2016 Williams Martini Racing F1 Team - Mercedes

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Stalker1
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Joined: 08 Dec 2015, 00:53

Re: 2016 Williams Martini Racing F1 Team - Mercedes

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Any notion, on what exactly they are working in the suspension area? For an outsider, it looks like all they have managed to develop so far are increased tyre wear issues...

LookBackTime
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Joined: 19 Feb 2013, 20:33

Re: 2016 Williams Martini Racing F1 Team - Mercedes

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Stalker1 wrote:Any notion, on what exactly they are working in the suspension area? For an outsider, it looks like all they have managed to develop so far are increased tyre wear issues...
just a guess: the goal is to get hydraulic suspension similar to Mercedes !?

LookBackTime
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Re: 2016 Williams Martini Racing F1 Team - Mercedes

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HUNGARIAN GRAND PRIX QUALIFYING

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23 JUL 2016
Hungaroring, Hungary
4.381km / 2.722 miles

Qualifying Notes
•Valtteri Bottas qualified 10th and Felipe Massa 18th for the Hungarian Grand Prix
•Q1 was delayed by 20 minutes due to torrential rain. When the session started several drivers struggled with the conditions causing multiple red flags
•As the track began to dry Felipe and Valtteri switched to the intermediates, but Felipe aquaplaned at Turn 4 and made heavy contact with the barrier, which brought his session to an end
•The track continued to improve in Q2. Valtteri made the change to the supersofts with just over five minutes left in the session and was able to make it through to Q3 in P8
•In Q3 all drivers opted for the supersoft tyres. Valtteri was P10 following his opening run and was improving on his final run before he was forced to slow at Turn 8 due to double yellow flags and therefore couldn’t improve

Weather: Warm and wet/dry
Temperature: Air: 21-26°C Track: 25-34°C

Q1
V. Bottas: 1:42.758 (16th)
F. Massa: 1:43.999 (18th)
Quickest time: N. Rosberg 1:33.302

Q2
V. Bottas: 1:24.506 (8th)
F. Massa: No time set
Quickest time: M. Verstappen 1:22.660

Q3
V. Bottas: 1:22.182 (10th)
F. Massa: No time set
Quickest time: N. Rosberg 1:19.965

Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: We had very changeable conditions today. The main aim of Q1 was to get through the really heavy rain and the water-logged track which unfortunately we failed to do with Felipe. With Valtteri we expected a bit more in Q3, but he lost quite a lot in the double yellow flags at Turns 8 and 9. We have to look at the data and figure out what prevented us from getting better laptimes today. Our starting positions are far from ideal, but we’re buoyed by the long run pace of the car yesterday. We had two good practice sessions on Friday, so there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to carry that pace through into tomorrow. We have an open strategy with Felipe which we’ll try to capitalise on. With Valtteri, we have to start on the qualifying tyre but we will need to be clever with his strategy as well. Our target tomorrow is to bring both cars home in the points and score more than our closest rivals.

Valtteri Bottas: It was a really tricky qualifying session today because of the weather conditions. I think as a team we made the right strategy calls. It’s a shame that we are out of position because of the yellow flags on my final run. I was improving my laptime a lot, but obviously I had to slow down which cost us, so that’s slightly unlucky. I think tomorrow we will have a good fight with Force India and my mission is to beat them.

Felipe Massa: I’m very disappointed about what happened. We risked going to the intermediates tyres in that moment and unfortunately it didn’t work for me, so it’s a real shame. I’m sorry to the guys in the garage because I was just trying to do the best I could but in conditions like that these things can happen. We now just need to concentrate on the race tomorrow. We know it’s not the perfect position for qualifying at this track but we need to be ready for anything tomorrow, because everything could change in the race.

SchuMassa
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Joined: 15 Nov 2012, 16:42

Re: 2016 Williams Martini Racing F1 Team - Mercedes

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Disappointing showing from the car once again (but still better than in Silverstone). Strategy was OK for Valtteri but a total mess for Felipe - they had 3 new sets of supersofts, still they used only one (for 3 laps). Hopefully Hockenheim will suit the car more and they'll abandon their old front wing at last.

