Williams Martini Racing has finally confirmed Valtteri Bottas will race with the team for a fifth consecutive season, with Lance Stroll making his Formula One debut alongside him for the 2017 FIA Formula One World Championship.
This forum contains threads to discuss teams themselves. Anything not technical about the cars, including restructuring, performances etc belongs here.
Mr Brooksy wrote:Embarrassing is the word that was going through my mind watching my boys trundle around with the Toro Rossos, Force India's, Haas and McLaren's.
Racing Mclaren and Force india is not embarrassing, each team has their own strengths, Mclaren and force india were genuinely stronger than williams in Austria, No team has the divine right to finish ahead of the competitor in the race always.
Perez would have taken P6 from button if not for massa going defensive during their fight for P9 and P10, Bottas had absymal pace even after he pitted for new set of tyres.
It is worrying, how Smedley and Massa talk about competing with Red Bull during races suitable to Fw-38, before the GP weekends. After the weekend, being soundly beaten not only by Red Bull but also by Force India and emerging McLaren, they have nothing more to say, that the pace wasnt there. For me, it just sounds like they cannot exctract more performance from the car. From the other hand, it is natural that they have extracted maximum from the Fw-36 (the basis for the Fw-37 and Fw-38) family tree and know face the consequences, because Ferraris and Red Bulls better chassis are not anymore holded back by vastly inferior engines.
Although, I am happy with their top-notch pit-stops and racing strategy. Compared to the previous seasons, they have made a couple of steps forward in these directions.
Its strange at Williams, I thought last year they were just happy to be behind the Mercs and Ferraris. Maybe they thought it would be the same case this year and didn't develop enough etc?
Symonds and Smedley have said earlier this season, that development work on Fw-38 is ended, but the developed new parts will be introduced during the remaining season. However, they also said that the next car will follow the same design philosophy. Theres nothing wrong in working with a design you know well, but I following the same philosophy wount help them closer to the top.
FormulaSpy.com @formulaspy
Williams says it's too early to say drivers for next year. Doesn't foresee announcement in immediate short term. #F1 #BritishGP
Massa ‘a little concerned’ by Williams lack of pace on Friday
British Grand Prix – Williams could only manage P7 & P10 in Friday’s second practice, and Felipe Massa says the team have work to do to find more pace. Massa finished the second session of the day in P10, 2.1 seconds off the pace of the leaders. The Brazilian had been vocal on team radio about struggling with a lack of grip and tyres graining, and explained a late stoppage on his side of the garage:
“I had a hydraulic issue and had to stop because it was leaking, we don’t know what it was yet. It was at the end, so I didn’t lose much time and I could get in some laps and try the tyres and the car. It hasn’t been a fantastic Friday to be honest, I expect us to be a little bit better on pace compared to the other cars. We can improve from tomorrow, we’re missing some pace.
The biggest concern is that we didn’t show anything interesting today, in terms of pace. I’m not comparing with the likes of McLaren and Haas, but the gap to the guys in front is massively quicker than us. It’s a little concern from today, hoping to improve for tomorrow.
I don’t think there was anything in particularly wrong with the car, we just didnt’ have the pace so we need to understand where the pace was and why we weren’t that competitive today.”
08 JUL 2016
Silverstone, Great Britain
5.891km / 3.66 miles
FP1
Weather: Cool and Dry
Air & Track Temperatures: 16-18°C / 18-23°C
V Bottas, FW38-03, PU106C Hybrid, 1:34.263 (13th)
F Massa, FW38-02, PU106C Hybrid, 1:34.456 (14th)
Quickest time: L. Hamilton (1:31.654)
FP2
Weather: Warm and Wet
Air & Track Temperatures: 20°C-22°C / 33°C-39°C
V Bottas, FW38-03, PU106C Hybrid, 1:33.493 (7th)
F Massa, FW38-02, PU106C Hybrid, 1:33.801 (10th)
Quickest time: L. Hamilton 1:31.660
Objectives: Aero evaluations, set-up and tyre work.
