Having laughed for some days about the audacity of the OP, I did stumble upon some articles when Wolff bought himself into Williams. Which, tied with HWA, was more than just a lucky deal.
The following opinion is something I truly believe:
Williams is already Mercedes' B team. And as a matter of my stubborn opinion, I think Williams was Mercedes A plan to become the factory supported team, untill they stumbled upon the chance to take over Brawn. Relationships between McLaren and Mercedes were as good as dead when Dennis sold a large stake to some Bahrainis instead of selling them to Daimler in 2008. Also developing a supercar without Mercedes involved must have been a blow to Stuttgart.
I sincerely think Mercedes wanted to switch to Williams around 2011/2012. Handle off the sale of McLaren stock and get the hell out of Woking, get a puppet guy (Wolff) in at Williams, transition to the new team and build it up.
But then the opportunity of Brawn came along and Williams was no longer needed. But was compensated with a lengthy and undisclosed (at first) engine deal and Mercedes never did bat an eye when it came to deals favoring Williams.
Wolff went to Mercedes once the future of the Mercedes team after 2013 was granted and Williams was well compensated.
Mercedes became Williams supplier at a time everyone thought Williams would stick with Renault.
Mercedes needed a new and capable driver after Rosberg left, got a Williams driver and paid a royal amount of money to Williams.
Mercedes found themselves a lead DTM driver in a Williams testdriver.
Williams houses the next big thing by Mercedes in one of their seats.
And there are more examples. But summing this up, hopefully will open some eyes to people that Williams is a B team already. And a B team as much as Williams allow it to be.
Edited by Beri, 29 March 2020 - 01:01.