Williams F1

[HighwayStar]

Dr Jekyll said:

HighwayStar said:

Frank and Patrick were never warm and cuddly with their drivers.
In Damon’s case though the year before he won the WDC he had the car win it but he through races and points away, not patient enough to plan a good overtake.
I like Damon and was made up when he won, it was frustrating watching him the season before... I can see why they went a different way.
https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article...

I get the impression that (possibly because Frank's name is on the car) he's anxious to show it's the car that matters and drivers are interchangeable hired hands, Enzo Ferrari was the same.

It definitely was back then... The Williams cars were the class of the field. Take it, drive it, wring it’s neck and you will be world champion. Simples. If they’d have given Newey a piece of the pie it would likely be so different today

[Tyre Smoke]

I get the feeling that both Frank, and now Claire have the mantra of do it, but spending as little as we can get away with. Frank presided over the hey day if you like and was in a position of 'if you don't like it, there's the door'. Claire is trying to battle against dad who probably still thinks like that, and the reality of no money. Paddy Lowe being the fall guy.

It's a shame, but I don't think we will see Williams in F1 after this season. The team will be bought out or pre packed like Force India I reckon. And the name will be gone. Like Ligier, Brabham, Lotus, Arrows et al.

Sad truth is you can't go racing at this level on a shoestring.

[Fortitude]

F1 testing 2019: What's going wrong for troubled Williams
Autosport
Published on Feb 18, 2019
Following the news that Williams will miss the second day of 2019 F1 testing, Scott Mitchell and Gary Anderson join Glenn Freeman at the Circuit de Catalunya to discuss how things have unravelled for the British team, the worrying signs about the way its no-shows are being announced, and if there can be any hope for a team that's going to miss at least 25% of the available pre-season running

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG6Wover3gw


What happens next for 'embarrassed' Williams
Autosport
Published on Feb 20, 2019
Williams finally hit the track with its 2019 Formula 1 car at testing on Wednesday, but with only a handful of laps completed it still has a mountain to climb over the remainder of pre-season. The team says it's "embarrassing" to not be ready for the start of testing like everybody else, but how much ground does it have to make up? Scott Mitchell and Jake Boxall-Legge join Glenn Freeman at Barcelona to discuss where Williams goes from here, and to provide technical analysis of what is currently a very basic 2019 F1 car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl_fybBoyRs


WILLIAMS RACING: BATTLING ON
Published on Feb 20, 2019
"Our latest Formula 1 2019 feature on ROKiT Williams Racing.

Williams launched to fanfare, but was under fire at the start of pre-season testing, after failing to run across the first two days of the opening week.

It was more painful news, after Williams’ dire 2018 season, when it finished last in the standings for yet another embarrassing reminder of just how bad things have been. Watch the video, and tell us what you think in the comments…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNtz08nPl1g

[Fortitude]

Testing Day 3: Exclusive story – The reason Williams are late to test
February 20, 2019 · by thejudge13 · in F1 Testing. ·
Testing for day 2 at Barcelona was a fairly inconclusive affair, many teams opting for race simulations but still, Ferrari topped the timing screens and again McLaren finished up 2nd, albeit on one of the softest compounds – many fans missed Williams, and have asked the question; why are Williams F1 so bad?
Today we finally see Williams come to the party, having missed the first two test days they’ve missed out on 25% of the available pre-season testing, a hammer blow for sure.
Paddy Lowe is rumoured to be very much out of favour with the Williams management, and fingers have been pointed at the chief technical officer for Williams F1, citing the ex-Mercedes chief as the reason for the delays.
TJ13 reported late Monday night that an internal source within the team claimed that ill-designed parts for the braking system wouldn’t fit during the construction phase of the car last week. Some also believe that suspension components were misaligned, causing further delays. Further, it’s been reported that suppliers have not moved fast enough for the team with their parts manufacturing, caused in part to late order placement by Williams. Some speculate that this is a cash flow issue within the team.


