Williams Martini Racing have today announced the appointment of Dave Redding to the position of Team Manager. Dave will be responsible for the overall management of the operational and sporting aspects of the Williams racing team.
This forum contains threads to discuss teams themselves. Anything not technical about the cars, including restructuring, performances etc belongs here.
Driver: Lance Stroll / Felipe Massa
Chassis / Engine: FW40-02 / Mercedes-AMG F1 M08 EQ Power+
Location: Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, 4.655km
Weather: Warm and Dry
Maximum air & track temps: 21ºC / 27ºC
Rod Nelson, Chief Test & Support Engineer: It was a pretty solid day concentrating on race distances. We achieved this with Lance in good style this morning and despite a couple of red flags this afternoon, we still completed a good distance with Felipe too. We also looked at tyre degradation and stability through a race run. We’re looking forward to tomorrow with Lance back in the car, where we’ll be aiming to do some qualifying simulation work and some more race work in the afternoon. The team is now getting back on target and we are looking forward to the final day tomorrow.
Lance Stroll: It was a good morning. I was doing long runs on medium tyres and getting used to the car on them, which is good. We did a lot of laps. I am still getting to know the car a bit better, so it was a positive morning. I will be in the car all day tomorrow. I still have the ultrasoft to try, but I am getting to grips with things so I am happy with that.
Felipe Massa: The car did 165 laps in total today. Because of the red flags we couldn’t do the full race simulation, with pitstops but we more than managed to cover the distance we were targeting without issue. With the car doing two full race distances today it shows the FW40 is reliable, and that’s positive. Now I’m just ready to start the season! I’m not driving tomorrow but I hope the team has another great day with Lance. I just hope that we can start the season well in Australia and we can use everything we’ve learned here in the test to prepare the car for the first race.
Williams Martini Racing
Circuit de Catalunya
TESTING NOTES
March 9 2018
Lance Stroll: We had an OK kinda day. We tried different tyres and stuff. Dunno why. But this guy Rod, or was it Rob? I dunno . . . kept saying, ‘we need more data’. So I was stuck there for the whole afternoon.
I loved the coffee breaks. They have great coffee in Spain and M&Ms. Romain (Grosjean) gave me some of his M&Ms. He’s really cool. I think he works in F1 somewhere. Maybe in catering, I dunno.
But, like I said, every time I’m getting comfortable, the Rob or Rod guy says ‘we need more laps’. There’s another woman who keeps coming around asking if I’m OK and all. Claire something. Don’t remember her name exactly.
Anyway, I tell her that the coffee is great and I love M&Ms. Somehow, it doesn’t seem to be the answer she is looking for. And she goes away with an anxious expression. She spooks me a bit.
Felipe’s son came into the garage this afternoon and gave me some Harry Potter books to pass the time. That was cool.
I was glad to get back to the motel and call my girlfriend on Whats App. I tell her I have to be away for a few more days, because of this guy Rob or Rod. She tells me to f off and crash into a gravel trap forever.
Chassis / Engine: FW40-02 / Mercedes-AMG F1 M08 EQ Power+
Location: Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, 4.655km
Weather: Warm and Dry
Maximum air & track temps: 24ºC / 32ºC
Rod Nelson, Chief Test & Support Engineer: It was a pretty good day. We did some chassis work and a qualifying simulation this morning. Unfortunately, Lance didn’t manage to get his time in on the ultrasofts, and so his fastest time of the day was set on the soft tyres. We tried to do full race simulations in the afternoon but were interrupted by several red flags. Overall, we have got a lot of good data from this week. We’ve completed 600 laps this week, with the team doing a very good job to make up for the time we lost last week. We can take a lot of positives from this as we prepare to head to Melbourne.
Lance Stroll: It was a good day today to end a good week. It was a fun day and I got to put the ultrasofts on and really feel the grip. It was awesome. I was on a mega lap on them but I went long into Turn 13, which cost me everything and I lost my lap. I was eight tenths up and it was looking good, but anyway it’s testing. I did some good running this afternoon with long runs so it’s all positive stuff. It was obviously a frustrating week last week with the couple of things that happened, but we had a good week this week. We got all our running in – long runs, short runs, and all compounds of tyres – so it was good. I think we still have to stay calm ahead of Australia and just do our work and then see where we are. It’s a new track for me as I have never been there, but I’m going to take it step-by-step and run-by-run.
I figure Williams can be best of the midfield this year (excludes Ferrari, Merc, and Red Bull on top, and Sauber on bottom). Probably strongest rival for 4th Constructors is Toro Rosso. Williams have a strong reliable engine and an unproven second driver, but Toro Rosso has a slightly unproven engine and a strong driver pairing.
Any chance to come in third? Who is biggest midfield threat besides Toro Rosso?
