Williams F1 Miserable Fate Continues, Reports Point to Non Payment of Sponsor Money from 2018 by SMP

It can’t get any worse for the Williams F1 team, oops! Just tempted Murphy’s Law. Apparently, it can get a whole lot worse for the Grove-based team, aside from on-track struggles.

According to Moscow-based Echo Moskwa radio, one of their former sponsors left with pending payments. It all stemmed from the 2018 season when Sergey Sirotkin was racing alongside Lance Stroll in the erstwhile Williams Martini team.

The Russian driver was financially backed by SMP Bank’s motorsport programme SMP Racing. However a source from Echo Moskwa revealed that the Russian bank did not pay the team the entire promised amount.

Admittedly, the Williams F1 team is still struggling in the financial department in the 2019 season. Even a cash injection from Robert Kubica’s sponsor PKN Orlen was not enough to help them close the gap to the pack. To make matters worse, PKN Orlen has been publicly critical of the team and probably going to pull out once the Polish driver leaves at the end of the season.

The source continued: “They decided that Williams’ results were unsatisfactory and that they should not receive any more money.”

“Sirotkin wanted to continue, even with Williams. But they (SMP Racing) told him that there would be no more money.”

Speaking of Sirotkin, he is currently a test driver and pulling double duty for Renault and McLaren. He also races for SMP Racing in the World Endurance Championship. In fact, he recently competed in the Le Mans 24 Hours, sadly his car was retired after 222 laps.

Meanwhile, for the struggling Williams F1 team, they are poised to retain George Russell for next season. However, in the void left by Robert Kubica, it is increasingly clear that they will draft in Canadian driver Nicholas Latifi.