Williams in 2013

[Podie]

After a promising 2012 with Maldonado and Senna, it seems the 2013 car isn't quite as good.

Whilst some might say it's a a bit too early to tell, do the PH F1 gods think that they can turn it around? Was it a fluke? Or did Senna actually bring more to the team than money?

Thoughts?

[MartG]

They do seem to be in free fall towards the back of the grid, don't they Sad for such a once-great team

[Vocal Minority]

I think Bruno always got a bit of a bum rap to be honest.

He was always a competent peddler, was never going to set anyones world alight, but a safe and quick enough pair of hands. Unfortunate for him in some ways that he was always going to be viewed through the prism of his uncle, and therefore always a dissappointment!

[longblackcoat]

Sad, isn't it. Looked as though (like Lotus), they'd finally got their mojo back in 2012. Maldonado's properly quick, and if he was in the #2 seat at McLaren then I think you'd see a truly terrified Button, but the car's just nowhere near good enough.

All teams wax and wane though - in the 1990s Ferrari were just awful, then they got great, and now they're back to being good-but-not-winners. A similar story with McLaren, and who'd have thought that a decade back Red Bull didn't exist (they were still the laughable Jaguar team.

[350Matt]

come 2014 I'd expect Williams to be back on form as the emphasis is very much more on engine and mechanical grip

[longblackcoat]

350Matt said:

come 2014 I'd expect Williams to be back on form as the emphasis is very much more on engine and mechanical grip

Love to see it but I think there's minimal chance - they don't have the budget, and without a track record of recent success there's little chance of attracting more big-money sponsors. The game-changer in recent years has been Red Bull, who are to F1 what Roman Abramovich was to the Premier League - come in, spend big, buy success. Nothing wrong with that (and it's something Mercedes and Toyota weren't able to do), but it's one of the reasons that some of the teams of yesteryear have faded away.