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Formula Sprint 2
Japanese Grand Prix
Suzuka International Racing Course
Tuesday 2nd of April 2024 19:00:00
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April 21, 2011
Published on tags: Superleague
Amid a whirlwind of media controversy surrounding the team in the past 24 hours, the European Williamson Dynamics Grand Prix team rolled in Shanghai earlier today in full strength.

Despite uncertainty over the future of the outfit the team's head of race engineering, Tom Eley, insisted to the gathered media that the weekend would be "business as usual" for the outfit, one of the surprise packages of an enthralling 2011 superleague season. True to his word a full contingent of no less than four state of the art race transporters and the ever impressive WD motorhome were present, showing the team may be suffering in the boardroom, but finances and form are in fine health.

"The aim for the weekend is to keep the team focussed on the job at hand. People are going to be talking about recent announcements, and we are prepared for the issue to come up during TV coverage of the event. But what should concern us is racing, no matter who is listed as team principal, our drive and commitment do not change, neiter does anybody's job description."

When asked about expectations for the weekend, Eley went on to add; "We're quietly confident. Discussions have taken place and Tim Wagner will be racing as planned which certainly helps with consistency. we are prepared for a potential drop in performance compared to our main rivals as we are one of a few teams who will not be bringing an upgrade package to the car for this round. We decided to hold of and do things right instead of rushing parts for the car, so the new updates will not be fitted until practice at the next round, but we do feel the gains are there and the CFD figures are exciting. If we can gain a few tenths we'll be delighted as presuming non eof our rivals bring any huge updates between now and then, we feel it could improve our odds for taking a maiden podium which would be the morale boost we've been looking for."

Team Principal Ben Williamson is a noted absence from this event, skipping this round for crisis talks with other shareholders and board members of the team. The future of the team still clouded in mystery however speculation is rife on potential takeover candidates which include a consortium of former WD drivers in conjunction with Silverline Racing, a handover of power internally to a current team member and a buy-out by team co-owner Marco Vandenbroeck's VDB Motorsport.

Vandenbroeck is the team's only other majority shareholder in what was once a Williamson Dynamics wholly owned works team, the Belgian was unwilling to comment in Shanghai, but is believed to be involved in WD's race preperations in addition to his role as Computrac Motorsports team principal.

WD's fans have been forthcoming with messages of support for the outift, which has always enjoyed a good reputation within sim racing and drawn plenty of affection from fans across the series. Many have come forward to express regret at the possible disappearance of the team, especially after showing exciting form in it's debut season, WD managed to resist takeover bids and amalgamation offers from a number of sim racing behemoths including Precision Motorsports and DHR-GP. the team themselves instead choosing to expand, saving fan favourite outfit Orangetech Racing from the scrapheap in the 2010 season and running the squad under licence from team owner and former WD driver Gregg Lawson. A pre-season evaluation almost saw the deal with Lawson extended, however this was later abandoned in light of WD closing down 2 of it's own feeder teams to streamline the operation.

What remains clear is that all in the team are hopeful this new controversy is not the biggest news linked to the team in Shanghai.