W Series has one week to save season after investor pulls out

The W Series will make a decision next week on whether it can finish its season due to financial issues, after a major investment deal collapsed.

CEO Catherine Bond Muir was in San Francisco over the past week trying to save the deal, which is now likely to become a legal issue as an investor failed to follow through on a signed contract. However, the funding shortfall it has left the series with means there is uncertainty over whether the final two rounds in Austin and Mexico can be completed.

“We’ll have to make a decision next week,” Bond Muir said. “This has all happened so quickly that at the moment we are trying to plug the gap, and then once we do that… Obviously in your head you’re making various contingencies, but I don’t really want to say what’s going to happen because I don’t know what the position is at the moment.

“I’m working very hard. I had one hour’s sleep last night because I was speaking with both London and America.

“This isn’t the most unusual circumstance that I’ve found myself in. We’ve struggled from the word go. You know the stories about women’s sport – the female rugby players go in economy while the men go in first class – there’s only parity in tennis because Billie Jean King’s been fighting for 50 years for it.

“So I have no doubt that in the future it will be a lot easier for us, but I think it’s not just a motor sport issue, I think it’s a female in sport issue.

“The reason why it just came to a head was that I was in San Francisco at the weekend and money that was contracted to come in, didn’t come in.

“No-one realised that we were looking for funding in the way that we were”

“We are speaking to a huge number of people – which is why I’m not sleeping very much – to get more money in and I am reasonably confident that that will happen. I hope that the two races will go ahead.”

Bond Muir spoke to the 18 drivers who are racing in the series on Wednesday and says the support has been a major positive to come out of the situation, with many talks now ongoing to try and ensure the championship can continue.

“They’ve been just unbelievable. I spoke to the drivers two days ago and it was a bit of a cry-in! They were 100% supportive. Everyone was very upset, this means so much to everyone and I’ve had from them just unbelievable messages of support.

“The upside of it is that people have come out of the woodwork. No-one realised that we were looking for funding in the way that we were, so we had advisors that were based in the States and we were predominantly looking in the US. So unquestionably while this isn’t a happy or great experience it’s actually helped us quite a lot.”

The Singapore round of the championship is due to go ahead as scheduled, with Jamie Chadwick on the verge of winning a third straight title this weekend. The series comes with significant prize money, but Bond Muir is less concerned about that being in jeopardy, adding: “That’s a longer period of time so I’m even more confident about that.”