Despite the FIA’s green signal to have Michael Andretti’s team be the 11th team on the grid, many prominent bosses of the sport have opposed it. After Christian Horner and Toto Wolff, it was Lawrence Stroll who opposed the idea of having an extra team in F1. Now, Williams boss James Vowles also joined the bandwagon, citing the unnecessary dilution despite having $20 million from the new team.
Andretti has agreed to pay an anti-dilution fee of $200,000,000. This was decided by the governing body after discussing with all the teams as the new entry would dilute the profit made by the teams. Therefore, Williams would also get $20 million from here as they are one of the ten teams.
“My responsibility, for sporting as well, is, I want to grow the sport and make it a sporting spectacle”
James Vowles’ response on the the potential addition of an 11th team to the F1 grid 👇 pic.twitter.com/5jgWA9XU42
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) October 6, 2023
Furthermore, the Grove-based team was in financial soup as they were embroiled in a $100 million lawsuit, along with a $21.79 million loss in 2022. With that passed, Vowles is now extra cautious about finances, and opposing the new entry is one big example of that.
Vowles joined the bandwagon of opposing Andretti’s entry
The reason for such opposition to the new entry is because of its profit sharing and Williams as a team cannot afford this. Talking about this, Vowles said to the reporters in Qatar, as per PlanetF1, “My thoughts are very clear: Williams is against the addition of an 11th team; we’re very strongly against.”
Following this, he added, “My responsibility is to 900 employees within my company. If you go and look at Companies House, you can go look it up for Williams; we’ve submitted it now, and you’ll see that we’re lossy. We’re very lossy.”
“What we are asking for is financial stability”
James Vowles gives an open response to the potential addition of an 11th team to the F1 grid 👇 pic.twitter.com/V1qihUJhZ9
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) October 6, 2023
However, Williams and Vowles are also ready to partner with General Motors, which, in fact, was brought by Andretti. This is due to their partnership with Cadillac. Therefore, the Williams boss is ready to be ethical. This comes amid the recent boost in finances at the Grove brigade.
Williams recorded profit despite being at the door of bankruptcy
As per reports, Williams Racing has added $55.80 million to its finances in 2023. This has come after three years of being at the cusp of bankruptcy.
Their total revenue increased from $117 million to 173.49 million this year. Even though they received barely six percent of the profit, this was due to the massive profit made by F1 as a whole.
Therefore, Williams and James Vowles would like to keep their profit percentage in the upcoming days as well. Hence, the controversial opposition is to keep Michael Andretti and his team at bay and save the profit from being diluted.
