Will Williams F1 ever get back?

[kilcoo316]

Never is a very strong word...

But in this case... under current management, I can't see Williams making it back.


Money is not the issue, they had loads of it when with BMW, they also had the best engine, but blew it.

The abilities of the personnel, the abilities of the technical leads to guide the personnel, the state of the technical resources, the use of those resources... all questions.

[xpensive]

I think a comparison between Williams and McLaren is very revealing to this argument. If you think about it, Williams and McLaren shared very similar backgrounds, basically garagist beginnings moving into shrewd dealings in the morning of the sponsorship age. Both teams had success during the eighties and nineties, yet, here and now, McLaren stand on the verge of another championship and Williams seem to be sinking fast even though they showed such good promise last season. So what happened?

A most telling comparison Horse, a little difficult to comprehend these were two reasonable comparable teams only 5-7 years ago?

Again, the failure to accommodate BMW was of course the great dividing factor, there will simply never be a replacement for that.

[pgj]

The fish stinks from the Head.

I've said it before, but the liasion with BMW was the chance of a lifetime for FW and PH, letting them go was unforgiveable.

The status and kudos among sposors were absolutely priceless, Toyotas were not even comparable, that chance will never return.

I am not so sure that anyone at Sauber or anyone that lost their job would agree with you that being owned by BMW was the chance of a lifetime.

Peter is not finding the kudos of being associated with BMW any help at all in attracting sponsors.

Without doubt there is something awry at Williams. How it is possible to say whether the fault lies in one person, one area or whether it is more widespread and deep-rooted with any degree of certainty is not clear. Williams has seen some talented people pass through its ranks without improvement. I am loathe to see the same thing happen again. I would have liked to see Ross or Adrian return to the team. Both have the experience and clout to root out the problem and put the team back on an even development keel.

Having a bigger budget is no guarantee of success. If the team is not functioning then it just wastes more money at a greater speed. Toyota and Honda are examples of that. Many comparisons are made with Williams. Williams reminds me very much of Ferrari through late 70's until Ross, JT and Schumi joined and shook things up. Williams does not have anywhere near the amount of time that Ferrari was in the doldrums for. It does not have the financial clout behind it that Ferrari has.

Just an observation. IIRC Williams has not really got the best out if its second super-dooper wind tunnel. Wasn't it blamed for much of the aero misfiring in the latter years of the BMW partnership? I certainly remember it having to be recalibrated because it was not carried out correctly.

pgj, good post, but I want to comment on one statement that you just happened to repeat -- not a direct commnet on you or your post at all: "Having a bigger budget is no guarantee of success."

[RANT] Of course that's true, BUT, I think it's even more true that a smaller budget is no guarantee of success. A smaller budget means you have to take chances on less experienced (and cheaper) people at all levels, in all roles. It means you might have to forego the more expensive (and lighter or stronger) materials in order to save money. I don't think I need to belabor the point.

Other posters would like us to believe that small budget necessarily = greater innovation. BS. Innovations often come from the big teams -- DDD, for example (Honda, Toyota, [and Williams, less successfully]). The F duct was originated by Mclaren, and very quickly copied by other big teams -- Ferrari and Merc, with RBR close behind.

Need more examples of "big = innovations"? The now-standard auto gearbox was first successfully implemented by Ferrari, under the very big bucks designer, John Barnard. And he originated the carbon tub in F1 -- at Mclaren.[/RANT]

I agree with you. I would much rather have a bigger budget than a smaller one. There was no intention to try and make an argument for a small budget. Rather, unless the team is set up correctly, it will not necessarily make best use of its budget regardless of budget size.

[djos]

Ever since mid 2005 when they brought their big wind tunnel online, their excuse has been that the results from the tunnel never match reality so imo their aero dept is seriously flawed.

Their cars have seemed to always have good mechanical grip tho.

[WhiteBlue]

The fish stinks from the Head.

I've said it before, but the liasion with BMW was the chance of a lifetime for FW and PH, letting them go was unforgiveable.

