2019 Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

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Manoah2u
Manoah2u
61
Joined: 24 Feb 2013, 14:07

Re: 2019 Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

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Which indeed, again, shows just how dire the situation at Williams must be.
No money, no parts. No money, no people to pay, no work, no progress.
I'm still baffled by people claiming Williams is financially stable, as everything proves the opposite is true.
I don't know what's worse actually, if Williams is having all this with financial difficulties or without.

Just to make clear one thing again, because the haters around can't seem to understand that being critical and stating facts doesn't equal people are happy with the negativity and misery currently going on.
Again, it's the absolute opposite. From all the teams, i'd actually like to see Williams successfull more than any, including even Mclaren. But i'm not blind to the hole they dug themselves in.

Also, i very much wonder how much of an additional and extended impact it made that they ditched Massa in favor of Sirotkin's roebels.
"Explain the ending to F1 in football terms"
"Hamilton was beating Verstappen 7-0, then the ref decided F%$& rules, next goal wins
while also sending off 4 Hamilton players to make it more interesting"

SmallSoldier
SmallSoldier
473
Joined: 10 Mar 2019, 03:54

Re: 2019 Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

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Manoah2u wrote:Which indeed, again, shows just how dire the situation at Williams must be.
No money, no parts. No money, no people to pay, no work, no progress.
I'm still baffled by people claiming Williams is financially stable, as everything proves the opposite is true.
I don't know what's worse actually, if Williams is having all this with financial difficulties or without.

Just to make clear one thing again, because the haters around can't seem to understand that being critical and stating facts doesn't equal people are happy with the negativity and misery currently going on.
Again, it's the absolute opposite. From all the teams, i'd actually like to see Williams successfull more than any, including even Mclaren. But i'm not blind to the hole they dug themselves in.

Also, i very much wonder how much of an additional and extended impact it made that they ditched Massa in favor of Sirotkin's roebels.
I don’t think anyone minds someone been critical, the problem is when opinions or assumptions are stated as “facts”, you mention:

A) No Money: Source please? When People say that Williams is financially stable is because they aren’t losing money. In reality they made 14 million in Profit in 2017 and there interim report showed a loss on EBITDA of 2.7 million at the half part of the year, with an outlook to be back to profitable by year end. So, they aren’t losing money... Could they have a larger budget? Sure, but from a Financial perspective, the team is in a good position.

B) No Parts: This of course is the biggest issue, but it isn’t necessarily dependent on lack of Money, but more in terms of the mistakes made during either design or manufacturing process (or a combination of both)... When you have a car that has a “Fundamental Issue” you just don’t throw new parts into it, since those parts would most probably not give you the expected results (part of the fundamental issue has to be related to correlation issues, therefore whatever they may design without fixing the problem first will not yield the expected results)... So, you either use resources to fix the issue and develop from that point or you throw money away on parts that may not help you in terms of performance... From a Managing stand point, the answer is clear and you just don’t throw money away and focus on fixing the issue.

C) No People To Pay: I’m not sure what you mean by this, if you mean that their employees aren’t been paid, I would love a source for it, since at no given point in time have there been any mentions of Williams employees not getting paid... If you mean that they have money to pay people, but not enough people to pay money to... I would still not be sure what you mean... Reality is that most often than not, just adding headcount isn’t going to solve the problems.

D) No Work: I’m sure that people are working and working hard, proof of that is the first week of testing where the team members worked “all nighters” to have the car out for at least a few laps... I’m sure everyone at Williams is working hard to revert the situation.

E) No Progress: This one is undeniable and you are absolutely right, unluckily there has being no progress compared to last season... But, we don’t really know if the problems they are facing this season are the same that plagued the car last season or not... Until someone gets a hold of the actual reason for the lack of performance on the car, we can only speculate... The big positive in any case is that they are saying that they know what is wrong (something that took them a big chunk of last season to figure out in 2018)... If they caught the problem early enough, they might be able to fix the issue in season instead of waiting for the following year (as Mclaren for example had to do last year).

I’m not a fan of Williams, never have been really... But, it’s interesting how people seem to know more about what is going on at the team that the team themselves... Having an opinion and speculating isn’t bad in itself, unless we start calling our opinions “facts”.


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adrianjordan
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Joined: 28 Feb 2010, 11:34
Location: West Yorkshire, England

Re: 2019 Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

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bill shoe wrote:
28 Mar 2019, 02:11
I'm a frustrated fan for sure, but I'm not understanding the long-term situation.

Williams are a 40+ year-old team with a long-term record of success. As recently as 4 years ago (90% of the team's current age) they were making legitimately competitive cars.

Has the Williams approach suddenly stopped working over the last 4 years? Or has every other team just blown it up to a higher level?

I remember that almost all other teams back then had crippling problems with funding, politics, and general drama. Williams at least avoided those problems. Are all the other teams simply much better now that they've solved their previous self-inflicted wounds?
4 years ago they were benefiting from having a PU with a clear advantage over the other 3 manufacturers. This gave a false picture and maybe lulled Williams into a false sense of security.

Before the turbo-hybrid era started Williams were a mid-field team since they split with BMW.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William ... ngineering
Favourite driver: Lando Norris
Favourite team: McLaren

Turned down the chance to meet Vettel at Silverstone in 2007. He was a test driver at the time and I didn't think it was worth queuing!! 🤦🏻‍♂️

marmer
marmer
1
Joined: 21 Apr 2017, 06:48

Re: 2019 Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

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Just watching fp1

Williams seems to have larger panel gaps than others or is that just because of their colours showing it up more

Sulman
Sulman
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Joined: 08 Apr 2008, 10:28

Re: 2019 Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

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"We're getting the band back together."

