This year will see Renault’s 35th year of competition in Formula One, producing ten Constructors’ titles and nine driving titles, and they will be hoping that the RS27 will bring more glory with Red Bull this season.

Having added another new team to their supply for two consecutive years Renault Sport will feel assured that they can continue to improve their performance. “We learnt from the experience of 2011 when we added a third team, and we put in place measures to ensure that there was no drop off in overall performance or service in doing so,” said Rob White, deputy managing director of Renault Sport F1.

One of Renault’s main challenges for this season was adapting the engine around the new exhaust regulations. The rule change regarding the necessity to run rear facing exhausts, to a certain extent, returns the exhaust specifications back to those used in 2010. “It’s not been as simple as turning back the clock as the cars have evolved since then, as have the rules concerning torque maps and engine settings.” Added White.

Changes to the shaping of the exhaust have come as good news to Renault as they feel they could have an increased engine output of 10-20bhp. This is made possible by straight and completely round final sections of the exhaust, which allows for the reopening of the outlets. Each of Renault Sport’s customers will be looking to maximise this gain, and with the use of KERS it could prove to be a vital passing tool in a straight line. Caterham in particular will be excited by this prospect as they head into 2012 looking to use their new KERS system as their stepping stone into the midfield. They believed that not having KERS in 2011 cost them potential points scoring finishes.

The introduction of a twenty-race calendar in 2012 will put a lot of pressure on engine manufacturers to insure reliability throughout the season and Renault Sport have been making any possible tweaks to put each engine through its three-race weekend expectation. “Between seasons we have worked hard to optimize parts to give consistency across their life and, therefore to give consistency across all our engines, regardless of their mileage. This should allow us to deliver engines with a theoretical unlimited kilometre range within the tacit three races weekend per engine expectation, which will give us an advantage with flexibility with 20 races on the calendar this year.” Said White.

Renault Sport F1 will be aiming at securing further World Championships this year as Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel push to make it a hat-trick for both Constructors’ and Drivers’ titles. Lotus F1 have come out of the blocks quickly, as they did last year, and with a seemingly comfortable Kimi Raikkonen they are looking to take atleast fourth spot in the teams championship by the season end. However, the most intriguing battle for Renault Sport and Formula One fans is likely to come between Caterham F1 and Williams F1. Caterham begins this season looking to catch the likes of Williams, and having both teams running the same engine is set to give us a good indicator of how this year’s regualtions have affected each squad.

Among the eye catching notes to arise from it were that he first had contact with the team about a 2012 drive at the Japanese Grand Prix, that he and senior Williams engineers believe that they will be solidly in the top ten in qualifying and the races this year and that his grand parents – Ayrton’s mother and father – were ‘ecstatic’ about the news.

It’s very clear that tomorrow morning’s headlines will be all about the death of Ayrton Senna in a Williams Renault and how his nephew is reviving memories of that ill-fated partnership 18 years ago. It’s a persuasive and emotive story-line, especially since the Senna legend has been rekindled with the success of the film about him. Memories of Senna tend to be of him winning in a McLaren and fighting Alain Prost, the Williams chapter was very short and brutal. It’s a memory many F1 fans wish to let drift from their consciousness.

It’s a storyline which, as Senna himself admits, creates its own pressures on him.

These will not be so much in terms of burden of expectation, because expectations are not all that high based on his season and a half in F1 to date. However he knows he will face the Ayrton in a Williams question at every new venue his visits from local media and it will sit with him as an ever present. But Bruno is used to dealing with the subject of his uncle and has managed to carry it off with an easy grace. Time will tell how wearing it might get.

But Senna has fought for a long time for the chance to have a proper F1 drive, one which involves pre-season testing and the right kind of preparation for a full season of racing. And few would argue that he doesn’t deserve it. He brings plenty of Brazilian sponsorship money, as the team and he acknowledge, from telecoms company Embratel and oil company OGX, which made him more attractive.

But interestingly Williams also put forward its senior operations engineer Mark Gillan today, to explain that the team had been through a thorough evaluation process involving assessing speed, tyre management, technical feedback and many other parameters and that Bruno came out ahead of other contenders.

This is important messaging; to play down the suggestions that he has won this drive due to the significant sponsorship backing. The message is that he won the drive on merit, the sponsorship is a bonus.

The team went through a similar process last year with Pastor Maldonado, who arrived with significant backing from Venezuelan oil company PDVSA. He had a more difficult sell as the team chose him over the clearly very talented Nico Hulkenberg.

