Parr reveals reason behind Williams split

Adam Parr has revealed that differences with Bernie Ecclestone played a key role in his departure from Williams earlier this season.

Parr had been hotly tipped as the man to one day replace Sir Frank Williams as head of the Grove-based team, but instead stood down from his role as team chairman in late March and walked away from the sport.

At the time, the team said that Parr had stepped down to spend more time with his family, but in a new book 'The Art of War: Five years in Formula One', he has instead revealed that differences with commercial rights holder Ecclestone were instead a major factor.

"I had resigned that week, rightly or wrongly believing that Ecclestone had told my board that no Concorde offer would be forthcoming while I was running Williams," he wrote in the book, delivered in a comic book format. "Under the circumstances, I chose to stand down so that the team could make the best deal possible with him. The offer arrived the day after my resignation had been announced."

Expanding on his comments in an interview with Reuters, Parr said his aim with the book was to explain more about some of the major issues currently affecting F1.

"The final event of my time in Formula One is not the most significant," he said. "I think the things that I was fighting for, and the team was fighting for, are fundamentally important and they are not going to go away just because I've gone.

"There is an absence, it seems to me, in the sport of reasoned and deep debate about how things should go."