{"id":269735,"date":"2025-07-17T16:16:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T16:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/269735\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T16:16:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T16:16:10","slug":"claire-williams-issues-update-after-f1-return-steps-up-with-surprise-appearance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/269735\/","title":{"rendered":"Claire Williams issues update after F1 return steps up with surprise appearance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Claire Williams has thanked the Williams team and Formula 1 following her surprise return to the F1 paddock at the British Grand Prix.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As reported by PlanetF1.com<\/a>, Ms Williams joined Channel 4 as a pundit for the station\u2019s live television coverage of the British Grand Prix earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Claire Williams reflects on F1 paddock return at British Grand Prix<\/p>\n

Her appearance at Silverstone marked the latest step in her return to F1 activities following the sale of the Williams team to Dorilton Capital in 2020.<\/p>\n

Ms Williams has appeared as a talking head in the last two seasons of Drive to Survive, the hit Netflix F1 docuseries.<\/p>\n

PlanetF1.com also reported in March<\/a> that the 48-year-old had joined Santander, a sponsor of the Williams team, as an F1 ambassador.<\/p>\n

Interview: PlanetF1.com meets Claire Williams<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0The inside story of Williams\u2019 incredible start to the F1 turbo hybrid era<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Claire Williams: How Williams dream turned into a nightmare before forced sale<\/a><\/p>\n

Ms Williams reflected on her trip to the British Grand Prix by posting a series of images on social media on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The photographs showed her posing with former Williams driver and 1992 World Champion Nigel Mansell, with Ms Williams also visiting the garage of her former team and watching the race from the Williams hospitality unit in the paddock.<\/p>\n

In the accompanying caption, she wrote: \u201cEven after a week or so, I\u2019m still loving the weekend we had at Silverstone, but this has to be one of my favourite moments.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing the wonderful Nigel Mansell who is just brilliant and really sums up so much of what Williams is about for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many other lovely moments too \u2013 seeing some of my old crew from the Williams race team, where I used to sit in the garage during the sessions and meeting Vicki Butler Henderson, who I\u2019ve admired from afar for years, on stage at the Fusion Lounge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to being appointed deputy team principal in 2013, Ms Williams served as a press officer for the Williams team, working closely with Nico Hulkenberg during his debut season in 2010, which saw him set pole position for that year\u2019s Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos.<\/p>\n

Her return to the paddock coincided with Hulkenberg\u2019s first-ever podium finish on his 239th start, with the Sauber driver finishing third behind McLaren pair Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cCongratulations to Nico Hulkenberg for his first podium.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to be his press officer back in the day and was there with him for his pole in Brazil so being there for this just topped off the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cA big thank you to the Williams team and to F1 for looking after us so well.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on Williams drivers Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon from PlanetF1.com<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Carlos Sainz news<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Alex Albon news<\/a><\/p>\n

In an exclusive interview with PlanetF1.com<\/a> last year, Ms Williams admitted that she has struggled to come to terms with life without F1 since selling the team.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cI\u2019ve taken a step back from the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in Formula 1 one way or another my whole life. Not being a part of that world is clearly going to be an enormous sadness to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not running Williams, so staying away from it is probably the healthiest thing for me to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m honest, it has been really tough. Williams has been my life and one minute it\u2019s there, and one minute it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose race cars felt like a part of me. The team felt like an extension of my family and they\u2019re not there anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t get to see them each and every day. That has been really difficult to get used to.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when one door closes, another opens. That\u2019s my philosophy when it comes to life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very lucky \u2013 I have a lovely life, I have a wonderful husband, and I have a gorgeous little boy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get to spend way more time with them now than I ever would have done if I was still in the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a great privilege and a source of enormous joy for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not easy getting over Formula 1. It gets into your soul. It\u2019s not easy to say goodbye to F1.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read next:\u00a0Jules Bianchi remembered: \u2018The conditions were much worse than they looked\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Claire Williams has thanked the Williams team and Formula 1 following her surprise return to the F1 paddock…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[66073,4199,707,4200,225,12,79,16,15,4857],"class_list":{"0":"post-269735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-claire-williams","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-home-page","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-williams"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114869474715975045","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}