He didn’t have a fantastic first season, but was able to show his speed by regularly outqualifying Rubens Barrichello. Both drivers are something of an unknown quantity in F1 terms so it will be hard to make an evaluation of their performance relative to each other.

Incidentally, Barrichello tweeted his congratulations to Senna when the news was announced,

“Twitter friends..I won’t be driving the Williams car this year.I wish my friend @BSenna all the best..the future is wide open.”

The external evaluation of Senna will begin in Jerez in a few weeks time when he drives the new car for the first time and then through the race weekends. There are grounds for arguing that without proper preparation with Lotus and with a very poor car with HRT, it has not been possible to give him a fair assessment. This is his chance to establish himself as a Grand Prix driver. He has good backing, so as long as he gets results he can go on to have a decent career in F1.

And Gillan argues that there is evidence that he’s improving all the time, which is very important for an F1 driver.

Gillan said that the team had put Senna through a very thorough evaluation process before making the decision.

“We had an extensive driver evaluation process with a handful of drivers,” he said, without wishing to elaborate on who they were. “We picked the final decision based on a number of factors; the raw pace, consistency, tyre management, technical feedback, mental capacity and most important the impact that a new driver could have on the team.

Bruno has had not a lot of experience in single seater racing but has shown real improvement and a lot of talent. We’re looking forward to working with him this year after what was a relatively poor year for us last year.”

Gillan was asked about Adrian Sutil, “I don’t want to talk about individual drivers,” he said, “But Adrian was part of our plans. Based on everything that was on the table Bruno was the best choice.”

Gillan said that Williams is going through a process of wholesale change with a new technical team, new drivers, new engine. He admitted that the lack of experience of Senna, Maldonado and test driver Valterri Bottas was an talking point, but saw it as an opportunity rather than a problem.

Gillan said that the new car is on schedule and looking good, “Performance trends look very encouraging.”

Williams ended the season as the slowest of the established teams. They suffered from not being able to make the most of the exhaust blown diffusers, as this was not something Cosworth was able to push hard on. With EBDs banned this year, this is one performance differentiator Williams will not be disadvantaged by.

“It (the new car) will be quite a significant improvement in performance, but that’s our goal and I’m reasonably confident that we can achieve that goal,” he said.

The news appears to put an end to Rubens Barrichello’s career in F1, spanning almost two decades. And it leaves just one seat open on the F1 grid, the second seat at HRT.

Senna was long rumoured to be favourite for the drive ahead of his fellow Brazilian, with the CEO of one of his sponsors, a Brazilian oil company, tweeting last week that he would drive for the team.

Senna did an unhappy year with HRT in 2010 and half a season with Lotus Renault GP last year, impressing on his first outing at Spa by qualifying seventh. He scored two points – his first in F1 – at the next race in Monza.

Sir Frank Williams says that his team has done a thorough evaluation of Senna’s abilities on the simulator and believes that all he needs is the right opportunity to show what he can do.

“The circumstances of Bruno’s two seasons in Formula One have not given him an ideal opportunity to deliver consistently so it was essential that we spent as much time with him as possible to understand and evaluate him as a driver, ” said Williams. “We have done this both on track and in our simulator and he has proven quick, technically insightful and above all capable of learning and applying his learning quickly and consistently. Now we are looking forward to seeing that talent in our race car.”

The presence of the name Senna on the side of a Williams Renault is going to be evocative for many fans of the sport. His uncle was killed at the wheel of a Williams and it remains the most painful episode in the team’s modern history.

“It will be very interesting to drive for a team that my uncle has driven for, particularly as quite a few of the people here actually worked with Ayrton,” said Senna. “Hopefully we can bring back some memories and create some great new ones too. I also want to get some good results in return for the support my country has given me to help get me to this position today.

The 2007 world champion has been in discussions with the team for several weeks, following a recent visit to the factory in Grove. Sources suggest that discussions are going the right way and they are now close to a deal.

It is understood that the Finn, who will be 32 next month, is keen to get back into F1 competition after two years on the sidelines in rallying. The timing is significant as Williams are on the look out for a bold move to boost the team and Raikkonen can see that the F1 driver landscape is likely to change a lot at the end of 2012 and a strong season, reminding everyone what he can do, might open some doors.

