Williams' Sam Michael - A Success?

[Andy M]

itv-f1 said:

Question: Sam Michael was in the press yesterday saying that the team needs to regroup. It goes without saying that you would agree with that, but how does it go about doing it?

MARK WEBBER: "I don't know how they are going to go about doing that. I'm interested to see for myself."

Webber sounding a little disillusioned with Williams, and possibly Sam Michael in particular.

My question: Since 'taking over' from Patrick Head, do we think Sam Michael has been a success?

[SamHH]

Andy M said:

itv-f1 said:

Question: Sam Michael was in the press yesterday saying that the team needs to regroup. It goes without saying that you would agree with that, but how does it go about doing it?

MARK WEBBER: "I don't know how they are going to go about doing that. I'm interested to see for myself."

Webber sounding a little disillusioned with Williams, and possibly Sam Michael in particular.

My question: Since 'taking over' from Patrick Head, do we think Sam Michael has been a success?

Obviously Williams' performances have be getting worse recently but without being part of the team it's difficult to judge whether or not that is due to Micheal. No doubt losing the BMW engines didn't help. It seems like Williams are fast disappearing as one of the 'Big Four' in F1 and I don't see them clawing their way back to the top any time soon.

[kevin ritson]

They regrouped a couple of years ago when Patrick Head took a step back...they need to focus on what they can do with a Toyota engine, losing BMW was always going to be a problem in an increasingly-manufacturer-led era, they need to ensure they can get parity with the works team or look to seduce another supplier.

I wonder if Frank and Patrick need to look at handing over the reins - I hate to say it but maybe they're too old and too out of touch for today's F1?

[FourWheelDrift]

They've said the main problem they have had this year is a new design of gearbox, but then who's to know what happens behind the scenes in the delegation of work and design/development/testing stages that Sam Michael has been in charge of. Plus the ammount of money they have been able or allowed to spend paying for it and how it has been allocated for projects. They might have just been having a deliberately cheap (well spending less than usual) kind of year until they secured a manufacturers engine for next year, like they've now down with the Toyota contract.

Edited by FourWheelDrift on Thursday 6th July 14:10