Williams FW38 Mercedes

[LookBackTime]

WILLIAMS RACING ‏@WilliamsRacing
The sun sets but the boys are still hard at work! Off to the bridge for FIA car checks #CanadianGP #weareracing

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[Sevach]

Some info from the Brazilian transmission, after the failure in FP1 the team decided to shelve the new wing for this weekend.

There were also some new suspension components in the car that broke with the crash, there were no spares so Massa has the old suspension for the weekend, Bottas has the new one.

[LookBackTime]

Felipe Massa's Williams F1 car missing parts after Canada crash

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.ph ... fter-crash

[LookBackTime]

Bite-size tech: Williams FW38 front wing mounting pillars

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/bite- ... ontent=www

by: Giorgio Piola, Technical Editor
Co-author: Matt Somerfield, Assistant Technical Editor
1 hour ago
Williams continues to chase the leading pack, which has now been joined by Red Bull intensifying the battle behind the Mercedes.

The FW38 follows in a lineage of Williams cars that have a low drag philosophy, albeit this has been marginalised in recent times as it looks to rectify some inefficiences in lower speed corners.

For Canada, the front wing mounting pillars have been revised, changing the movement of airflow under and around the car as they focus their efforts on a low-medium downforce configuration for the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.



Having already revised the nose back in Bahrain they initally struggled to maximise its potential and have since made changes to the turning vanes and splitter to extract performance.

However, in Canada changes to the mounting pillars show the area is still under scrutiny and small adjustments can have a bearing on the net performance of the car.

The leading edge of pillars have been reshaped, with a much taller straight edge extruding upward from the mainplane, giving a much sharper decline to the main nose structure.



In comparison, the Monaco specification features a very short straight edge before the pillars slope back to meet with the nose. Whilst a small detail it is worth noting that some small indent lines, running from the front edge of the pillar have been added too.

[Pierce89]

Bite-size tech: Williams FW38 front wing mounting pillars

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/bite- ... ontent=www

by: Giorgio Piola, Technical Editor
Co-author: Matt Somerfield, Assistant Technical Editor
1 hour ago
Williams continues to chase the leading pack, which has now been joined by Red Bull intensifying the battle behind the Mercedes.

The FW38 follows in a lineage of Williams cars that have a low drag philosophy, albeit this has been marginalised in recent times as it looks to rectify some inefficiences in lower speed corners.

For Canada, the front wing mounting pillars have been revised, changing the movement of airflow under and around the car as they focus their efforts on a low-medium downforce configuration for the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

http://cdn-1.motorsport.com/images/mgl/ ... detail.jpg

Having already revised the nose back in Bahrain they initally struggled to maximise its potential and have since made changes to the turning vanes and splitter to extract performance.

However, in Canada changes to the mounting pillars show the area is still under scrutiny and small adjustments can have a bearing on the net performance of the car.

The leading edge of pillars have been reshaped, with a much taller straight edge extruding upward from the mainplane, giving a much sharper decline to the main nose structure.

http://cdn-1.motorsport.com/images/mgl/ ... detail.jpg

In comparison, the Monaco specification features a very short straight edge before the pillars slope back to meet with the nose. Whilst a small detail it is worth noting that some small indent lines, running from the front edge of the pillar have been added too.

Somerfield is a joke. He came to f1t, learned a few big words from our members, and throws them around to write bs drivel.
A quote from his current Mclaren front wing article:

"Meanwhile, the split that was added to the upper flap has been removed and will change the vorticity of the vortex shed from the Y250 juncture."

[Sevach]

Terrible weekend for Felipe, but a great one for the team overall, the car was able to keep up with Ferrari(the Kimi one) and Red Bull, and beat them through better strategy.

About the rear wing i hope it isn't a total write off and whatever failed can be corrected, but the team needs to pay more attention to DRS functionality in the future, this isn't the first time.

[LookBackTime]

Looks like Massa's car had a water leak. So probably the engine will be fine.

[Sevach]

Given what i heard on TV, Bottas have new stuff on the rear suspension (don't know if there were matching parts in the front, Brazilian TV is always focussed on the "look what happened to poor Massa"), 3 things i noticed from the Canadian GP.
Granted, big possibility i'm overreacting from the top of armchair.

1-The car was riding the final chicane with great confidence, which i don't think it was the case before.

2-Bottas was blasting away from Rosberg out of the hairpin, like seriously blasting away, like he had 50 more horses
Rosberg could never get close enough to attempt anything, traction looks good =D>

3-Bottas had better tire usage than anyone not named Lewis Hamilton.
Even compared to him it was pretty similar, Hamilton is just faster of course.

And Bottas did that while getting into fights with Ricciardo, Raikkonen and Rosberg =D>


Negatives?
The front end still looked "bad", little lockups everywhere, a little struggle to hit apexes, that sort of stuff...
Doesn't look anywhere near grippy and responsive as the top 3.


Edit: Corroborating my views of good traction and curb riding, there's the fact that in Qualy Bottas was 3 tenths quicker than Felipe in S3 alone(aka hairpin>long straight>final chicane).

Felipe was 2 tenths faster through S1+S2 (most in S1, 0.15), so extra grip in the rear might've made the car understeer more.

[LookBackTime]

[bill shoe]

2-Bottas was blasting away from Rosberg out of the hairpin, like seriously blasting away, like he had 50 more horses
Rosberg could never get close enough to attempt anything, traction looks good =D>

Every team was blasting away from Mercedes out of the hairpin. Merc apparently chose to compromise their car there in exchange for a gain someplace else. Both Merc drivers had to take a very large, round arc thru that corner instead of pinching down at the apex and powering off sooner in a straight-ish line.

Certainly agree with the rest of your observations. Let's hope Williams produce more of those magic suspension parts in time for Massa at Baku.

[Sevach]

2-Bottas was blasting away from Rosberg out of the hairpin, like seriously blasting away, like he had 50 more horses
Rosberg could never get close enough to attempt anything, traction looks good =D>

Every team was blasting away from Mercedes out of the hairpin. Merc apparently chose to compromise their car there in exchange for a gain someplace else. Both Merc drivers had to take a very large, round arc thru that corner instead of pinching down at the apex and powering off sooner in a straight-ish line.

Certainly agree with the rest of your observations. Let's hope Williams produce more of those magic suspension parts in time for Massa at Baku.

That may be the case, Rosberg was nothing special indeed, Verstappen also could open a somewhat decent gap before Mercedes power and DRS reeled him in, but i'm still very impressed with Bottas traction out of the hairpin.

To me it looked like Bottas was blasting even further away then Verstappen was.

Granted this might be due to some overlapping between "traction phase" and "full power phase", but still...