TJ13 exclusive: A source from Grove has approached us: why are Williams F1 so bad?
Late on Monday, TJ13 received an anonymous email from an internal source within Grove. To quote:
“At the end of last year, all the managers in all manufacturing departments got sacked after an internal survey.
“They all obviously appealed, and have now all been paid off with no employment restrictions.
“Upper management are now trying to implement new working hours and staff are refusing to work more than the standard shift hours in protest of any change. So not a surprise the car is late and is not at the test”
Williams has managed to get their car to Barcelona this morning, but say that they’ll not be running until the afternoon at the earliest. The car arrived at 4am and Williams has been working since then to get it ready.
Both Lowe and deputy team principal Claire Williams have media sessions scheduled today.

https://thejudge13.com/f1/why-are-williams-f1-so-b...

[markcoznottz]

HighwayStar said:

davidc1 said:

After the way they handled damon leaving I never have sympathy for William's. Sorry!

Frank and Patrick were never warm and cuddly with their drivers.
In Damon’s case though the year before he won the WDC he had the car win it but he through races and points away, not patient enough to plan a good overtake.
I like Damon and was made up when he won, it was frustrating watching him the season before... I can see why they went a different way.
https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article...

He never says who it was , but he's fond of the old story of the team owner who called drivers 'light bulbs'.

[tigerkoi]

Fortitude said:

TJ13 exclusive: A source from Grove has approached us: why are Williams F1 so bad?
Late on Monday, TJ13 received an anonymous email from an internal source within Grove. To quote:
“At the end of last year, all the managers in all manufacturing departments got sacked after an internal survey.
“They all obviously appealed, and have now all been paid off with no employment restrictions.
“Upper management are now trying to implement new working hours and staff are refusing to work more than the standard shift hours in protest of any change. So not a surprise the car is late and is not at the test”
Williams has managed to get their car to Barcelona this morning, but say that they’ll not be running until the afternoon at the earliest. The car arrived at 4am and Williams has been working since then to get it ready.
Both Lowe and deputy team principal Claire Williams have media sessions scheduled today.

https://thejudge13.com/f1/why-are-williams-f1-so-b...

Never any smoke without a fire, as they say. If the above leak does turn into something far more substantial, then it’s a properly awful state of affairs.

I dare say there’s a few people who post in here who’ve actually worked in F1, but for an outsider like me you sometimes might have a more rose-tinted view of what things are actually like, and that everyone onboard in these outfits are all happy-clappy and fighting as one harmonious unit.

To hear that what’s really a small operation in the whole scheme of manufacturing businesses, having a mini industrial relations crisis, well, it raises eyebrows.

[tigerkoi]

Oi_Oi_Savaloy said:

Some great responses on this thread - insightful, opposing (but v v well set out) views with v persuasive arguments (particularly regarding Damon Hill's time in 94,95,96) and thoughts about Clair Williams/hierachy/position today etc etc.

I've always been one for 'no blaming; just work the problem' in work but I can definitely see why sometimes it's necessary to blame someone (because if you tar everyone with the blame brush you desperately hurt morale within those individuals/teams. tar them enough and they'll either leave or their performance will decline which is actually the worst overall outcome).

One the one hand I completely understand why the Williams Family want to carry the legacy forward but didn't I read somewhere that perhaps . one of the sons (Jonathan and Jaime) might have perhaps have the better skillset for the role that claire now does? But didn't want it perhaps (and now runs the heritage bit). Look I might have got that wholly wrong but am throwing it out there.

My point is - fingers are being pointed at Paddy Lowe for this but he's not the power. the one that gives the ultimate direction in the F1 business. Williams is (I'm not saying which one!). Yes PL has alot of sway but it's not his team. Perhaps giving PL the top job (and removing all Williams family personnel from the equation) might lead to a better car/uplift in performance. Perhaps not of course.

