Claire Williams: Am I the right person to be doing this job?

Speaking to The Sun, Claire Williams admitted, "Of course I think about walking away. Anyone with a team in this position would but it’s not because I can’t be bothered any more."

"I question whether I’m the right person to be doing this job. But I haven’t got to the point where I look in the mirror and think I’m the problem. If people are criticising me in the paddock or on social media, they can do that all they like."

"But if anyone in Williams says to my face that I was damaging the team, then I would go. Until then, I have much more I can do and I won’t give up. We are 10th and I hold my hands up. It is up to us to fix it."

"It’s a hard process and it is humiliating. We go out every weekend — the Williams spirit is with us and we’ll keep fighting. I had a big discussion with dad a few months ago and he was a lot more supportive than I thought he was going to be."

"I thought he was going to say: Oh my God, what are you doing! but he didn’t. He was very philosophical and said: Claire, we’ve had shitty times before and got through it. You have to keep pushing."

"I want to impress him because he entrusted this job to me. I don’t want to embarrass my dad or bring his team down. That would be horrendous."

Williams also gave insight into becoming a mum in her forties, “Having a baby was pretty tough for me. I agonised over it for many years. I was 41 when I had Nate but it was always delayed because it was never quite the right time at Williams. It got to the point where it was now or never."

“I vaguely knew what to expect, the guilt of being away from him, but it doesn’t make it any easier — yet this team is part of my family as much as Nate is. I am finding a balance but it doesn’t mean that when I have to leave him my heart doesn’t break a little bit.”

There was talk at some point, when the team's fortunes began their freefall, that Mercedes were keen to create a B-team out of the Grove outfit, but Williams did not buy intoi the plan, "We’re tremendously proud and protective over our position within this sport. We have earned that."

“We have raced in F1 for over 40 years and many people have made sacrifices for this team. But the collaborations we see now, we have to explore those. We don’t want to be dinosaurs, the once-giant of F1 who refused to change and adapt.” added 42-year-old Williams.

The team have not won a race since she was appointed deputy team principal five years ago. Williams last scored a victory at the 2010 Spanish Grand Prix with Pastor Maldonado. Since then they have scored only 14 podiums.

In 1997, Williams scored the last of their 16 world titles with Jacques Villeneuve doing the business, partnered by Heinz-Harald Frentzen they scored 14 podiums that season - the Canadian winning eight times that year and Frentzen bagging a solitary victory.

This year the team can sink no lower, with two inexperienced drivers in Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin the team under technical chief Paddy Lowe have produced an awful car that has sunk the team to its lowest level, with little light at the end of the tunnel.

Waiting in the wings, should Claire step down, is her brother Jonathan who runs the heritage part of the Williams business and was overlooked to be deputy team principal in 2013 when his sister was appointed instead.