Williams FW42

A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
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JordanMugen
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Joined: 17 Oct 2018, 13:36

Re: Williams FW42

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The car has many intricate details (which surely took a lot of time, effort and money), yet is very slow.

Did the Williams team ignore the basic principles of veteran engineers like Frank Durnie to focus (resources) on areas that give the most laptime gain!?

It's as if Williams lacks the ability to prioritise development based on GBP per lap time. :?:

Even though historic Williams definitely had that ability -- the decision to approve a wind tunnel because it had excellent lap time gain per £, the decision to approve eletronic active suspension because it had excellent lap time gain per £ etc., etc., etc.

PS. I certainly wouldn't be designing and building a gearbox either, given that Racing Point seems to find the Mercedes one cost effective and competitive...
Morteza wrote:
01 Mar 2019, 11:04
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A cute part to gain 10g (?) of downforce, but arguably indicative of inefficient spending & inefficient organisation...

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Big Tea
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Joined: 24 Dec 2017, 20:57

Re: Williams FW42

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JordanMugen wrote:
21 Mar 2019, 09:30

The car has many intricate details (which surely took a lot of time, effort and money), yet is very slow.

Did the Williams team ignore the basic principles of veteran engineers like Frank Durnie to focus (resources) on areas that give the most laptime gain!?

It's as if Williams lacks the ability to prioritise development based on GBP per lap time. :?:

Even though historic Williams definitely had that ability -- the decision to approve a wind tunnel because it had excellent lap time gain per £, the decision to approve eletronic active suspension because it had excellent lap time gain per £ etc., etc., etc.

PS. I certainly wouldn't be designing and building a gearbox either, given that Racing Point seems to find the Mercedes one cost effective and competitive...
Morteza wrote:
01 Mar 2019, 11:04
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D0j77GUX4AEOflG.jpg

A cute part to gain 10g (?) of downforce, but arguably indicative of inefficient spending & inefficient organisation...
Again, it smacks of rule by committee rather than a knowledgeable leader.
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roon
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Joined: 17 Dec 2016, 19:04

Re: Williams FW42

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JordanMugen wrote:
21 Mar 2019, 09:30
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D0j77GUX4AEOflG.jpg

A cute part to gain 10g (?) of downforce, but arguably indicative of inefficient spending & inefficient organisation...
Making basic mistakes such as interpreting the rulebook may be a better sign. The pre-season front suspension flaps and the mirrors are both not being used. Development and manufacturing cost for those items toward no benefit.

Manoah2u
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Joined: 24 Feb 2013, 14:07

Re: Williams FW42

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roon wrote:
21 Mar 2019, 19:11
JordanMugen wrote:
21 Mar 2019, 09:30
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D0j77GUX4AEOflG.jpg

A cute part to gain 10g (?) of downforce, but arguably indicative of inefficient spending & inefficient organisation...
Making basic mistakes such as interpreting the rulebook may be a better sign. The pre-season front suspension flaps and the mirrors are both not being used. Development and manufacturing cost for those items toward no benefit.
i doubt that tiny extra wing on top of the rear crash structure is there for direct downforce at all. i believe it is to guide air upwards in combination with the exhaust flow, which then in itself indirectly causes more downforce.

that said, i doubt that the car is working. they possibly simply slapped a bunch of things on the car that in itself in some computer calculations hade positive results - but in the overall picture, they don't work together and potentially even harm 'eachother'.

concidering even mclaren mentioned last year that they experienced opposite results from what they were hoping to achieve with updates, which hampered and slowed down the car's improvements, despite having arguably much better facilities then mclaren - for starters, their budget is a gazillion times bigger, and their facilities far more recently updated and maintained.

offcourse both mclaren and williams can make similar 'design' or 'philosophy' mistakes, but i'd be inclined to believe that williams having a much smaller budget and less up-to-date facilities, would have exponentially big effects compared to that of mclaren.

which again brings us back to exaclty that which paddy mentioned before or while everything went to bits and pieces, is that williams is making the mistake to think that 1 or 2 little changes will solve everything - when the thing is, everything is going wrong.

i am curious though to what's going to happen to the car this year, including williams.
i have a hard head in williams' future, and this car, but something must happen along the lines.
a new TD, or somebody appointed in that function or responsibility, and what we will see happening with the FW42 after the summer break.

