Race Week Recap #25 - The Williams Edition

Hi friends,

It's Perez retirement rumour week! Every single year when we go to Mexico, some of the more unreliable outlets and journalists will resort to the usual rumours that Perez is retiring at his home race. So, whenever you read a rumour like that this week... Ignore it.

Top story of the week: Williams gets a £100 million capital injection

📸 Williams F1 Team

It's gone slightly under the radar, but Williams just got a considerable injection of capital. On October 11th 100 million shares worth £1 each were issued as Dorilton invested more in the team.

Why is this important? We've talked about team valuations and investments a few times before, and while Williams is generally considered the least valuable team on grid along with Haas, Forbes put a relatively large valuation of ~£590 million on them in June last year.

Dorilton Capital acquired the team from the Williams family in 2020 for a reported £152 million, and have since injected capital - £65 million at the end of 2020 and £106 million over three years from 2020 to 2023, which means this is the largest single capital injection the firm has made in the team since taking ownership.

So why now? It's tempting to see this as a move to prepare the team for the new formula in 2026, which is probably partly the case. But Williams also posted a loss in 2023 of £84 million, which needs to be covered. So while £100 million might be coming in, the team isn't in a position to spend it all on development - and there's also a cost cap to consider.

But in any case, this is good news for Williams. Dorilton reaffirms its commitment to the team and the sport, and Williams can focus more on their racing than their finances - in very stark contrast to the final few seasons under the Williams family ownership, where the team struggled massively to secure funding, and their performance suffered as a result, leading to the eventual sale to Dorilton.

The rest of the stories this week:

• Williams will run a special livery

• Antonelli will do FP1 with Mercedes in Mexico

• Shwartzman will do FP1 with Sauber in Mexico

• The US GP special trophies were pulled due to copyright concerns

• Honda wants Red Bull to give Tsunoda a test in the RB20

• The Wall Street Journal puts Formula 1 on the front page, but mistakes the Alpine special livery for McLaren

• Spa-Francorchamps continue renovations, with a new medical centre, entrances, workshops, commercial area and a new tower all planned over the next two years

• Alonso will celebrate his 400th Grand Prix weekend in Mexico

• Circuit of the Americas has been fined €500,000 for a track invasion at the end of the US GP

• The FIA removes the point for fastest lap during a race, and increases the requirement for teams to run young drivers in a practice session from one to two times per season

• Formula 1 and American Express announce a new multi-year sponsorship

• NASCAR announce Bobby Allison as the winner of the disputed 1971 Bowman Gray Stadium race

• Dennis Hauger moves from Formula 2 to Indy NXT with Andretti for 2025

• Jaguar and Nissan are punished for breaching the Formula E cost cap

• Formula E hasn't been able to find a host for the scheduled March 8th race, leaving a two month gap in the race calendar

• Porsche reduce their WEC lineups to two full season drivers per car

• Valentino Rossi will test the BMW M Hypercar at the WEC Rookie Test in Bahrain

• The WEC hypercar homologation period has been extended to 2029

• Honda and Castrol are set to join forces in MotoGP

That's it for this week. Until next time, thank you for being here.

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