Michael Schumacher’s comeback is both a positive example, but also a warning to the Finn as it took the seven times champion some time to get up to speed. Raikkonen has kept sharp by competing in world rally for the past two seasons, but at the same time he will take a while to get fully up to speed with the Pirelli F1 tyres. All his rivals will have a year’s experience on them.

From Williams’ point of view, team boss Adam Parr will want to make a bold move after a season to forget in 2011. He has hired a new technical team, led by Mike Coughlan, with Dr Mark Gillan (who is here in Singapore) in charge of race operations and Jason Sommerville as chief aerodynamicist. His other options are to retain Rubens Barrichello, hire a known quantity like Heikki Kovalainen or go for a rookie alongside Pastor Maldonado. Or he could wait to see whether a Robert Kubica comeback might dislodge Bruno Senna from Renault. Rumours of a connection with Adrian Sutil have been firmly denied on both sides.

One thing is for sure, Williams are likely to finish 9th in the Constructors’ Championship this year and that will mean a shortfall in prize money and sponsor bonus money.

However most major sponsor contracts have a clause where they pay more if a world champion comes to the team and that may be another factor to encourage the Raikkonen move, particularly if his wage demands are reasonable.

Hiring Raikkonen would be a very bold statement from Williams as he is a world champion and an 18 times race winner. He certainly has the speed and the skills to compete with the best in F1, will certainly get some eye catching results and his name might also help attract a sponsor or two, although he is not known for being keen on promotional appearances. For F1 it would mean that there would be 6 world champions in the field of 24 drivers, which has never happened before in its 61 year history. The feeling in the paddock is that it would be a good thing, if it happens.

The possible question mark with Raikkonen is motivation; he seemed to have run out of motivation in his final season with Ferrari in 2009 and driving what is likely to be a midfield car, even if it is a regular points challenger, he will be seeking to prove a point rather than win races.

One key relationship he will not have to develop from scratch is with new Williams technical director Mike Coughlan, who worked with the Finn at McLaren from 2002 until his move to Ferrari in 2006. They know each other well.

Grosjean has had an F1 chance before, of course, in 2009 when he was drafted in by Flavio Briatore to replace Nelson Piquet Jr. It was the wrong move at the wring time, he came in with no testing, mid season and up against Fernando Alonso in the other car. He was too young, not prepared and wasn’t physically strong enough.

Now, it’s a different story. He’s regrouped, won the GP2 title at a canter and I’ve been hearing some very impressive data from engineers and tyre engineers recently about his speed and the general level he is on. It sounds like he deserves a second chance.

Watching Bruno Senna come in this weekend to the Renault team and also the ongoing discussions about F1 testing plans in 2012 has put the spotlight onto the whole idea of new blood and change and Grosjean’s name is certainly one that will figure in plans for 2012.

Grosjean was born in Switzerland, but has dual nationality and races on a French licence. There is a big push for a French driver in F1; the FIA president is French and with all its history and investment in the sport it makes no sense for the country not to be represented.

Historically French drivers have come in with support from French companies, particularly Elf. French involvement is a little thin on the ground at the moment, but Total are active in F1 and Renault supplies engines to three teams this year and four next year.

Prior to the LRGP team’s owner Genii Capital getting into business with a leading Brazilian investment firm earlier this month, it looked like Grosjean would be driving the Renault from Singapore onwards. Now Senna has his chance and the team’s intention seems to be to run him for the rest of the season, provided they can win their legal battle after Monza with sacked driver Nick Heidfeld.

The Renault Team has to play a waiting game on Robert Kubica’s fitness and the Sennas and Grosjeans will have to see how this unfolds. Williams and Team Lotus will also be using Renault engines next year so perhaps something might open up there.

“I want to go back to Formula One, of course,” said Grosjean, “But at the moment nothing has been decided. My management, LRGP or the team DAMS have been intelligent because they knew that in 2009 after the third race of the season, I was only thinking about F1. This year, I did not want to make the same mistake so I kept my focus on GP2 exclusively. I have been to the F1 paddock as little as possible to focus here. Now that we are champions, I will have a look at what is going on upstairs, but at the moment, my main concern is to find a good contract for 2012 and nothing else. At least we still have a few months to think about it. Hopefully I can get a good seat in good conditions.”

F1 isn’t well known for giving second chances, but with the opportunities for young drivers to test in F1 so limited, drivers of Grosjean’s experience are a good option.”

Another driver who needs to get into F1 now is Jules Bianchi, who hasn’t performed as expected in his two seasons in GP2. He is also French and is managed by Todt’s son Nicolas. Bianchi is Ferrari’s reserve driver and a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy.

