Frank Williams and Patrick Head have sold an equity stake in their Formula 1 team to an Austrian investment company.

Should of sold to BMW all those years ago.

Should of sold to BMW all those years ago.

Should of sold to BMW all those years ago.

I bet they would be worse off now, the reason for the sell off will become clearer later on but tbh im thinking it's down to sir franks health more than anything else.

I'm thinking it's down to sir franks health more than anything else.

Should of sold to BMW all those years ago.

Oh, for Cliff's sake...

IT'S "SHOULD HAVE SOLD"

Besides which, BMW would have raped the team and then quit.

Should of sold to BMW all those years ago.

Well, they won't live forever, sooner or later somebody will have to take over.

And they would be in the same position Sauber are now.

Oh, for Cliff's sake...

IT'S "SHOULD HAVE SOLD"

Besides which, BMW would have raped the team and then quit.

No it is because F1 is not their (manufacturers) prime occupation

can you imagine Williams leaving and doing something else (for eg only F2 cars)

It's thanks to guys like Frank Williams we will be able to watch F1 next year. We don't owe Toyota anything, neither BMW or Honda. We owe everything to racing teams that not only have the passion, but the existential need to be in F1.

It's exactly that situation that was foreseable all along. If we had 13 manufacturers now, F1 would be dead next year.

Thanks to a very late (but it came at last) rethinking within FIA, we'll have at least some cars on the grid next year.

I didn't claim that manufacturers say: "Hah, let's kill F1 by going there, spending millions and then pull-out and let everything die." But we knew all along that especially Toyota spent much more than was justifiable in front of their board, and that even if the racing team wanted to continue (I believe Howett that he hoped so until yesterday, and that his comments to let Kobayashi race next year were honest), they had no choice because it was the big bosses that pulled the plug.
That's the difference between Howett and Williams. Even if Howett wants to race, and even if his team has 5 billion years of racing heritage, it is not up to him to decide. Frank decides to do whatever he can, Sauber works his ass off to keep his team alive, even though he could be on a yacht in the carribien. Brawn is in the same mould.
But Howett and Theissen can only watch their team withdraw, they're just pawns in the publicity game.

I do not talk on mean corps that want to kill F1, I talk of F1 becoming a puppet theatre that depends on the goodwill of CEO's far away that know nothing of F1.

I have to agree with all those that welcome the end of the multi-billion money-burning machine that F1 had become after the big corporations entered. F1 in this decade was nothing but a card house of make-belief.
Especially Toyota and Honda, but also to some degree BMW (and in fact Renault muuuuch less than those) were the pinnacle of decadence and excess in F1. Hopefully their withdrawing will be an opportunity do continue Max's policy of making F1 something that can survive.

And to criticize Max Mosley now, the one who had seen this coming much before we knew there'd be a crisis, is rather shortsighted. He knew that manufacturers would pull out at any point they like, as they always did. Of course, they preferred to continue to burn billions for some publicity (and only that), but above that they did few things to make the sport better, and they did everything to attack the sport's sustainability.

We have to go back to levels, where the step of GP2 or F3 or whatever up to F1 is one that can be done by teams that are comitted. Right now we depend on billionaires, which can withdraw anytime as well (especially when they're not aristocratic billionaires like Hesketh, but billionaires depending on the world economy - heard rumours that Force India is not as stable as one might think). F1 can only survive if there are enough no-bullshit guys like Frank Williams. It would be only fair if his team could profit from this situation, as he prepared the shrink-down for quite some time now since BMW left, and if budgets were halved, he'd certainly be in a better position than any other team.

If Max hadn't forced onto the FIA to actively do everything possible to help new teams into the sport (after 10-15 years of doing everything to keep them out and get the big ones in - at least they regretted it late than never), we'd have a grid of 16 cars max. next year. Let's hope that Toyota's early announcement to quit gets QADBAK rolling, I assume they need a confirmation as soon as possible to start signing drivers and sponsors as early as possible. And let's hope they don't butcher Sauber, but finance it and let it become what it was before BMW entered.

Hindsight will be 20/20! In the historybooks of motorsports, the decade of the big corporations will be one comparable with the romans being served grapevines lying in their palaces, while the end of the empire was already in sight.

If the crisis serves to sensibilize the people involved in motorsports and the fans that sustainability is what makes a sport strong, I'd be alread happy.
If I see Real Madrid paying hundreds of millions for players, while having hundreds of millions of debts, I can only hope that their card-house will collapse soon as well.

Oh, for Cliff's sake...

IT'S "SHOULD HAVE SOLD"

Besides which, BMW would have raped the team and then quit.

Anybody wants to know fun detail? Mika Häkkinen owns partly the company that bought slice of Williams.

Interesting snippet. Can you provide a link to verifiable source.

Since 2002, Christian Wolff has been involved in the management of upcoming racing drivers and co-owns a management company with Mika Häkkinen

Oh, for Cliff's sake...

IT'S "SHOULD HAVE SOLD"

Besides which, BMW would have raped the team and then quit.

Anybody wants to know fun detail? Mika Häkkinen owns partly the company that bought slice of Williams.

Reuters: READ.

No financial details were given about the sale.

That was a long read. An excerpt:

Oh, for Cliff's sake...

IT'S "SHOULD HAVE SOLD"

Besides which, BMW would have raped the team and then quit.

so how much did he sell for what amount?

I doubt he (ie FW) sold any of his shares - suspect this will have been new shares going to the investor, so the money will have gone into the company rather than FW's pocket.