The status and kudos among sposors were absolutely priceless, Toyotas were not even comparable, that chance will never return.

I am not so sure that anyone at Sauber or anyone that lost their job would agree with you that being owned by BMW was the chance of a lifetime.

Peter is not finding the kudos of being associated with BMW any help at all in attracting sponsors.

You are seriously crossing all your wires there. I have comprehensively shown how Sauber immediately became a huge success when the BMW money flooded into their budget and the advantages of engine/chassis integration were pushed to the max. The budgetary effects also happened previously at Williams but the integration wasn't perfect due to the Head sniping. In 2005 and 2004 BMW would probably have been happy to take a 49 or 51% stake in Williams. Only because Peter Sauber wanted to pull out they later bought 90% of the Sauber team. I'm also very confident that a proper integration would have resulted in a big shake up in the aero department and had brought Williams more race wins and potentially championships. Under such conditions BMW would not have left F1 last year.

Sauber's problems to attract sponsors are due to the economy and their lack of results. When BMW was running Sauber they had plenty of sponsorship by world leading brands like Intel.

[xpensive]

The fish stinks from the Head.

I've said it before, but the liasion with BMW was the chance of a lifetime for FW and PH, letting them go was unforgiveable.

The status and kudos among sposors were absolutely priceless, Toyotas were not even comparable, that chance will never return.

I am not so sure that anyone at Sauber or anyone that lost their job would agree with you that being owned by BMW was the chance of a lifetime.

Peter is not finding the kudos of being associated with BMW any help at all in attracting sponsors.
...

Over the past 35 years, BMW has built a brandname value on par with Mercedes, in countries like Sweden even more so. A formal liasion in 2004 between BMW and a racing heritage like Williams, the year after JPM challenged fot the title, would have been formidable in attracting sponsorsorship, imagine HP and Intel, as well as assembling technical resources of unseen proportions. Only problem I could see was BMWs insistance on a German driver, but "Halfway" customer Toyotas with a Japanese pilot was still not even close in comparison.

I always saw the buyout of Sauber as a marriage of convenience and, at least the way I understood it, it took some doing for Theissen to convince the Munich board that this was the right way to go and when the results didn't come according to the laid out plan, the doubters got their chance to shut it down.

[pgj]

I agree with you with your admiration for BMW engineering an branding. I thought that BMW Williams was a sure fire certainty for success in F1. But once Max had suggested that BMW should own its own team to Dr T there was never going to be an amicable conclusion to the partnership. I hold no grudge with BMW for what happened, both Williams and Dr T have said that things could have been dealt with differently. Dr T was doing a great job at Sauber before he had the carpet pulled from beneath his feet. He must have found himself in an unenviable position when BMW announced that it was to withdraw from F1 and I genuinely feel for the man. I have the greatest respect for him and miss his insightful views on F1.

BMW's board is law to itself. You only have to look at the financial hit that it was prepared to take in order to get its hands on the Mini and Rolls Royce brands if you want an insight into the way that operates as a corporate body. I still believe that BMW would have pulled out of F1 at the drop of a hat.

The breakdown of BMW Williams often gets distilled to Dr T and PH having a fundamental difference of opinion. True they both threw a few toys out of any prams they were asked to sit in. It is too simplistic to put it into those terms though imo. Maybe it was PH's fault, maybe it was Dr T's fault maybe they were both to blame, maybe it was something deeper that caused the spat. My regret is that it still rumbles on with F1 fans. Because the casualty in all this is Sam. I don't know whether he was a Williams appointment, a BMW appointment, or a compromise appointment. There are some that say he was a BMW appointment and have never forgiven him for it. I see a hard-working and talented engineer who was made TD before his time. I know that he has had to deal with one upheaval after another including Williams nearly going out of business on more than one occasion and is now going through his third change of engine. Sam is currently TD and Race Team Manager again. Why? Who knows! Is he the fault and root-cause of Williams' failure? I don't know! I have seen no reason being offered for Rod Nelson's departure as Race Team Manager. I owe Sam nothing and if replacing Sam would be a recipe for Williams contending for race wins again, I would be right at the front of the queue. I also detest scapegoats and the scapegoat culture.