But it’s the midfield teams which are so interesting at the moment.

Last year the top four teams were followed by Renault in fifth, then Williams, Force India, Sauber and Toro Rosso.

This year Renault has 66 points, Sauber 35, Force India 26, Toro Rosso 22. They are all reasonably close to each other on performance, either qualifying around the fringes of the top ten or, in Toro Rosso’s case, managing to get cars regularly into the points using a particular race strategy. The odd one out is Williams, with only 4 points on the board, down in 9th place in the table.

The car clearly has its difficulties, not least that in races it is quite hard on its tyres and for much of the season it has had a poor start performance, losing many places off the grid. But Pastor Maldonado has managed to qualify it in the top ten three times since Barcelona. The problem has been converting that into points. Rubens Barrichello’s two ninth places from Monaco and Canada are all the team has to show for the season so far.

I asked him over the Hungarian GP weekend whether he thought the team would be able to bridge the points gap with some strong results, as it did in the second half of last season.

“If we don’t improve the fundamental problem, if we keep on testing and experimenting then we are going to score points but not in that range,” said Barrichello. “Unless we go to a race where there are 15 cars off and you finish on the podium.

“The car has its problems. If we don’t go down under and cure the whole situation to start growing again and we keep just changing the top then it’s just like masking.

“It’s not a lack of effort that Williams isn’t bringing new things. They are bringing loads of new things, but they are not working. Last year some of them did work and then our year improved so much. Right now, we are trying new stuff and not feeling that it’s getting there.”

Last season Barrichello qualified in the top ten in nine of the last ten races and scored three top seven finishes. That’s the kind of performance Force India is showing now with its updated car.

Barrichello has been keen to volunteer to test and evaluate things, such as running without KERS in Germany to see if that helped with rear tyre issues.

And he points out that the team is actually in the fortunate position of having a new technical director, Mike Coughlan, focussed on next year’s car and the old TD, Sam Michael, working on developing this year’s car.

“We have Mike Coughlan working on next year and Sam is being paid already so we might as well use him to do something for this year. In that respect we are quite lucky. We just need to improve the damn car.”

Williams boss Adam Parr said at the start of the season that the team’s business model required them to finish in the top five or six in the championship. Currently sixth place Sauber is 31 points ahead and that looks like a very steep hill to climb from where the team is now.

The livery is quite striking and in comparison to last year’s car it catches the eye much more. The blue is darker than last year, more akin to the blue of the BMW Williams era and the accent colour is red, thanks to new sponsor PDVSA, the Venezuelan oil giant.

There is a degree more confidence about the team at the moment than we have seen for a few years. This may be partly due to needing to make everything look ship shape for the benefit of potential investors in the shares which go on sale shortly.

Today’s guests at Williams featured the unusual combination of media and potential investors. Toto Wolff, the minority shareholder in the team, was ferrying the latter around with Williams CEO Alex Burns. I got the strong impression that quite a few of the money men were German, not surprising as that’s where the company is floating, so Wolff was kept busy explaining the workings of the team.

What makes this IPO unusual is that it is not so much about raising money for the team, but a partial exit and cash out for Patrick Head. No-one would begrudge him that – as chairman Adam Parr said, Head has put in 160,000 hours to the team over the years and with not a little success. But investors don’t care about that, they just care about making a return on their investment and the team’s financial performance is the key here. With the Resource Restriction Agreement in place, controlling how much teams can spend and with revenues from FOM and sponsors like PDVSA, the company expects to make profits.

But the confidence runs deeper than that. Williams has an interesting car and it seems to be going well on track, so the target seems to be fifth in the constructors’ championship. With a rookie driver, Pastor Maldonado, (who was there today) this task is made more tricky as there has rarely been a more tough time to be a rookie in F1 and a team sacrifices points by hiring a rookie over an experienced driver.

Despite a few technical niggles, especially in Jerez, the team has covered 3,800 kilometres so far with another test to come and Michael reports that there are no problems with the car.

Michael did the technical walk through and got very excited about his car’s “tight rear end” which caused a few titters of laughter. But he took me around the back to have a look and the packaging is remarkable. The key to it is to make sure that the airflow to the lower part of the rear wing is clear, because that’s where there’s lots of downforce to be had, so the gearbox is very small and low. It wouldn’t have been possible in the days of the double diffuser, but the banning of that has opened up the possibility.

