What Williams is risking in a 'dangerous world'

Claire Williams went to last week's launch of her Formula 1 team's 2018 programme knowing she would probably be quizzed on two subjects.

Given that this was her first public appearance since she returned from maternity leave, she anticipated questions about combining motherhood with work. She pre-empted the issue and won over the audience by saying that giving birth to her son was the "hardest thing she had ever done," joking that she didn't know why anyone would have more than one child. And she rightly pointed out that it wouldn't make any difference to how she did her job.

The second inevitable subject, and a much tougher one to address, was her team's decision to enter this season with Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin - while leaving Robert Kubica as the support act. When the questions emerged regarding Sirotkin and the role finances played in his selection, Williams was ready with a vehement defence, one already honed when talking about Stroll last year.

"We would only put talented drivers in our car," she said. "This is a dangerous business, and we are not going to put someone in the car just because they come with money. And also our decision-making process is so much more complex than just deciding to put a driver into a race car because they have some cash.

"Yes, we're an independent team, yes sponsorship is really hard to come by these days, not just for our team, but every team out there. I don't think many teams have signed new sponsors over the past few seasons in F1. So clearly if a driver has some financial backing, that's an added bonus, but that's not the foundation for a decision-making process at Williams. It's not a factor."

Technical chief Paddy Lowe was also keen to say that the driver choice was made on ability, pointing out that Sirotkin was the poster boy for the SMP Racing academy, and therefore at the top of a pyramid that includes a lot of drivers.

"The selection process we used for that race seat was incredibly exhaustive, the most exhaustive I've ever been involved with," he said. "Sergey was selected simply on merit for his driving. The engineering team know nothing about the finances, they're not involved in it, they weren't aware of any factors like that. They made the call themselves, on the data."

It was a line of defence that they both have to take - no team boss is ever going to suggest anything different. But it was not an entirely convincing one. Sirotkin may have beaten Kubica on pure lap times in that crucial Abu Dhabi test, but was he really the obvious candidate for the job when the likes of Daniil Kvyat and Pascal Wehrlein were on the market, to name but two?

Had he been drafted in to partner a Valtteri Bottas or a Felipe Massa, few observers would have raised an eyebrow. It's the fact that Sirotkin is alongside Stroll, and so the team now has two inexperienced drivers who happen to bring substantial backing, which has generated some criticism.

The point is that this is the team that paired Nigel Mansell with Nelson Piquet, and that has nearly always employed at least one outstanding driver, even when commercial issues dictated the second choice. And we would all love to see Williams returning to the sharp end of the field, something that we had a tantalising glimpse of in 2014 and '15, before it slipped back once more.

This year Williams will reap the benefits of the input of Lowe and other recent recruits, including ace aero man Dirk de Beer. Is the Stroll/Sirotkin line-up really going to do justice to their FW41 and, crucially, earn the team the points that the technical package deserves?

Stroll enjoyed a couple of great days last year in Baku and at Monza, and given that he'd come straight from Formula 3, he was bound to be on a steep learning curve. But he still has a lot of convincing to do in his second season. Lowe pointed out last week that the teenager made more first-lap overtakes than anyone else in 2017 - although a cynic could suggest that had he qualified more often where the car should have been, he wouldn't have been passing so many stragglers.

Sirotkin, meanwhile, is more qualified than some recent F1 graduates, and he's way more experienced than Stroll at this stage last year. At 22 he's amassed a lot of mileage, including five full seasons in powerful cars in AutoGP, Formula Renault 3.5, and GP2. He won races in all three, and twice finished a solid third in the GP2 championship, and is therefore well qualified to have a superlicence. Within the current restrictions he's also done a reasonable amount of F1 running with Sauber and Renault, including some grand prix practice sessions.

What we haven't seen so far is the extra spark that suggests he is a special talent who will thrive in F1. Some drivers excel when they reach the top rung and find another gear - Sergio Perez is one example of a guy with a relatively modest record in the junior ranks who, aside from his blip with McLaren, has established himself as respected F1 player. Other rookies, such as Jolyon Palmer, struggle to find any momentum when they step up. Sirotkin now has the chance to prove he's in the former group.

For the time being he's stuck with the sort of image problem surrounding driver sponsorship deals that Perez has pretty much managed to overcome.

"I think it would be incredibly naive for anyone to make that statement, saying 'He's just a pay driver,'" said Williams of her new signing. "It's great if a driver has financial interests from partners, it's great for the team, it's great for the driver.

"This is an expensive sport, not just F1 but at grass roots level as well. We'd miss out on so much talent coming into F1 if drivers didn't have financial backing through the junior formulae, and bringing them into F1. Partners want to partner drivers, because of their nationality or because of their character or gravitas in a certain market.

"It's nothing unusual. Fernando Alonso, prime example. Santander followed him around every team that he's been to. You could suggest that he's a pay driver - [although] I wouldn't do such a thing.

"I think the terminology or the vocab used around pay drivers is wrong, it's inappropriate and it's unnecessary, and I think it puts negativity around a driver that we just should not be doing in this sport any more."

Sirotkin is definitely not a Taki Inoue, and nor is Stroll. But consider the teams that Williams is likely to be fighting this year. F1 is not and never has been a level playing field, but if it were, would you put your money on Alonso/Vandoorne, Perez/Ocon, Hulkenberg/Sainz, Grosjean/Magnussen, or the new Williams duo? The team stresses that Kubica is there to add experience to the mix, but there's a limit to what he can contribute.

In a world where it's all about marginal gains, the team clearly faces a big task in 2018. It held on to fifth place last season, but dropped well behind main rival Force India relative to the previous year. Renault and McLaren clearly have much improved packages, and Williams now risks dropping to sixth or seventh or worse. And every place lost has a significant impact on future income.

That's the sort of ugly situation the team faces. It would have loved to have kept Bottas for 2017, but Mercedes' Toto Wolff made an offer that Claire couldn't refuse - it was cash in the bank, rather than a punt on future results. As budgets continue to escalate, Williams has to generate income wherever it can, and its status as a listed company puts even more pressure on financial performance.

And more than ever, with spending caps and any redistribution of F1 income by Liberty still some years away, the challenge is to balance that requirement with performance on the track.