F1: Williams has best financial base in 10 years

Claire Williams (pictured) says her team has advanced its financial position "probably by a decade," providing it with a better platform ahead of the 2017 season.

Williams took advantage of the new power unit regulations in 2014 to finish third in the constructors' championship having been ninth at the end of the previous season. While prize money has increased as a result, Williams Grand Prix Holdings has also posted improved financial results, with the Formula 1 team seeing its pre-tax profits for the first half of 2016 rise to £4.1 million [$5m].

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Deputy team principal Claire Williams says the better financial position is due to improvements throughout the company which leave it with a strong base from which to tackle new regulations in 2017.

"Yes, our financial health is probably much stronger than it's been for a long time, probably for 10 years," Williams said when asked by RACER if the team is stronger financially than ahead of 2014. "Not just for the numbers that you see on the results but actually throughout the organization. We've got a very strong CFO [Alan Kinch] in place that we've had since 2014 that has advanced us probably by a decade when it comes to financial accounting and reporting and making sure we've got all the processes within the organization right. And very similar to a number of areas across the Williams group, prior to 2014 they weren't working in the way that they needed to or they were out of date.

"Our IT infrastructure is a prime example, we brought in a new chief technology officer and IT director and we were a decade out of date. You can't win if you're a decade out of date in your IT infrastructure. It's the same with our financial systems as well, so these new people that we've brought on board have put us in a much better financial position. That's not just from the numbers you see on the results, that's the outcome of having much better systems in place on that side of the business."

With the team having taken advantage of the last change in regulations to move up the grid, Williams is aware of the importance of getting its starting point right next year in order to be competitive for a number of years.

"That's always the concern when you've got new regulations coming in. You try and have a positive outlook on them and, particularly when you're finishing fifth or below, you want it to be an opportunity. You want to trust that you've done everything that you need to do to ensure that it is an opportunity for you, but if it's not then that's the concern. But that's not a concern for today, that will be a concern if that is the result in Australia."