SchuMassa
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Joined: 15 Nov 2012, 16:42

Re: 2016 Williams Martini Racing F1 Team - Mercedes

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24 JUL 2016
Hungaroring, Hungary
4.381km / 2.722 miles

Weather: Warm and dry
Temperature: Air 28-29°C, Track: 49-54°C

Race Notes:
•Valtteri Bottas finished 9th and Felipe Massa 18th in the Hungarian Grand Prix
•Valtteri started 10th but gained a position on the opening lap.Valtteri ran a long first stint on the supersoft tyre before pitting on lap 16. He switched to the soft tyres on lap 43 and was able to manage them until the end of the race
•Felipe encountered steering rack issues on the way to the grid and the crew worked hard to try and fix it before the start of the race. The issue was improved to a degree that Felipe was able to race the car
•Felipe stopped on lap 25 switching to a one-stop strategy, but due to tyre wear issues he switched back to a two-stop on lap 65 to ensure he had good pace to the end of the race
•Valtteri remains seventh in the Drivers’ Championship with Felipe remaining ninth. The team extends the gap to Force India to 20 points, maintaining fourth in the Constructors’ Championship

Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: I’m disappointed with that result. We had to work very hard for those two points. I think we achieved the maximum we could with Valtteri, he drove a solid race, but the pace of the car is just not there. After Felipe’s accident yesterday the car was out of balance and he just couldn’t get into a rhythm. Starting from 18th with an un-balanced car was always going to be difficult. He had a steering rack issue, after we had to re-build the car following his crash in qualifying, which meant the steering was off centre and was heavy in right-hand corners. We had to try and get it fixed before the race, both in the garage and on the grid. The guys did a very commendable job. Operationally, the strategy was good today, as were the pitstops. There wasn’t much more we could have done. These are tough times for the team. We have to knuckle down, be introspective, work as a team and start to understand how we’re going to get more performance from the car.

Valtteri Bottas: The start of the race was really good. It was very important to get ahead of the Force India. After that we pretty much executed our plan. The supersoft tyre was holding on a lot better than we thought it would, so we ran a bit longer in the first stint. After that our pace on the softs more or less matched our predictions. I think we got the maximum points today from the starting position that we had. I’m sure in Hockenheim we can get more points and try to build a bigger gap from Force India.

Felipe Massa: It was a terrible race, which started on the way to the grid with the problem with my steering wheel rack being too light on one side and too heavy on the other. We tried to fix the problem and we couldn’t, but at least we improved it because the initial lap was impossible. To do the whole race with the steering wheel heavy on one side and light on the other was really difficult. I tried to race until the end but this wasn’t the result we were aiming for. The next race at Hockenheim is a different track which will hopefully be much better for us, so I hope we can get back to normality and score points with both cars.

Sevach
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Joined: 07 Jun 2012, 17:00

Re: 2016 Williams Martini Racing F1 Team - Mercedes

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SchuMassa wrote:Disappointing showing from the car once again (but still better than in Silverstone). Strategy was OK for Valtteri but a total mess for Felipe - they had 3 new sets of supersofts, still they used only one (for 3 laps). Hopefully Hockenheim will suit the car more and they'll abandon their old front wing at last.
Since the aero guys are focused on 2017 at this point, the best thing will be to find the parts that perform the best and go with it, it sucks that the new wing wasn't worth anything, maybe it isn't bad in isolation, but if it's ruining balance(and the tires) the team needs to cut their losses and focus on results.
Both noses won't matter as development paths for 2017 anyways.

Lesson to be learned honestly, have your "final" version of the car ready in pre-season testing, trying to fit something that may change the balance a big deal during the pressure of a GP weekend can hurt imo.

Stalker1
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Joined: 08 Dec 2015, 00:53

Re: 2016 Williams Martini Racing F1 Team - Mercedes

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I agree with Sevach! It seemed that the new front generated much more downforce than the rest of the car, moving the aerodynamic balance more forward. It resulted in under-steering car, witch was eating tyres. I think Williams learned their lesson- you just cannot put on some parts to generate higher downforce levels and just go with it.

All in all, I am really happy with Waltteris 9-th place. Hungaroring is in no way suitable for Fw-38, but he managed to get best out of it.

Keith_T
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Joined: 06 May 2016, 17:41

Re: 2016 Williams Martini Racing F1 Team - Mercedes

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Excuse my ignorance but wouldn't increased downforce at the front of the car reduce understeer?

