Williams GP 2011

[tjaeger]

I wonder if Williams will ever make it back to the top. I wish that the old duo would have allowed some younger, eager engineers to come in and bring in some fresh blood, approach. Every year they appear to be not able to making the move up.
Do you guys think the High nose cone is the way to go with year? I know it is done to feed as much as possible air underneath the car and under the diffusor, but with no DDD this year, maybe that is overshooting?

[tjaeger]

What do you guys make or Rubens. I like him as a person, but even tough he did have a no. 2 contract at Ferrari, when chances came along he did not quit cut it. Think he overrates himself.
When he made it over the Honda, finally, he did not quite drive his teammate into the ground, right? Neither he managed to do so at Brawn and so forth. However, he always seems to be quite quick complaining, whining, how unfair he is treated everywhere he goes...
I think they should have kept 'Hulkenberg'.

[djos]

Rubens is prolly one of the best Development and Race drivers to ever enter F1, it's why he's still going and why Williams are on an upswing imo.

Hulk may be a good race driver but Rubens ability to develop the car and get the boffins pointed in the right direction is why he is worth his weight in gold!

[raymondu999]

Yup. Maybe all this time the Williams was actually decent, but the development was in a very wrong direction, and Rubens gave them direction

[djos]

Yup. Maybe all this time the Williams was actually decent, but the development was in a very wrong direction, and Rubens gave them direction

The way I hear it, even since they started using the new wind tunnel in BMW's last year the results have never matched up with reality and that was one of Mark Webber's issues in that they wouldn't listen to him and he got sick of their "shut up and just drive the car" attitude.

For whatever reason they actually payed attention to Rubens (coming from 2 winning teams must give you extra credibility) when he told them the same thing and have been slowly improving ever since.

[adrianjordan]

Yup. Maybe all this time the Williams was actually decent, but the development was in a very wrong direction, and Rubens gave them direction

The way I hear it, even since they started using the new wind tunnel in BMW's last year the results have never matched up with reality and that was one of Mark Webber's issues in that they wouldn't listen to him and he got sick of their "shut up and just drive the car" attitude.

For whatever reason they actually payed attention to Rubens (coming from 2 winning teams must give you extra credibility) when he told them the same thing and have been slowly improving ever since.

It probably didn't hurt that while he was at HondaF1 they also had windtunnel/real-world correlation issues so he's been through this before.

[BreezyRacer]

It probably didn't hurt that while he was at HondaF1 they also had windtunnel/real-world correlation issues so he's been through this before.

I think that many teams have this problem, including McLaren. It explains why so few of their "advancements" work out of the box. Conversely, this very thing is Red Bull's ace in the hole. Newey has had full control to create a system that's fully synced up and Webber is quite proud of the fact that they can rely on every little change they make working out of the box.

Just imagine all the wrong turns you can make if your in house test results don't correlate with "at the track" performance.

I would say that Ferrari also do well, along with lesser teams Force India and now Torro Rosso.

[Giblet]

This thread is a holding pen for orphaned Williams posts from the car thread.

[volarchico]

Can it be moved with the rest of the "Team" threads in the "General Chat" section then? Or can we create a sub-category for "Formula One teams" similar to "Formula One cars" and "Formula One races"?

[Just_a_fan]

Or can we create a sub-category for "Formula One teams" similar to "Formula One cars" and "Formula One races"?

Gets my vote.

[myurr]

Errr Head founded Williams F1 alongside Frank. He didn't buy into it fairly recently, he gave his life to that team. Frank Williams was also a mechanic as well as a driver.

[connollyg]

History of Williams GP

On February 8, 1977 Williams Grand Prix Engineering was founded with Williams and Head taking seventy and thirty percent of the company respectively.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_F1

and Frank Williams

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Williams

I have read Frank's book and he is one tenacious guy!

[Sayshina]

A: I read somewhere that Head bought something just under 50% recently, as in the last decade. I wasn't aware he had been a minority owner prior to that.

B: I don't see how it does anything to invalidate my original point, which is that the vast majority of owners and managers of all sports teams tend to have management experience and no technical experience.

Paul Allen has owned both a pro basketball and a pro american football team. The guy is 5' nothing and pudgy. If he ever played either game in his life it was in gym class. THAT is the prototypical sports team owner, NOT Ross Braun. And that was what I was saying to begin with.

[Richard]

my original point, which is that the vast majority of owners and managers of all sports teams tend to have management experience and no technical experience.

Paul Allen has owned both a pro basketball and a pro american football team. The guy is 5' nothing and pudgy. If he ever played either game in his life it was in gym class. THAT is the prototypical sports team owner, NOT Ross Braun. And that was what I was saying to begin with.

err... we're talking about F1 here, not all sports. I refer to my earlier post that nearly all F1 team principals have a technical background. Also Horner is no Paul Allen. Horner won a Formula Renault scholarship in 1991, competed in the 1992 British Formula Renault Championship with Manor Motorsport, and finished that season as a race winner and the highest placed rookie.

Check your facts first!

[connollyg]

According to Pitpass http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_ ... t_id=42908

Patrick Head to retire this year according to Williams banker
07/02/2011
Further information about the background to the Williams flotation is leaking out and thanks to Pitpass' business editor Chris Sylt we have the latest details right here.

If a company wants to float it has to disclose a huge amount of financial information and the first details which have trickled out relate to who will be providing the shares which will be floated.

In a press release on Friday Williams revealed that 27.39% of its shares will be floated on the Frankfurt stock exchange with trading to begin on 2 March. The team's co-founders Sir Frank Williams and Patrick Head currently own 63% and 27% of the business respectively with 10% in the hands of former Sports car driver Christian Wolff.

So, who will be giving up the 27.39%?

According to one of the bankers involved with the float preparations, the majority of the floated shares will come from 64 year-old Patrick Head who wants to retire at the end of this year. It all becomes clear.

In 2009, Head sold 3% of his shares to Wolff and a float could give him a well-timed payout before retirement. However, it would leave the team without Head as its engineering director which could have a significant effect on its race performance. Given that the race performance could affect the share value in the short and long term one would have thought that Williams would want to confirm directly who is providing the shares which will be floated and why.

At least we know now.