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: We’ve been focusing on three areas today. Testing the new aerodynamic parts on the car has been the priority. We’ve got the new front wing here, so we’re ensuring we’ve done our due diligence to evaluate it. We’ve also been testing various different set-up options across the cars, in terms of mechanical and aerodynamic set-up. We’ve been tyre testing, running the soft and the medium compounds. It's not that clear cut yet as we saw different teams doing a variety of programmes. At this stage, the medium compound looks a little bit difficult to manage for us and some of the other front-runners. We need to try and understand that. The pace is definitely in the car, we just have a lot of work to do tonight to ensure we can unlock it tomorrow.
Valtteri Bottas: First of all, it’s good fun to drive at Silverstone. We’ve made some good steps with the car today from FP1 to FP2, but there’s still plenty of work to do. It’s been a while since we’ve run the medium and the soft tyres, so there’s still some things to look into regarding getting 100% out of them. Hopefully tomorrow we can be closer to the front because there’s a bigger gap than we expected today. Graining is still a bit of an issue with the soft tyres, but there’s no problems with the medium. Tonight we’ll be looking at the tyres and the new front wing.
Felipe Massa: It wasn’t really a fantastic Friday. We are struggling a little bit in terms of pace on the car and I definitely expected to be a little bit better for a Friday, but we are working hard to improve our performance. Let’s wait and see how we are tomorrow compared to the others.
09 JUL 2016
Silverstone, Great Britain
5.891 / 3.66 miles
Qualifying Notes
• Valtteri Bottas qualified seventh and Felipe Massa 12th for the British Grand Prix.
• Both cars easily progressed from Q1 into Q2 after opening runs on the soft tyre.
• Felipe qualified P12 after struggling to maintain grip in his rear tyres, hindering his ability to set a competitive lap time and progress into Q3.
• Valtteri qualified seventh but will start sixth as a result of Sebastian Vettel’s five-place grid penalty incurred due to a gearbox change.
Weather: Windy and cool
Temperature: Air: 20-22°C Track: 25-29°C
Q1
V. Bottas: 1:31.913 (7th)
F. Massa: 1:32.146 (9th)
Quickest time: N. Rosberg 1:30.724
Q2
V. Bottas: 1:31.478 (7th)
F. Massa: 1:32.002 (12th)
Quickest time: L. Hamilton 1:29.243
Q3
V. Bottas*: 1:31.557 (7th)
F. Massa: No time set
Quickest time: L. Hamilton 1:29.287
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: I think today’s qualifying was representative of our pace around here, although we expected Felipe to be higher up the order to have both cars in the top ten. Qualifying seventh and 12th is not where we want to be, we simply need to fundamentally improve the car now. The car itself is reasonably well balanced around here and we’ve tried lots of different tyre experiments to ensure that we extracted the most we could from it, as Valtteri did. Looking forward to tomorrow, we’ve got Valtteri in a decent position. I think our long run pace was reasonable on Friday so I’m quite happy about that. We’ve just got to try and push forward with both cars. We have some strategy options with Felipe, given he will have a free choice of starting tyre just outside the top ten, so we’ll see what we can do to challenge for some good points tomorrow.
Valtteri Bottas: I felt like I got everything out of the car today, which is always a nice feeling as a driver. I was hoping we could be closer to the front-runners. There is a little bit of a gap which we are working flat out for, so the thing to do now is to focus on the race. It’s a new day tomorrow and weather may play a part in the race, so if we can get our tyres to work better than in Austria, I’m sure we can have a good strategy for a good race.
Felipe Massa: It definitely wasn’t a good qualifying for me today, because it was hard to make the rear tyres work in a way that wouldn’t lose performance throughout my lap. Unfortunately, I couldn’t put my lap together because of that. I was a little bit surprised because it’s not the first time we’ve had these issues with the tyres. Hopefully the car will be set-up in a way for the race tomorrow that the pace will be more consistent, because we need to try to make it work tomorrow.
