Calan Williams’ unique journey to Formula Two and the funding challenges behind it

If horse racing is the sport of kings, then Formula motor racing is the kingdom of millionaires. The top drivers are swimming in money and drenched in endorsements, the team owners are wealthy beyond comprehension and the championship itself is the world’s most extravagant travelling circus, pulling in revenue of close to a billion dollars per season. While the celebrity driver needs to have the skills, they also need substantial financial backing to work their way up the pyramid. It is what makes the situation of new Formula Two driver Calan Williams so unique. The Perth-born-and-bred 21 year-old does not come from money in same way of some of the Formula 1drivers whose ranks he wishes to join the ranks. Williams’ father Greg is the State manager of a not-for-profit who doubles as the managing director for Calan Williams racing —the business side of the enterprise — while his mother Jenny is a TAFE lecturer. It pales in comparison to the upbringing of say, McLaren F1 star Lando Norris, whose father was ranked as the 501st-richest person in Britain by The Times in 2016. And Williams’ background is a world away from Aston Martin F1 driver Lance Stroll, the son of the team’s part-owner Lawrence, whose net worth was estimated to be worth $US3 billion by Forbes in February last year. There are two sides to Williams’ career. On one hand there is what we see on race day — the determination and the undoubted talent which has earned him one of just 22 seats in next year’s Formula Two. And then there is the other equally important element, the one which make the wheels go round and keeps Williams’ car on the track: money. While elite athletes in most sports can go far with the ingredients of talent and hard work, motorsport requires more than a dollop of money for that sweetness and extra tang. Unlike F1, F2 and F3 drivers are in a uniquely precarious position because they have to pay their way into the paddock; if the financial river runs dry, they are in trouble. “The model really is that the budget required to run the whole operation, the drivers need to source,” Williams’ father said. The younger Williams said money was a pre-requisite, rather than just a helping hand, for being able to excel at the sport. “You have to be talented, you have to be committed, but you also have to have financial backing,” he said. “It’s almost like another attribute you have to have. If you want to succeed, you just have to accept it and do what you can.” Williams said the costs were constant — be they associated with the car itself, or involved in lugging everything with him from race to race. “Not only do the cars burn through an incredible amount of fuel, but the fuel itself is also really expensive, because it’s special fuel,” he said. “Travel, staying in hotels, everything sort of adds up. It’s a lot of money and even just running the car, and having everyone in the team around, they all need to be paid as well. “There’s costs everywhere. I think the FIA is working on trying to cut some costs, but, you can only do that certain extent; it’s always going to be expensive.” In a 2015 interview with Forbes, Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team principal Toto Wolff estimated a season in F2 cost drivers around $US5-8 million. “It’s not possible to bring that cost down because it has become a business so you need to have a sugar daddy or a rich daddy,” Wolff told Forbes. Williams Sr confirmed his son’s budget for the upcoming season was “in the millions” and just as there were two sides to Williams’ success, there were two streams to the business model which funds his career. His father said sponsorships were a key cog in the machine, and had been since his son was still a pre-teen tyro, tearing up the track at Tiger Kart Club. “We worked out very early, if he was going to be good, we would need to have a business model beside him, so in the beginning we developed and grew our sponsorship base,” he said. “But if you’re starting that with someone who’s seven years old, it’s very hard to build a profile around someone who doesn’t even know who they are yet. “So we invested in a really nice trailer, and we sold sponsorship space on the trailer and that allowed Calan to actually grow up with sponsors as a part of the whole exercise it and and become used to it.” But in 2018, when Williams bid adieu to Australia and headed to Europe to pursue his F1 dream, the costs associated were so astronomical, relying purely on sponsors was no longer viable. “When Calan was making the step from Australian Formula Three to European Formula Three, the budget required was eight times,” Williams said. “Even though we had doubled the sponsorship budget each year, it needed something else to make that jump.” The Williams family put their heads together and as many a person has done so in a time of desperate financial aid, turned to crowd-funding. They developed an investment program, enticing would-be backers to become part of the Williams story by funneling funds into his bank account to financially support him. The trade-off is high-risk, but high-reward; if Williams one day reaches the pantheon of F1 racing, and with it the sizeable salary of being one of the world’s top drivers, a percentage of his earnings will go back into the pocket of his investors. “Being a part of it is about being part of the story and sharing the experience, but also about sharing in any financial rewards that come from it,” Williams’ father said. “So from a point where Calan is earning Formula 1 income, our investors not only have been a part of the journey to get there, but they share in that income.” In the 2021 season, Scuderia AlphaTauri young gun Yuki Tsunoda was believed to be the lowest-paid driver on the F1 grid, and even he raked in an estimated $500,000 per year, not including sponsorship. In short, should Williams ever secure a seat in the Formula 1 for even a couple of years, his backers would reap the rewards. One such supporter is his lead investor and a man who knows a thing or two about the finances of running a sports team — Fremantle Dockers’ president Dale Alcock. A teenage Williams wrote to Alcock five years ago, politely asking for financial support — to which he received an equally polite letter of rejection. “Greg then rang me and wanted to catch up and again, I said to him, ‘I’m happy to chat, but the answer is no’. Out of that, here we are, five years later,” Alcock said. Alcock helped the family develop the investment program, and was quickly won over. “They’ve got a son who happens to have chosen the most expensive sport in the world, and he’s good at it. So why should he be denied?” he asked. Describing his role as a “passion project”, Alcock said his role involved twisting the arm of WA’s wealthiest to get behind Williams in the way he had done and he said now, more than ever, was time to strike while the iron was hot. “The closer you get to the target, it’s like getting close to a furnace and it’s getting hotter and hotter,” he said. “He’s within 22 seats of F1, but it’s intense. F2 is double the cost of F3 and it’s cut-throat, but you’re only down to 22 drivers. “We’re really at a point now that would be calling on a lot more sponsors-investors to come on board, because the way I see it, we’ve got about a two-year window to get him into F1.” An awful lot of effort has gone into keeping Williams afloat on tour, and even more will be needed to help him progress. And the man himself does not let a day go by where he is not grateful for the support of his family, friends and wealthy well-wishers. “A lot of my parent’s work has been trying to branch out and connect with people who do have the financial ability to support me and also have the connections to grow,” he said. “Whether they’re investors or sponsors, without them I’d be nowhere and so having such a group of people around me who are all following me and want me to succeed, it’s a lot of people making this work. “I’m just the figurehead who drives the car; a lot of the work comes from everyone around me, and I can’t say how appreciative I am for that.”