This means a more extreme driveshaft angle than has ever been attempted before on an F1 car, which is a risk. The team has done endless dyno testing on the driveshafts and so far it’s been reliable. But as Sam explained, it won’t be until the drivers start smashing the car over the kerbs at Monza that we’ll know for sure.

I’ve been to many Williams launches over the years, everything from a metaphorical three ring circus in the Rothmans days to the “here’s a cup of tea, there’s the car now clear off we’ve got work to do” kind of launch.

Today the team announced that it has joined forces with Michelin star chef Michael Caines of Gidleigh Park fame. His influence will extend to the catering at the race track so Williams is sure to be a very popular destination in the paddock. Their freeloader management strategy will have to be sharp!

There was no sign of Frank or Patrick. This was the Adam and Sam show – a new page for the team and they carried it off it well. Now it’s about getting the most out of the car on the track and picking up where they left off last season with Barrichello qualifying in the top eight and challenging for points.

Mark Webber is not in an ideal position, behind Hulkenberg on the outside of the track, while Vettel and Hamilton will be making tracks down the inside into turn one. From a championship point of view both of them need a big score today so they will feel they have nothing to lose from attacking at the start. Webber and Alonso, who starts behind him, have more to lose.

The projections are that if the start is normal with no incidents then Hulkenberg will be fighting Kubica for fifth place. His race pace is about 1.2 secs slower than Red Bull and 0.9s slower than Ferrari and McLaren.

For me the key potential battle is Hamilton against Alonso for third place behind the Red Bulls. After making a mistake in Korea, Hamilton will not want to let Alonso through here and McLaren feel they have the speed to beat the Ferrari.

Williams’ launch record is not particularly good this season and the start is made more tricky by being uphill for the first ten or so cars. This means holding the car on the brake while feeding out the clutch.

If you want to know more about how the driver controls the bite point on the clutch at the starts, here’s a video I made earlier this year with Lotus examining the steering wheel in detail.

Williams currently refuse to confirm or deny this, however they did announce this week that Maldonado will take part in the Young Driver test for Williams at Abu Dhabi next month. At 25 he is not exactly a young driver by today’s standards, but he qualifies in terms of his level of F1 experience.

Although he is understood to have access to a strong sponsor portfolio, possibly as much as €10 million a season, the team will be able to argue that it is not trading down to pay drivers, as the Venezualan Maldonado won this year’s GP2 series, as did Hulkenberg last year. However this year’s GP2 was particularly disappointing talent wise compared to previous years. The other driver to come through from GP2 this year is 20 year old Sergio Perez, who was runner up to Maldonado in the championship.

Maldonado has backing from his country, Venezuela, with state owned oil company PDVSA a long term backer. This year he also ran Venezuela branding on his car as well. Venezuela is the world’s fifth largest oil exporting nation and the country’s colourful president Hugo Chavez is backing Maldonado.

Adam Parr, who took over as team principal and chairman of Williams in July from Sir Frank Williams, was understood to be in Venezuela recently finalising the deal. Williams will presumably give Maldonado the Young Driver test and then if he is to race next season, they will need him to take part in the Pirelli test which follows in Abu Dhabi. Whether they make an announcement about the driver line up before or after that test remains to be seen. Maldonado is due to compete in the final round of the GP2 championship during the Grand Prix weekend.

Hulkenberg has something 'exceptional', says Williams (Darren Heath)

In the first nine races Hulkenberg scored just one point to Barrichello’s 19. He has scored 17 points in the eight races since then, as the improving Williams car has become a regular in the top ten in qualifying.

But looked at more closely, in the second half of the season he has been quick and has often outpaced Barrichello in races, even if he hasn’t always been able to outqualify him. Barrichello has often shaded it by a tenth or less. We’ve seen Hulkenberg develop quite impressively as a driver, but has he done enough to resist the appeal to the team of replacing him with Maldonado?

Williams had some kind words for Hulkenberg’s development, “But lately he has become very competitive and we have just seen the beginning of something exceptional.

“He’s one of those drivers a bit like Lewis, who won all the way up to Formula 3 and GP2, he has won every single championship and in the right team, hopefully us one day, he will win the world championship as well in Formula 1.”

Asked by the BBC interviewer “Do you look forward to seeing him next year?” Williams replies, “Absolutely, we do hope so, yes.”

The kind words may be aimed at Barrichello’s ears as part of a negotiating ploy. There are some factions within the team who feel he could be doing more, although he has had a pretty good season and Williams has been strong on development.