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... wYD7N.html

munudeges
munudeges
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Joined: 10 Jun 2011, 17:08

Re: 2019 Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

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Patrick Head is de facto Technical Director. Things really are that desperate.

Sulman
Sulman
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Joined: 08 Apr 2008, 10:28

Re: 2019 Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

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There's logic to it - he's a shareholder, and it's on a consultancy basis. So he's likely earning very little, with every incentive to right the ship as it's in his interest to do so.

A fairly good solution, providing he's up to it.

Manoah2u
Manoah2u
61
Joined: 24 Feb 2013, 14:07

Re: 2019 Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

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Must be the only guy the team employees trust and putting effort in for.
I indeed believe he's a good solution either way, but don't expect any wonders though.
Even if he is Newey material....well, perhaps he is......1 man won't fix the Williams issue in a few races,
not even this season i'd say.
Might not be a bad idea though, to actually keep head as a consultant, a bit like Lauda at Mercedes.
Miles better than claire running the show 'by herself' so to speak.
Also, since i expect employees to have a much better understanding and motivation to work with 'good guy' Patrick Head,
morale might start lifting up again, pressure is going to get off shoulders from everyone, and people can start looking into
the future again.
Yeah, indeed, a positive development.

Still hoping to see either Bouillier, Gascoyne or Fernley appointed, preferably the latter.
"Explain the ending to F1 in football terms"
"Hamilton was beating Verstappen 7-0, then the ref decided F%$& rules, next goal wins
while also sending off 4 Hamilton players to make it more interesting"

Tzk
Tzk
33
Joined: 28 Jul 2018, 12:49

Re: 2019 Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

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So, Kubica claims that somethings wrong with his car and Russel backs it, also claiming they can see it in the data...
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/kubi ... l/4360933/

My thoughts are that either the factory built two cars which are supposed to be identical, but actually aren't OR Kubicas chassis is somewhat cracked/broken and they haven't found the damage yet. Great. :|

Stahlkocher
Stahlkocher
1
Joined: 20 Feb 2019, 00:37

Re: 2019 Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

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Tzk wrote:
29 Mar 2019, 22:42
So, Kubica claims that somethings wrong with his car and Russel backs it, also claiming they can see it in the data...
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/kubi ... l/4360933/

My thoughts are that either the factory built two cars which are supposed to be identical, but actually aren't OR Kubicas chassis is somewhat cracked/broken and they haven't found the damage yet. Great. :|
Or they get the bill for the manufacturing problems. The Floor in Melbourne that disintegrated on a kerb is one indicator. Kubica publicly stating that he has to stay away from the kerbs to keep the car in one piece is another.

Are their aero parts of such shady quality that they are not only overly fragile, but also deform unpredictable under aerodynamic loads? That would be one way to explain why the cars behave differently despite being outwardly similar.

Manoah2u
Manoah2u
61
Joined: 24 Feb 2013, 14:07

Re: 2019 Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

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Tzk wrote:
29 Mar 2019, 22:42
So, Kubica claims that somethings wrong with his car and Russel backs it, also claiming they can see it in the data...
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/kubi ... l/4360933/

My thoughts are that either the factory built two cars which are supposed to be identical, but actually aren't OR Kubicas chassis is somewhat cracked/broken and they haven't found the damage yet. Great. :|
I think the latter is rather more what's going on, paired to the fact they rushed the production, that might be what's going on, especially if russell's car is the one built before that of kubica and kubica's one came creeping up the deadline of sending the car to australia.
"Explain the ending to F1 in football terms"
"Hamilton was beating Verstappen 7-0, then the ref decided F%$& rules, next goal wins
while also sending off 4 Hamilton players to make it more interesting"

netoperek
netoperek
12
Joined: 21 Sep 2010, 23:06

Re: 2019 Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

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Manoah2u wrote:
30 Mar 2019, 06:39
Tzk wrote:
29 Mar 2019, 22:42
So, Kubica claims that somethings wrong with his car and Russel backs it, also claiming they can see it in the data...
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/kubi ... l/4360933/

My thoughts are that either the factory built two cars which are supposed to be identical, but actually aren't OR Kubicas chassis is somewhat cracked/broken and they haven't found the damage yet. Great. :|
I think the latter is rather more what's going on, paired to the fact they rushed the production, that might be what's going on, especially if russell's car is the one built before that of kubica and kubica's one came creeping up the deadline of sending the car to australia.
IIRC, George's car has been build new for Australia and due to no time left, Robert got a quick fixed one from testing.
Now they both got new floor (I don't know which one has been build first), but Robert's was broken out of the factory, so they gave him his old one from Australia for today

netoperek
netoperek
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Joined: 21 Sep 2010, 23:06

Re: 2019 Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

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Fresh update: Kubica was on his way to improve his laptime on his final lap, but some aero pieces just fell off at the end of S2. That's not even funny anymore...

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Re: 2019 Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

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netoperek wrote:
30 Mar 2019, 17:33
Fresh update: Kubica was on his way to improve his laptime on his final lap, but some aero pieces just fell off at the end of S2. That's not even funny anymore...
Perez mentioned the same though, and that it seems to affect many cars as the kerbs are fairly aggressive. In FP3 you could also see some marshalls picking up parts from the track, so this is not necessarily a problem only for Williams, or caused by a faulty production of the car.

Sulman
Sulman
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Joined: 08 Apr 2008, 10:28

Re: 2019 Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

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I think, looking on the bright side, they're not nowhere. It's around 3-4 seconds off the lead pace, so I'd say they're slowest, rather than plain slow - with some work and a bit of a luck they could break into the bottom half over the year. Everybody wants it to happen.

It's just data-gathering until the end of the flyaways, though.