[horse]

Thanks for the comments, Xpensive and donskar. Much appreciated.

I always thought that both Williams and BMW never made the most of the partnership they had. The SLR (although possibly a tad flawed) wove McLaren and Mercedes together in several important ways, yet there was never a Williams BMW effort. I think something like this, to raise the profile of Williams, as you pointed out McLaren have done so over recent years donskar, would have fused the two companies together on a much more long term footing.

I do remember in the 90s how I much coveted the golden wheels of the Clio Williams!

[pgj]

@WhiteBlue

I have no problem with acknowledging that Sauber had a fleeting success from its deal with BMW. It has not turned out to be the long-term relationship that everyone, including Sauber and BMW, said it was going to be. I would like some success, any success however fleeting, and would trade Williams' recent past for Saubers'. The truth is though that it would only have been fleeting and ultimately Williams would be in a similar position that it is currently in anyway. The only advantage that Sauber has is that it has built a race-winning car in the more-recent past. Will Sauber be able to afford to retain its senior design and engineering team though? I hope so.

[segedunum]

You are seriously crossing all your wires there. I have comprehensively shown how Sauber immediately became a huge success when the BMW money flooded into their budget and the advantages of engine/chassis integration were pushed to the max.

That would have been the case had BMW still been there and had a long-term plan and commitment to Sauber that eventually turned into them challenging for championships, but they didn't. The association with BMW could well have finished Sauber off as an entity.

[xpensive]

You are seriously crossing all your wires there. I have comprehensively shown how Sauber immediately became a huge success when the BMW money flooded into their budget and the advantages of engine/chassis integration were pushed to the max.

That would have been the case had BMW still been there and had a long-term plan and commitment to Sauber that eventually turned into them challenging for championships, but they didn't. The association with BMW could well have finished Sauber off as an entity.

As I said before, I think buying Sauber was Theissens own idea after being seriously pissed off with the Williams relation and results, why he more or less persuaded the Munich board by means of a pretty unrealistic plan for a team like that. When said plan failed miserably, with last year's rather poor car, his enemies were very quick to finish the whole thing off.

[autogyro]

I would not write Williams off just yet.
I think the tie in with the Williams Kers/Hybrid systems to Porsche looks very promising for the future and Williams could well benefit both financialy and from engine/kers technology in F1 a little further down the line.
I do think that Frank and Patrick should take a new look for up and coming talent though. The focus does seem a little narrow from my experience lately.

[segedunum]

As I said before, I think buying Sauber was Theissens own idea after being seriously pissed off with the Williams relation and results, why he more or less persuaded the Munich board by means of a pretty unrealistic plan for a team like that.

The BMW team was going to happen anyway and that's where the wheels started to fall off. There was no hope of the team/manufacturer partnership continuing. Thiessen and BMW wanted a 100% BMW team and effectively wanted to take over Williams, as Mercedes obviously wanted to do with McLaren. Williams quite understandably didn't want that to happen as McLaren didn't, but they did concede a small amount to BMW by renaming the team to BMW Williams. That was the big clue as to what was going on, but it was never going to be enough.

There the comparisons between Williams and McLaren end. McLaren are obviously not in as great financial shape as they were, but Williams simply couldn't handle not being associated with a manufacturer and probably should have tried to still get a supply of BMW engines for some years as McLaren did with Mercedes.

I agree with the general consensus that Williams simply didn't expand themselves enough as a business beyond Formula One as McLaren have done. They've become far too anally retentive about how certain things are done around the racing side.

[xpensive]

Anyone with info on potential sponsors for Williams next year, RBS will be gone of course, but is there a replacement lined up?

[Italiano]

I wouldn't be suprised if the whole team disappears, this is just pathetic effort for an F1 team.