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Mr Brooksy
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Joined: 21 Feb 2014, 22:47
Location: Australia

Re: 2016 Williams Martini Racing F1 Team - Mercedes

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I'm starting to wonder if it's time to say good bye to Jason Summerville and spend whatever money they can on a James Key or if they are really lucky James Allison.

I remember reading the average lap time gained by each team with their new cars at the beginning of this year and all but Williams improved by about 2+ seconds a lap. Whereas we improved by only about a second and a bit. Surely it's time for Williams to invest in serious talent in the aero department. Look what Peter P has done for McLaren!

Since Jason has been at the helm of aero, we have just had an up and down few years. Kinda like with the disaster that was Sam Michael.

I'm also confused as to the situation with the front end update. If it was such an increase in down force, which is creating an imbalance at the rear, why then don't Williams run a monkey seat like the majority of front running cars to help balance the aero a bit more? Or is the monkey seat that bad?

As a dedicated fan, this year is hard to take.
WilliamsF1 fan since 1989


Stalker1
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Joined: 08 Dec 2015, 00:53

Re: 2016 Williams Martini Racing F1 Team - Mercedes

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Keith_T wrote:Excuse my ignorance but wouldn't increased downforce at the front of the car reduce understeer?
No need for excuses, you are right to correct me if I am talking rubbish! I will read and thought about it and then come back

LookBackTime
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Re: 2016 Williams Martini Racing F1 Team - Mercedes

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WILLIAMS RACING Retweeted Lance Stroll
Amazing job @lance_stroll!WILLIAMS RACING added,
Lance Stroll @lance_stroll
P1 for Race 1 @SpaFrancorchamp 1. 1.270s clear! 7th pole of season. Amazing job guys. Awesome. Feeling good @fiaf3europe @PREMAPowerteam


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Re: 2016 Williams Martini Racing F1 Team - Mercedes

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GERMAN GRAND PRIX PRACTICE

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29 JUL 2016
Hockenheimring, Germany
4.574 km / 2.84 miles

FP1
Weather: Warm and Dry
Air & Track Temperatures: 22-24°C / 32-35°C
V Bottas, FW38-03, PU106C Hybrid, 1:18.210 (12th)
F Massa, FW38-02, PU106C Hybrid, 1:18.322 (13th)
Quickest time: N. Rosberg 1:15.517

FP2
Weather: Warm and Dry
Air & Track Temperatures: 25°C-26°C / 37°C-45°C
V Bottas, FW38-03, PU106C Hybrid, 1:17.425 (13th)
F Massa, FW38-02, PU106C Hybrid, 1:17.686 (15th)
Quickest time: N. Rosberg 1:15.614

Objectives: Aero evaluations, set-up and tyre work.

Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: We concentrated on aerodynamic testing for most of the morning, focussing on the front wings in particular. We looked at the different specifications of the different front wing packages across the two cars. In the afternoon we concentrated on tyre work. We’re a little bit out of position on low fuel runs. On the high fuel runs it’s slightly better but the field’s a little bit mixed up so it’s very difficult to tell. We’ll have a clearer picture tomorrow, but I think we’ve probably got a bit of work to do tonight. The good thing is that the areas we need to work on are very clear. Weather wise I think it’s going to be a straightforward weekend and if it does rain tomorrow then it shouldn’t be too heavy as far as our forecasts are showing.

Valtteri Bottas: Today was quite a standard Friday to be honest. We’ve been doing shorter and longer runs to try out the front wings and get information on the tyres. Everything we needed to do today we managed to complete. Personally, I think we can be better than this and I’m sure we can be more competitive going into tomorrow. Qualifying is going to be very close because the track here is quite short so the time differences are going to be very small.

Felipe Massa: It was a very difficult Friday to be honest. I struggled to find a good balance with the car and to understand how the tyres are working around here. It also wasn’t a good day in terms of laptimes as we struggled with the consistency of the tyres. There’s definitely work that we need to do ahead of FP3 and qualifying tomorrow.

LookBackTime
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Re: 2016 Williams Martini Racing F1 Team - Mercedes

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"Although Renault has its sights set on securing Perez over the summer - and is in pole position to do so - it faces competition from Williams, which has also held preliminary discussions with the driver's backers."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.ph ... z-for-2017

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