Williams wins race as F1’s slowest bill payer

Williams has emerged as the F1 team that pays its bills the slowest.

Also struggling on track in 2018, the once-great British team takes an average of 20 days past the due date before it settles outstanding invoices, the business insights company Dun & Bradstreet found.

But interestingly, it was the much bigger-budget teams of Mercedes and Renault that came in next, paying their bills just one day quicker than Williams.

A big gap to McLaren (8 days) followed, with Red Bull-owned Toro Rosso and Red Bull Racing paying bills only 1 day late. Force India and Sauber, both low-budget outfits like Williams, were the only teams to pay bills on time.

No data was available for Ferrari and Haas.

Compared to a year ago, the big mover was Force India, whose payment performance improved by 16 per cent. Williams, however, moved in the opposite direction, with a 14pc bill-paying blowout.

Deputy boss Claire Williams said recently the Grove based team has a tough road ahead, particularly with title sponsor Martini departing at the end of the year.

"We haven’t done a good enough job and we need to really dig deep if we’re going to make progress this year," she said. "It’s going to be a really tough year which is great for the fans, just not so great for us at Williams."