Former F1 world champions staring at a $100,000,000 legal battle involving fraud and adultery claims

Former Williams F1 Racing marketing executive Claudia Schwarz had sued the team for $100m. She claimed that she was forced out of the team as they were ruining her reputation and trying to avoid paying her out of contract.

As per The Times, Schwarz claimed the team leaked her alleged affair with former chief executive Darren Fultz to a magazine, who was let go by the team after a ‘mystery investor’ in Dorilton demanded that the team’s budget be slashed due to poor on-track performance. Williams F1's former marketing executive has denied having an alleged affair with Fultz.

However, Williams F1 team are denying her claims and countering with a lawsuit of their own worth $6.9m. They claimed that Schwarz created a scheme that saw her pass work to suppliers who she had a connection with to overcharge Williams over a period north of a year.

The team also claimed that Schwarz began an affair with Fultz as a means of swaying him to approve 'inaccurate and overinflated invoices and improper credit card charges'.

Williams F1 team boss claims that the team is still on crutches despite new hiring

Williams team principal James Vowles stated that the F1 team is still struggling despite hiring Pat Fry from Alpine a few weeks back. Vowles said, as per Motorsport.com:

“We're fortunate with the team I have behind me at the moment because they are filling voids that exist. But clearly, we're on crutches. We're trying to do 10 things and it's always better if you focus on one. I'm not a strong engineer within the paddock. There are much stronger engineers than I am."

Vowles continued:

“What I am, though, is someone with a vision of where we want to get to and lead people there in that direction. People, at the moment, are very much aligned with that view. At the moment, we have a small leadership team that are cascading ideas."

"But you get an almost exponential improvement in the amount of people you put in place, the training you put in place, and the ideas, the more you have lieutenants that you trust. That’s not the case today.”

It will be interesting to see if the team's performance on the track will be hampered by the lawsuit and if it will impact the budget for the development of the car.