I read somewhere when you were at school, you had no thought of this type of life. You either wanted to be a wife and a mother or you were waiting for the call from God. Of course, a lot of people in this paddock think they are God so I suppose you get that call quite often.
I was terrified because I went to an all-girls convent school and the nuns, when we asked them why they became nuns replied that they got the call in the middle of the night. They used to freak us out terribly. They’d say, “You get woken in the night and God’s there and he says ‘You have to be a nun’” so we were all terrified. I spent eight years of my life at St Mary’s praying that I wouldn’t get that midnight calling. I don’t think I’d be a very good nun!
You kindly sent us a photo of you aged...?
I must have been about four.
...and Jonathan Palmer appears to be bending your dad’s ear. What can you remember...? Did you come to races quite regularly as a little girl?
No, not at all. I know my first race was the ‘79 British Grand Prix, because I asked my dad, so the first race I went to was also the first race Williams ever won which I quite like. But no, we didn’t go often. We got to go to Silverstone for the British Grand Prix as our treat and that was it. And I remember we were taken to Zandvoort a couple of times when we were very little.
©ClaireWilliams
When you say ‘we’, you mean your brother came along as well?
And Mum, because Mum wasn’t allowed to come to races either! Dad has always been of the opinion “No-one else takes their family to work so why should I?” It’s true. He never needed the distraction. We all bought into that. It was Dad’s job and he didn’t want his family around. But the world was a very different place then to what it is now and I think it’s lovely that now, Felipe (Massa) brings his wife and child and dad and this is a family team so it’s important to me now that we have families around and I love nothing more than that - having family around. I think it’s important.
Did you realise that your dad did something a bit strange for a living compared to your friends at school?
I did but it didn’t really enter my consciousness until probably my teens and it was only when people at school said, “Your dad is quite special” and I was treated a bit differently. Before that, when I was at prep school, I used to get the bus every morning. It was a girls’ prep school but we shared the bus with Abingdon Boys’ School and they knew what my dad did and typical me, I would always sit with the boys at the back of the bus while all my girl friends were at the front and we’d be talking about motor racing and this was when we were seven, eight, nine years old and I used to love it because I felt a bit special. This coincided with Williams’ real glory years in the 90s and I began to realise what my dad did and the boys on the bus would single you out and want to talk to you because your dad is a Formula 1 boss.
"I used to love Nigel. I used to have quite a lot of crushes on drivers."
A good way of meeting boys then.
Yes, it was.
Did you have any favourite drivers when you were a young girl?
I used to love Nigel. I used to have quite a lot of crushes on drivers. Stefan Johansson I had a big crush on. Had a big crush on Ayrton. Had a big crush on Riccardo Patrese. Most of them really! Mum and Dad always put them on a pedestal, if they ever came round to the house. They used to entertain drivers if they were trying to get them to come to Williams so they were always revered and they were always treated as these heroes so still sometimes now, I find it’s weird being a driver’s boss, because I’m still trying to work out that relationship where I’m not the 14-year-old girl with a crush on them. I’m their boss so it’s quite a weird change of dynamic really. All the same, even now I think what these drivers do is amazing.
Do you also find it odd having been a press officer, when your job was to tell members of your team what they should say and how they should say it? Do you sometimes hear yourself answering a question and think,“Oh, my God, that’s a real PR answer I’m giving”?
I’m probably more aware of it than others. After any interview and there’s something maybe on the agenda that’s difficult to discuss, I’m straightaway worrying what a journalist is going to be printing because I’ve had that coalface experience, I suppose. I know that a headline can be written by somebody else and think, “what’s going to happen now?” When we did our annual report last year, we had great results after a really tumultuous time at Williams but the headline used by one paper didn’t reflect that. The journalist had asked me, “Is Frank ever going to retire?” And I said, “No way. We’ll walk into his office one day and he’ll have his head on his desk and that’ll be it, that’ll be him gone.” So what’s the headline from our annual results? It’s that – ‘Frank found on desk.’
So always after interviews, I’m always thinking what are they going to do with that? Because it’s quite exposing being in this position so I do always worry because I can be a bit too open and a bit too honest and try and be funny sometimes and actually, I have to tone it down a bit. I try and temper my honesty away a little bit in interviews and that’s when the press officer side of me comes out.
So you’re a bit on your guard?
Yes, I think you have to be a little bit because you’ve got to represent your team in the best way that you can and you’re representing not only your team but all your partners as well, so you have to be a bit more professional rather than trying to be very open.
