams. The large majority of the team’s revenue comes from its F1 program. This is also why the team’s focus is 100% on F1 at the moment. “Williams is about Formula 1 racing,” she said. As Williams is experiencing resurgence on the track its financials have also improved. The team reported a loss of £1.4M (EBITDA) for the first half of ’15, compared to £19.6M over the same time period in ’14.
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Claire Williams
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FINANCIAL SITUATION: The team has three sources of revenue. In addition to its advanced engineering business, Williams gets its money from sponsorships (40-45%) and Formula One Management prize money (50%). Williams described F1’s revenue streams as a “bit of a vicious cycle” because if the team has a bad year it gets less money from FOM and also becomes less attractive to sponsors. “It’s a spiral really,” she said. The team has attracted big-name brands such as Bacardi, Unilever and Avanade over past two to three years, which has helped improve its racing budget. The team, which is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, has an operating budget of £110M ($169M) this year, according to Williams. She said, “For me it’s never necessarily all about the money that you have, it’s how you spend it and making sure that every single penny of your budget works hard for you.”
SBD Global was on the ground in Mexico to cover F1's return to the country.
