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I want to be braver against F1 bosses - Williams

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Claire Williams says she sometimes wishes she is "braver" when fighting for her team's position within F1.

The Williams deputy team principal attends a number of meetings on behalf of the team, which is a member of F1's Strategy Group. However, the daughter of team principal Frank admits there are times she feels she does not fight hard enough against a number of the other key stakeholders within the sport.

"Our sport is very male dominated and sometimes I am the only girl in the room," Williams told the Associated Press at a Sport Industry Group event. "I sit in a room with the likes of Bernie Ecclestone, Jean Todt, Christian Horner, Toto Wolf. All these amazingly big names in our sport.

"I sometimes feel like I'm the little girl in the room ... sometimes I wish, when I'm responsible for fighting for my team and my team's position within our sport, (I'm) perhaps sometimes braver."

And Williams feels there is a state of mind within her team which needs to be changed if it is to be successful in beating the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari.

"I hate the expression 'underdog' - we have always been regarded as that. I don't think you can call a team that's won 16 world championships an underdog. One of my other missions is to try and eliminate, eradicate this badge we have of 'underdog' because I actually think it can be very demoralising for the people that work for you.

"We have 550 people and I have to try and inspire those people to go out and give blood, sweat, and tears, because that's what it takes if you are going to win in sport."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.