I like Claire - I identify with some of her mea culpa/human side but sadly, like me, perhaps she shouldn't really be in the job that she is - I get the impression that you have to be almost on the spectrum, in terms of your complete and only desire to win within F1; it's literally your life. And you have to know which route is best (for the performance of the car, the package, the aero, the PU, the suspension etc etc) for all elements of the team as they are reported to you and then you've got to put your foot down and tell that team/dept, that a) they're wrong and b) go in the correct route that you, as principal, have chosen/directed to them to do so, even if they are telling you that you are wrong......because you know, because you've got a greater depth of understanding of what you want/what's the better route. Trouble is - I don't get the impression she does know and therefore when she tries to give that direction none of the teams believe her and therefore this is what you end up with. 6 years of decline. On top of the rest of the decline in the years prior.

Perhaps I'm wrong and if I met her I'd realise she has the steel of her father. Perhaps she has - but perhaps that steel doesn't come with the inherent knowledge (or Patrick Head's knowledge!) you need.

Gut feel though - the Williams family needs to step back, in my view, for the Williams team to flourish. The dynasty is over.

Very interesting view/take on the dynamics in and around the firm.

A couple things I’ll throw another view on would be:

- Frank’s two boys. Judging from the recent documentary, I couldn’t help but feel that Jonathan came across as a bit damp. Probably a nice guy, but he looked like a victim; someone who probably had his lunch money regularly lifted off him at school. The other son seems to be well out of it. So if you’re Frank, and you’ve got one son who’s doing his own thing, another who’s a bit ‘beta’ and a daughter who’s 100% attentive to working firmly on your behalf, then the choice isn’t that hard.

- the spectrum bit. I’m not sure. Yeah, maybe people like Frank and Ron Dennis are a bit too focussed, like exclusively so, but then again look at Christian Horner. Some like him, some don’t, fine. But he comes across, at least to me as far more adroit in handling himself in front of the press, and seems to have played some very cute games to keep his drivers and various camps all going in one direction. He doesn’t seem to use dictatorship as the way forward, rather persuasion. It’s those sort of people skills he has as to why I think all team principals don’t have to be as uneven personalities as others.

[Mr Pointy]

Oi_Oi_Savaloy said:

I like Claire - I identify with some of her mea culpa/human side but sadly, like me, perhaps she shouldn't really be in the job that she is - I get the impression that you have to be almost on the spectrum, in terms of your complete and only desire to win within F1; it's literally your life. And you have to know which route is best (for the performance of the car, the package, the aero, the PU, the suspension etc etc) for all elements of the team as they are reported to you and then you've got to put your foot down and tell that team/dept, that a) they're wrong and b) go in the correct route that you, as principal, have chosen/directed to them to do so, even if they are telling you that you are wrong......because you know, because you've got a greater depth of understanding of what you want/what's the better route. Trouble is - I don't get the impression she does know and therefore when she tries to give that direction none of the teams believe her and therefore this is what you end up with. 6 years of decline. On top of the rest of the decline in the years prior. (Edited)

I don't think that's the case at all these days (although it used to be) & it's exactly why Williams are in such trouble - they haven't changed because the team is still run as a one man band. I'm pretty sure Toto Wolff or Christian Horner hasn't got a clue about how best to design the suspension, or the aero package, or the hybrid systems & they aren't telling the heads of those departments what to do. What they are doing is employing (& retaining) the best engineers they can & managing the immensely complex process of getting everyone to work together to produce the most optimal product. They don't need to be 'on the spectrum' to do this & in fact it would be disastrous if they were.

It's long past time when one person can be the single critical hub of a team (even RB got by without Newey) & Williams is a perfect demonstration of this. The question now is how much futher down the team will sink before they finally give it up & release it to give someone else a real chance to run it. Let's just hope it isn't a case of 'if I can't have it, no-one can'.

[Tyre Smoke]

If that leak from Grove is accurate, then for a small company, that is disastrous. They only need a few key members of staff to leave and their finished.

I get the impression that Frank is a 'How dare they! We are a famous F1 team' and Claire is trying to juggle all the balls and failing miserably.

They need money, and good management. At the moment they have neither.

[Fundoreen]

Williams haven't won anything in years so I doubt anyone that left was indispensable.
It all sounds british leyland workers v bosses but its not the 70s anymore and its a sport where only results count.

