Williams' long-time technical chief Patrick Head has announced that he will step away from the Formula 1 arm of the company next year.
Head was team founder Frank Williams' right-hand man from the late 1970s through the team's multi-title-winning glory days of the 1980s and 90s.
He began to scale down his involvement in recent years, and from 2012 will focus on the company's burgeoning hybrid techology arm.
"I am not going to be directly part of the Williams Formula 1 programme next year," Head confirmed to Reuters.
Williams have just endured their worst season in decades, ending 2011 ninth in the constructors' standings with just five points to their name, having never finished above ninth all year.
Head said he would have preferred not to be moving on from the team at such a tough point, but felt the new technical regime installed during the year had all the skills required to revitalise Williams.
"I certainly didn't have an ambition to stop my involvement in Formula 1 with a season like this last one we've had behind us," said Head.
"But when I have a look at what specifically I can do to assist Mike Coughlan and Mark Gillan and Jason Somerville, I came to the conclusion that it isn't really enough to justify me carrying on doing the same thing.
"It's not interesting for me and it's not good for the company so I decided to have a change of focus, that's all."
But he warned that even though he had a lot of faith in Williams' new line-up, they would not be able to turn the team around overnight.
"I certainly think those three people are good and I'm quite certain they will lift the capability of the company upwards," said Head.
"But we've fallen into quite a poor level, quite a long way to go.
"It's not going to happen over a one-year cycle."