* Valtteri will start from P6 as a result of Sebastian Vettel’s five-place grid penalty incurred due to a gearbox change.
domh245 wrote:Bit of a shocker this weekend for Williams. Car had no pace and they were only the 4th quickest pit stop
They are going slowly backwards, but i think it is a result of maybe putting al there recources towards 2017?
Did not see a whole lot of developments on the car, and i know they have problems with tyredegradation.
domh245 wrote:Bit of a shocker this weekend for Williams. Car had no pace and they were only the 4th quickest pit stop
They are going slowly backwards, but i think it is a result of maybe putting al there recources towards 2017?
Did not see a whole lot of developments on the car, and i know they have problems with tyredegradation.
It looks like they made a wrong assumption that they were clear enough of FI before shifting development time to the 2017 car. Now they have to take a bit of a gamble/tradeoff.
What they (in hindsight) did brilliantly, sacrificing 2013 to be able to invest in a very good base for the 2014-16 car, what brought them succes in terms of FOM and FIM money and some podiums. Force India comes across as a bit more short term then Williams, so they smell blood and will developing their 2016 car to get 4th place.
Ferrari and RedBull have the same problem, which you saw clearly in their underdeveloped 2014 cars at the time (and Ferrari is still on the back foot of that)
Tough times. F1 is brutal if you're not at the performance level you want.
Would be interesting to know why Williams think they're falling further behind. A useful case study might be Williams vs Force India over last 12-18 months. In what performance areas has FI caught up and gone ahead?
Silverstone Circuit, Great Britain
5.891 km / 3.66 miles
Weather: Rainy then dry
Temperature: Air 17-21°C, Track: 21-29°C
Race Notes:
• Felipe Massa finished 11th and Valtteri Bottas 14th in the British Grand Prix
• Valtteri started on wet tyres under safety car conditions, but switched to the intermediates when the safety car was called in. He was one of the first front-runners to switch to the intermediates on lap five, but struggled with the mixed conditions. He spun on lap 10 in the wet and fell to P13, before pitting on lap 16 for the medium compound tyre where he struggled with pace.
• Felipe also started the race on wet tyres before stopping on lap six for intermediates. He made the switch to the medium compound tyre on lap 16 but couldn’t make them last until the end of the race and was forced to pit for the soft compound on lap 38. The fresh tyres allowed him to gain a position late on as others around him struggled with degradation.
• Both drivers retain their positon in the Drivers’ Championships with Valtteri in seventh and Felipe in ninth, while the team stays fourth in the Constructors’ Championship
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: We just didn’t have the pace today. On top of that, Felipe ran out of tyres towards the end, so we had to pit and put on another set on which was a shame. It was a race to forget really so I’m not going to dwell on it too much. The rain at the start made our decisions more difficult, but we made the correct calls, and didn’t do anything vastly different to anybody else, apart from our extra stop with Felipe. The car just wasn’t quick enough to make any more progress in the race.
Felipe Massa: That was a disappointing race. We were trying to fight with so many cars throughout the whole race, but in the wet it was so tricky with oversteer. We tried to keep pace and positon, but our tyres were degrading a lot compared to other teams, causing us to drop position and finish outside of the points. When the tyres were working the pace was OK, even with the medium tyre. But once that dropped it was tricky.
Valtteri Bottas: Today was a disappointing day. I spun in the wet and lost positon. The main problem going from the wet tyre to the dry tyre was not getting enough heat into them to make them work. In the slick stints the pace was poor. As a team, it’s important we analyse what happened today. For myself as a driver I need to learn from my mistakes too. I’ll be having a day in the simulator tomorrow running through the test programme for this week.
bill shoe wrote:Tough times. F1 is brutal if you're not at the performance level you want.
Would be interesting to know why Williams think they're falling further behind. A useful case study might be Williams vs Force India over last 12-18 months. In what performance areas has FI caught up and gone ahead?