[Tyre Smoke]

Fundoreen said:

Williams haven't won anything in years so I doubt anyone that left was indispensable.
It all sounds british leyland workers v bosses but its not the 70s anymore and its a sport where only results count.

Odd you should view it like that. I view it as Management, particularly those with a surname beginning with W burying their heads in the sand and refusing to see the inevitable. Nero and violins, etc.

[stemll]

Tyre Smoke said:

I get the feeling that both Frank, and now Claire have the mantra of do it, but spending as little as we can get away with.

IIRC, Alan Jones once asked for more padding for the seat and was told to sit on his wallet.

Frank has always considered drivers as just another employee. As soon as they asked for what Frank considered too much, they were let go.

ETA
Found the story:

https://www.williamsdb.com/my-fabulous-years-with-...

Edited by stemll on Thursday 21st February 20:49

Edited by stemll on Thursday 21st February 20:50

[TheDeuce]

Moving away from the family and back to the car...

Why did it hardly run today? The lap count is pitiful, more than pitiful given Claire said just yesterday that they could catch up with a focus on heavy scheduling for the rest of the test days.

Since then, what has actually happened is they have lapped more slowly than everyone else, and done less laps. Was she just making stuff up in that interview or does she genuinely have no clue what's going on?

[Tyre Smoke]

Both I think.

But also I think the car is little more than screwed together bits that fit. And they could do little more than aero testing. They are still waiting for some key components.

[TheDeuce]

Tyre Smoke said:

Both I think.

But also I think the car is little more than screwed together bits that fit. And they could do little more than aero testing. They are still waiting for some key components.

They're still waiting on more stuff? I was out of it most of yesterday, have they actually said they still have missing bits?

And yes, wherever they were heading with the cars design I expect they had to make a lot of last minute compromises to get to testing at all. It doesn't even have to meet 2019 regs during testing so there could be reused 2018 components in the mix at present, as you say, bolt on whatever works to get the car runnable.

Whatever is really going on their 'testing' seems to be a complete farce. If the car on track isn't representative of what they plan to compete with this year then whatever test data they get now isnt of much value.

I use the word 'compete' loosely. The only competition they're really in is to outperform their own 2018 car so at least they can demonstrate progress to the watching world.

[Fortitude]

New behind-the-scenes documentary lays bare the precipitous F1 decline of Williams
By Oliver Brown, Chief Sports Feature Writer
23 February 2019 • 12:00am

In a behind-the-scenes documentary to be broadcast next month, Claire Williams tearfully questions her own credentials to lead the Williams Formula One team back to success. After a week in which her technical director, Paddy Lowe, failed even to have a car ready for the first two days of winter testing, the extraordinary footage lays bare the turmoil engulfing one of British motorsport’s iconic companies.

“When should I go, ‘Actually, maybe I’m not the right person to do this? Am I good enough to do it? Do I have the capability?’” Williams says, during the 10-part Netflix production, Drive to Survive. “It’s very difficult to come to terms with.”

The decline at Williams since she took over as deputy team principal in 2013, assuming day-to-day running of the team from her father, Sir Frank, has been precipitous. From a high of a third-place finish in the constructors’ standings in 2014 and 2015, Williams finished bottom last season, receiving the lowest share of bonus payments. On the evidence of a hapless first test in Barcelona, where the team described their performance as “embarrassing”, there appears scant hope of a revival this year.

The documentary, commissioned by F1 owners Liberty Media to lift the veil on the sport’s inner workings, leaves no doubt as to how toxic the situation within Williams has become. In one scene, Lawrence Stroll, the Canadian billionaire and chief sponsor of a race seat for his son Lance, walks out in disgust after a wretched result in the Monaco Grand Prix. In another, shot at Clare’s Bedfordshire home, she shows her infant son a toy car, only for her husband, Marc Harris, to say: “It goes faster than our car.”

For all that she second-guesses her abilities, Williams is adamant that she will not shirk the responsibility of steering the team through its troubles. “I’ve been given a wonderful opportunity, and I only agreed to do it because I thought at the time that I could turn the business around,” she says. “I’ve got this whole history that I need to protect. If, under my watch, that were all to go horribly wrong, it would be my fault.”