Williams is in a strong position, having a top ten car to offer and the option of Hulkenberg. The reality is that although Barrichello is the more highly paid driver, believed to be earning in the region of €5 million a year, he has scored 47 points to Hulkenberg’s 18. Williams will have an idea of what Hulkenberg could achieve next season and could safely go with Hulkenberg and Maldonado, a line up that would be similar in experience to Sauber’s next season. The pair were tea mates together in GP2 in 2009, when Hulkenberg had the upper hand. But Barrichello brings a great deal to the team not just in results but in technical development and having a winning driver in the team maintains prestige. So it looks like it may be Hulkenberg who makes way.

He will no doubt be in demand and his manager, Willi Weber, should be able to find him a decent seat.

It is yet another example, in this early part of the off season, of a structural change in the fabric of F1 teams. We have had Mercedes ending its arrangement with McLaren and buying 75% of Brawn and McLaren setting itself up as a “British Ferrari”.

Williams was set up very much like Brawn; an independent team with a private shareholder structure. Teams of this size are very well placed for the new era of F1. Then there is the Qadback deal to purchase the BMW Sauber team, which hasn’t gone through yet because the team has not been granted Toyota’s vacant slot on the grid.

It’s ironic that Williams has sold to a man called Wolff, as back in 1975 he sold his first F1 racing team to Walter Wolf, a Canadian millionaire oil man who wanted to go racing. That deal didn’t work out too well for Williams and led to him setting up Williams Grand Prix Engineering.

Williams does not want to reveal the extent of the shareholding Wolff will get, but it will appear on their next tax return in around six months time, so we will find out then. But they have resisted many offers to sell equity in the company so this is a significant move.

Williams did reveal that the sale of the shareholding followed along the lines of the split which existed between him and Patrick Head. Williams held 70% of the shares and Head the remaining 30% – so they have both reduced their holding proportionately.

Sir Frank was keen to point out that the move in no way indicated a change of strategy for the team’s management, but was simply about releasing a bit of cash for equity for himself and his long time partner.
“Nothing changes. I will continue with my role, ” said Williams. “Patrick and I are here every day and we will continue to be so. I have no desire at this time in my life to want to stop work.

“The sale is entirely for private motives. I’m 67, I’m not going to live forever. I want to take care of one or two private needs. Patrick and I have never taken a penny out of the business in four decades and it’s time I paid a few bills!”

Williams suggested that the money would be used to pay off his mortgage, but it will be interesting to see how much of it goes back into the business. When BMW left the team in 2005 Williams sold his private plane and helicopter and ploughed that money back into the team. In that time Williams was fighting hard to keep up with the spending arms race led by the manufacturers. Now, although there is no budget cap, there is a resource restriction agreement to keep costs under control.

Williams did acknowledge that he was not getting any younger. At 67 he is the world’s oldest surviving quadraplegic and his care is expensive. I had lunch with him in Abu Dhabi and a long chat in Suzuka and on both occasions he was on great form, energetic and funny, the mischievous twinkle in his eye. He didn’t look like he was about to retire.

There have been some interesting moves around Williams lately, with the sudden decision to go with Cosworth engines after a long negotiation with Renault. There has been some speculation that there is a bigger picture at work with the Cosworth move perhaps linked in some way to Williams and a third party, perhaps bringing a new manufacturer into the sport when the engine formula changes in 2013.

Wolff is the kind of character who might position Williams for the future and then broker it on, given his investments in high tech businesses like HWA in Germany, and his wider connections in the automotive field. There are suggestions that Audi might look at F1 when the new engine formula comes into play.

Who knows, it might be just a simple deal to take on a young, energetic shareholder, but given that it hasn’t happened before with Williams F1 and Frank is talking about securing the company’s future, there is a strong chance that there is more to it than that. Williams admires intellect above all else,

“He’s a very clever young man, ” says Williams of Wolff. “He has one or two investments about which he’s very tight-lipped. It’s also a method of ensuring that everyone who supports this team, namely our partners and workforce are taken care of. The present owners are taking steps to ensure that this all continues. As will inevitably happen, I’m going to get too old to do this one day. So I’d rather not rush into something at the last minute.”

Along with moves like the joint venture in Qatar to develop their composite flywheel technology for commercial use on buses and trains, Williams is very much looking to the future.

* Be sure to get your entries in to the Top Five Drivers competition. The competition will close and I will be posting the results at midnight UK time tonight.