Williams Formula 1 sells stake to Austrian investor

The Williams F1 team has become the latest to announce changes in the motorsport's close season, releasing a statement this morning saying that they had sold a minority interest in the team to Austrian investor and racing driver Toto Wolff. Williams will remain the only independently owned member of the 'Big Four' teams on the starting grid under the conditions of the deal, which will see Wolff join the company's board.
 
The team, which was founded by Sir Frank Williams and Patrick Head in 1977, has an illustrious history in Formula 1, winning nine constructors' and seven drivers' championships, and boasting a roll call of drivers that includes Jenson Button, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell.

In recent years they have suffered as they have chopped and changed their engine supplier and failed to attract top drivers. Last season they finished seventh in the constructors' table with 34.5 points, but will lose their number one driver Nico Rosberg to the newly branded Mercedes GP team for 2010.

Meanwhile, Button has been told by his current employers, Brawn/Mercedes GP, that he cannot take up his new posting at McLaren until the end of 2009, as stipulated in his contract. There is considerable anger at the Brawn team at what they see as disloyalty from the world champion, who had allowed contract renegotiations with them to drag on while he privately courted other teams.

"Jenson will not be doing anything at all for McLaren until the end of this calendar year," Nick Fry, the Brawn team's chief executive officer, told the Guardian. "And if he does, we will be looking on it very dimly. He didn't have any obligations to us in 2010, but there are issues with regard to the [McLaren contract] signing process on which we are in discussion with him at the moment. There are other constraints on what Jenson can do between now and the end of the year which we will be rigorously enforcing."

Traditionally teams have allowed their drivers to move as and when deals have been concluded to allow their new employer time to create the set-up around them - not least as they themselves would like the courtesy done to them when they sign a new driver. Brawn's move indicates the strength of feeling at the team against their former star man. ·