The billionaire and bigger picture behind Nissany's Williams deal
Williams has talked up Roy Nissany's attitude as a factor in its decision to make him its F1 test driver, and played down any commercial benefits. Nevertheless, his link to a billionaire offers obvious advantages to the team as it plots a longer-term plan
When Williams announced at the end of last season that Roy Nissany would test in Abu Dhabi, the cynics were quick to suggest that this was the simple exercise of a team at the back of the grid using any opportunity it could to boost its income.
After all, selling track time for some sponsorship cash is hardly a new tactic used by Formula 1 teams up and down the grid.
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Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.
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