I think williams should find themselves 1 goal: score a few points, so they really should focus on bringing an update after summer break to make sure they have a car that is able to do that in the latter half of the season.
unfortunately, that'll cost precious funding which can be only be spent once - either on this year's contender which is a miserable piece of junk, OR focus on next year's totally different car. then again, 2021 will see more change. so perhaps it's not so unwise to invest in this car to make some points this year, accept another year of backmarker status for 2020, and focus and invest on getting things on the line for 2021.
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Greg_OR
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Joined: 26 Jun 2010, 03:09
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Re: Williams FW42

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Could somebody comment about the overweight problem those jurnos speculate?
They derive it from fact that in low fuel quali runs the gap is larger then in the full tank race pace.
To my knowledge (from discussion about non-carbon gearbox housing) this car being short wheelbase had no weight problems and going carbon was not critical.
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SmallSoldier
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Joined: 10 Mar 2019, 03:54

Re: Williams FW42

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I have my doubts that the car’s problem is as simple as been overweight... All cars are designed to be under the minimum weight and they add ballasts in the car to achieve that minimum... Designing a car that is heavier than the competition would be something very hard to justify for any team (consider that teams don’t run the full allocation of fuel today in order to save those Kg and be lighter at the start of the race, even when that implies lifting and coasting during certain periods).


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bill shoe
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Joined: 19 Nov 2008, 08:18
Location: Dallas, Texas, USA

Re: Williams FW42

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The jurnos say the car may be overweight because it looks a little bulbous or something, and that's nonsense. It starts to look how you think it is.

The evidence for being overweight based on qualy pace vs full-tank pace is more significant. Remember, the Merc engine is superb for fuel efficiency so they typically start races with 5-10 kg less fuel than the other engines, and this would help obscure weight problems toward the beginning of races.

This thread had extended good discussion about aluminum gearbox compared to carbon. There were some ~15 year old numbers and some current rumors that suggested up to an 10-18 kg difference between a good carbon box and a well designed aluminum box. IF IF IF the aluminum gearbox was this seriously overweight then it's all extra ass-weight (rear-end weight), and taking weight off the engine-end of a racecar is difficult. Again, IF such a basic thing is holding them back then several people in team technical leadership should be tarred, feathered, and strapped to the nose of the car to serve as offsetting front ballast. Keeping weight under control at the engine-end of the car is such a well-known and fundamental challenge in bespoke/formula racecar design.

General consensus is that F1 cars are now rear downforce limited, meaning they ~ max out all available rear downforce at most tracks. So if you have too much rear-weight you can't just add more rear downforce to compensate in the turns. You become stuck with what looks to outsiders like an aero problem of insufficient downforce. Hmmm.

PhillipM
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Joined: 16 May 2011, 15:18
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Re: Williams FW42

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Carbon casing is not even close to that weight saving on the box, about half to a third of that - the majority of the weight in the boxes is the gearset, shafts, bearings, diff and bulkheads, after all.

18kg would be halving the weight of the gearbox, for example - that doesn't add up even with a cursory glance. In addition to which unless they've changed things they were using titanium bulkheads.

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ScrewCaptain27
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Re: Williams FW42

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Image
AMuS
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Dipesh1995
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Joined: 21 Apr 2014, 17:11

Re: Williams FW42

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Image

Manoah2u
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Joined: 24 Feb 2013, 14:07

Re: Williams FW42

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absolutely great angle on the sidepod intake. i didn't notice it was actually that small a-la- ferrari style.
"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"

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JordanMugen
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Joined: 17 Oct 2018, 13:36

Re: Williams FW42

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Beautifully made car!

SimonFW11b
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Joined: 05 Jul 2015, 10:20

Re: Williams FW42

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JordanMugen wrote:
30 Mar 2019, 16:09
Beautifully made car!
It's really not

Manoah2u
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Joined: 24 Feb 2013, 14:07

Re: Williams FW42

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SimonFW11b wrote:
30 Mar 2019, 21:17
JordanMugen wrote:
30 Mar 2019, 16:09
Beautifully made car!
It's really not
Even Williams themselves mention it's a dog because of the rushed slapped-on manufacturing process to make australia and bahrein. :lol:

i guess it's either sarcasm or he was expecting to see tie-wraps and ducttape :mrgreen:

Ah well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
It is painfully slow though :(

I had some hope it would have been in a better shape compared to australia but not much or any to be honest.

In a way it's too bad the new fastest-lap rule doesn't count for backmarkers and such. I understand why not, but it would make for an interesting battle.
"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"

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humble sabot
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Joined: 17 Feb 2007, 10:33

Re: Williams FW42

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It's got good lines, and some good ideas but it does seem like it's a little rough around the edges in build quality. It would be interesting to know exactly what Russell was talking about when he said in the Paddock Pass pre race, that they knew what they had to do. He was rather coy, but also optimistic.
One big plus is that they did both finish the race in fully running condition. Can't fight for points if you DNF.
Russell did seem to be focusing on dialling the setup, which is pretty much his job, and a realistic thing to be able to get under control.
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