One fellow team principal has expressed surprise that Williams allowed herself to be drawn into such candour on camera. But the series contains several revelations from elsewhere in the paddock. Christian Horner, for example, is seen at breaking point at Red Bull, his rage palpable when Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo take each other out in Baku. “That’s 25, 30 points we’ve just f----- away,” he tells Helmut Marko, the team’s motorsport advisor.

Horner ultimately lost patience with his two feuding drivers, even before Ricciardo – who held ambitions of replacing Valtteri Bottas at Mercedes – jumped ship to Renault. In one episode, also featuring his wife, former Spice Girl Geri, he acidly refers to his child’s two pet donkeys as Max and Daniel. “Managing donkeys is sometimes easier than managing drivers,” he says.

Similarly, Drive to Survive shines a light on the breakdown of Horner’s relationship with Cyril Abiteboul, his Renault counterpart, whom he holds responsible for the multiple failures of Red Bull’s engines in 2018. The experience is one that Horner likens to paying a first-class fare for an economy ticket, comments that Abiteboul angrily claim “cross a red line”.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/formula-1/2019/02/23/n...

[Jerry Can]

some interesting points on this thread.

My view is that decades of decisive and determined leadership by FW and PH has meant that the rest of the team are underskilled or inexperienced in making decisions with conviction, which then leads to half hearted execution of whatever decisions are made.

In other words, if FW says 'we are doing this', everyone commits to it and makes it work, if CW says, 'what do you think guys,?' a correct decision may come out, but more often than not it won't, and in any case no one really commits to it, so it won't work that well anyway. So the execution of the car design is not maximised.

McLaren have suffered similarly I think.

[Turbotechnic]

Jerry Can said:

some interesting points on this thread.

My view is that decades of decisive and determined leadership by FW and PH has meant that the rest of the team are underskilled or inexperienced in making decisions with conviction, which then leads to half hearted execution of whatever decisions are made.

In other words, if FW says 'we are doing this', everyone commits to it and makes it work, if CW says, 'what do you think guys,?' a correct decision may come out, but more often than not it won't, and in any case no one really commits to it, so it won't work that well anyway. So the execution of the car design is not maximised.

McLaren have suffered similarly I think.

I think you’re absolutely correct. My impression of CW is she seem very wishy washy, either hear nor there and as a result they’ve got a team that’s doesn’t know where they’re going, compared to the front runners who are very straight to the point and focused.

[TheDeuce]

Aside from why things are so broken at Williams, I was reading an F1 summary of their testing so far...

The fact is that both their drivers are rookies (kubica last drove an F1 car 8 years ago so described himself as such). And so far in testing they have just 88 laps between them! And in a car that is apparently incomplete and not setup anything like they want to go to Melbourne with.

I hope both drivers get at least another 150 laps each next week, otherwise gotta question if they're even practiced enough for it to be responsible to chuck them in the ring. As it stands Russells entire F1 driving experience could be compressed into a single short day.

[Teddy Lop]

Turbotechnic said:

I think you’re absolutely correct. My impression of CW is she seem very wishy washy, either hear nor there and as a result they’ve got a team that’s doesn’t know where they’re going, compared to the front runners who are very straight to the point and focused.

«trigger warning»

I think people are unwilling to criticise Clare because of PC. Woman making it in a mans world fairytale - If you criticise her you're a sexist pig. If she was a bloke he'd be getting utterly murdered here and everywhere.

An F1 team needs a boss utterly devoted and utterly in control. My personal take on Clare being "in charge" is the old man can't relinquish this control, and having a principle willing to not have full control is the root of Williams problems. Frank's somewhat sociopathic nature thus being the reason for both the teams admirable success and monumental fall, a perfect tragic irony.

The last irony being if I'm correct then she's about as far from the woman making it in a mans world role model as it gets, as she was selected to front the team merely to massage the ego of an old white guy without challenging him.