Williams still committed to F1 and FIA

The Grove-based outfit was the first of the current teams to lodge its official entry for the 2010 championship, and its CEO Adam Parr made it clear on Friday that his focus was solely on sticking in F1.

"Williams is an F1 team," he said during a press conference at the British Grand Prix. "That is all there is to say."

Parr acknowledged the benefits that manufacturers had brought to F1, but said that Williams had to honour commitments it made to the FIA and FOM a few years ago.

"We recognise what the manufacturers have brought to F1, tremendous status, as Frank [Williams] says, fantastic reliable engines and they have been in many cases very good friends to this team over decades," he explained.

"So it is awfully difficult to find ourselves on the other side of the fence. To some extent we are not bystanders, because that would be disingenuous, but I would say we have contracts in place with Bernie and with Max as well, and we enter the championship in light of those contracts."

Parr said that Williams would find itself unable to follow independent teams like Brawn in signing up to a manufacturer-based championship.

"I am impressed that Ross [Brawn], as of next year an independent team that has to raise money in the way we do, feels that he has the ability to do that in another championship. We simply could not," added Parr.

"There is no way we could walk away from our contracts and raise the sort of money we would need to compete with manufacturers and the Red Bulls, and so forth. So we have a mutual dependence with the FIA and with FOM, that is enshrined in contracts that we will honour."