Claire Williams Reveals why she couldn’t keep Bottas at Williams

Claire Williams recently spoke about Valtteri Bottas’ transition to Mercedes, claiming that she did all she could to help him.

Now that Bottas’ pick for Mercedes is old news, one would assume that we’d leave this story behind and move on.

Claire Williams, deputy team principle of the Williams Formula One racing team and Bottas’ former partners has opened up regarding the Finn’s transition and the teams feelings behind it.

“Valtteri has been an important part of Williams, he’s got that fiery passion that you want in a driver because all he wants to do is be in the best car and win, When you have a driver that you know that’s all they want, why force them to race your car?

That’s not the right thing to do. We stood in Valtteri’s way once, when Ferrari came along, and I made a promise to Valtteri I wouldn’t stand in his way again – I honour my promises.”

– Claire Williams

Though Williams has lost Bottas, she’s certainly not looking in his direction with any sort of regret – but rather a hefty amount of curiosity for the forthcoming season:

“He has an amazing opportunity, and it will be interesting to see how Valtteri does this year.” – Claire Williams

Bottas was ket to William’s points haul last season, he features a lot in their top 10 results of 2016:

Williams have since tapped freshly “retired” driver Felipe Massa to come back under the Williams wing for the 2017 season. Claire verbally underlined the fact that the decisions she made were not merely for the sake of honouring the agreement she had with Bottas, but to ensure that the rest of the team would flourish.

“Anyone who knows me will know I did a good deal for this team, and I would only have made that move if it was in the best interests of the team. Everyone knows how much I love this team, how important this is to me and how much I want it to get back to winning. I’m looking forward to seeing what Felipe can do – I hear that fire in his voice again. – Claire Williams

Williams head into the 2017 season with a blend of experience and youth with Felipe Massa and Lance Stroll. It’s definitely a brave line-up and the team will be aiming for points finishes immediately.