What Adam Parr did next

Adam Parr's departure as Williams chairman was as abrupt as it was surprising. Speaking publicly for the first time since he left in this interview with AUTOSPORT's sister publication F1 Racing, he reveals some of the machinations behind his exit and also the novel means he's found of filling his time...

Published Jan 12, 2013, 7:25 PM

High on the south bank of the idle Loire, in a postcard-perfect small French town, a former F1 team boss, recently departed from the fray, leans back on a chair in his study. It's a simple space, open to the garden via a French door, on the threshold of which, a chicken is using its pea-sized brain to assess the risk-reward ratio of hopping inside.

The ex-boss is briefly amused by the indecision of his poultry, but not distracted from a line of thought prompted by a question about the shelves of historical military literature that line the walls. There's a tome on Stalin, Chris Bellamy's Absolute War, Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes and dozens more, amid volumes on business management (Competitive Advantage by Michael E Porter) and a Greek-English lexicon.