Williams F1

[Petrus1983]

thegreenhell said:

carl_w said:

tight fart said:

Wasn't 2012 the year of the Bernie's fix with tyres, 6 different winners in the first 6 races?

I heard that Bernie gave Williams special petrol on the understanding that they destroy the evidence afterwards.

It's purely coincidence that it was the first race Frank Williams attended after his recent 70th birthday, and was also the weekend of the Williams team's 35 anniversary.

I've just rewatched the highlights on YouTube and it wasn't a 'fluke' win - he put it on pole and then properly raced. Also at the end you see Toto and Frank together - the following decade couldn't have been different for the two, with TW going on to create the team he did.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g2x4m2_PgTY

[entropy]

skwdenyer said:

ajprice said:

Vowles: Some Williams F1 tech "20 years out of date"

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/vowles-some-will...

That was pretty well-known, in fairness.

There's been mutterings of cultural problems and being stuck-in-their ways by journalists.

Refreshing to have someone like Vowles being so Frank and honest. Can't see this type of response authorised under the Williams ownership.

Petrus1983 said:

I've just rewatched the highlights on YouTube and it wasn't a 'fluke' win - he put it on pole and then properly raced. Also at the end you see Toto and Frank together - the following decade couldn't have been different for the two, with TW going on to create the team he did.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g2x4m2_PgTY

Maldonado was awarded pole because Hamilton was penalized for stopping his car at the end of quali so that he would have enough fuel to provide a fuel sample.

[skwdenyer]

entropy said:

skwdenyer said:

ajprice said:

Vowles: Some Williams F1 tech "20 years out of date"

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/vowles-some-will...

That was pretty well-known, in fairness.

There's been mutterings of cultural problems and being stuck-in-their ways by journalists.

Refreshing to have someone like Vowles being so Frank and honest. Can't see this type of response authorised under the Williams ownership.

Of course nobody at Vowles' level was going to say that under Williams' ownership - they were trying to sell sponsorship! Those of us who've been fans of Williams wouldn't have thanked Claire for "doing a Ratner."

But just, for instance, looking at the published "day in the life" video of Ed Wood was enough for anyone with any knowledge of engineering to see where they were. They were still stuck in an old "drawing office" culture when everyone else was doing modern engineering.

Even Claire openly admitted that making their own (metal) gearboxes was far more about maintaining their capability to do so and "being a manufacturer" and to keep long-standing staff than it was about winning. But it *did* allow them to grow non-F1 revenue streams, which kept them going a lot longer than they would otherwise have done.

Had cost-caps turned up when first promised, Williams would have been fine. Had Adam Parr not fallen out with Bernie, perhaps cost-capping would have arrived earlier. Williams - correctly - saw that their way out as an independent team was a cost-capped "franchise" model; they just couldn't hang on long enough.

[Petrus1983]

Cool insight - thanks. He must have been really penalised as didn't seem to appear at all.

[PhilAsia]

entropy said:

Maldonado was awarded pole because Hamilton was penalized for stopping his car at the end of quali so that he would have enough fuel to provide a fuel sample.

I have an amusing image of a steward running alongside a moving Mercedes trying to syphon off a fuel sample

Edited by PhilAsia on Thursday 15th June 14:40

[entropy]

Petrus1983 said:

Cool insight - thanks. He must have been really penalised as didn't seem to appear at all.

Hamilton started at the back of the grid and still finished ahead of Button!

[Smollet]

entropy said:

Hamilton started at the back of the grid and still finished ahead of Button!

…and?

[rider73]

sounds to me like Frank didnt want to change and even though he built a great team, he also doomed it....

[entropy]

Smollet said:

entropy said:

Hamilton started at the back of the grid and still finished ahead of Button!

…and?

On paper Lewis had pace to win at a canter and Maldonado/Alonso would have no chance to fight for win unless it was another Sam Michaels phuck up or mechanical failure. Not that a Williams P2 isn't a worthy achievement.

[Petrus1983]

rider73 said:

sounds to me like Frank didnt want to change and even though he built a great team, he also doomed it....

I came to this (maybe wrong) conclusion - or Toto would have just tried to play a big role in the team vs starting one from scratch.

[thegreenhell]

When did Toto start a team from scratch?

[TheDeuce]

skwdenyer said:

entropy said:

skwdenyer said:

ajprice said:

Vowles: Some Williams F1 tech "20 years out of date"

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/vowles-some-will...

That was pretty well-known, in fairness.

There's been mutterings of cultural problems and being stuck-in-their ways by journalists.

Refreshing to have someone like Vowles being so Frank and honest. Can't see this type of response authorised under the Williams ownership.

Of course nobody at Vowles' level was going to say that under Williams' ownership - they were trying to sell sponsorship! Those of us who've been fans of Williams wouldn't have thanked Claire for "doing a Ratner."

But just, for instance, looking at the published "day in the life" video of Ed Wood was enough for anyone with any knowledge of engineering to see where they were. They were still stuck in an old "drawing office" culture when everyone else was doing modern engineering.

Even Claire openly admitted that making their own (metal) gearboxes was far more about maintaining their capability to do so and "being a manufacturer" and to keep long-standing staff than it was about winning. But it *did* allow them to grow non-F1 revenue streams, which kept them going a lot longer than they would otherwise have done.

Had cost-caps turned up when first promised, Williams would have been fine. Had Adam Parr not fallen out with Bernie, perhaps cost-capping would have arrived earlier. Williams - correctly - saw that their way out as an independent team was a cost-capped "franchise" model; they just couldn't hang on long enough.

Yes, this thread has been over all this stuff endlessly and to be frank (no pun), it was all pretty obvious how screwed they were and how the stubbornness to carry on in full constructor format no matter the financial reality is what made them sadly fail a couple of years short of the cost cap coming in.

Or is it sad..? It's sad given the history but looking to the future, there was no way Frank or Claire were capable of returning the team to any sort of glory even if the cost caps sorted out the budget issues. Frank was already way past that sort of job and I really don't think Claire was ever up to it.

Sometimes, you just have to accept a great thing has had it's day. I'm glad the Williams name lives on but for me it's literally just a name now.

[TheDeuce]

thegreenhell said:

When did Toto start a team from scratch?

That's next to impossible these days, even for someone who could in theory make a good job of it.

I think there's a good few parallels between Frank and Toto, although perhaps even more between Frank and Horner..

[Deesee]

JV is in a great place with Williams, he’s attractive to investors, he has sound reasoning..

I’m quite surprised Wolff did not offer equity to him, to retain.. good luck to the guy.

[CT05 Nose Cone]

First few races showed some promise, and Albon has put in some very solid drives. Alas, looks to be a long season ahead.

[entropy]

skwdenyer said:

Of course nobody at Vowles' level was going to say that under Williams' ownership - they were trying to sell sponsorship! Those of us who've been fans of Williams wouldn't have thanked Claire for "doing a Ratner."

Is it wrong to address superficial faults but not reveal a horror show within a company and seek to resolve them would be enough to reassure sponsors or investors in Ronspeak (because McLaren/race teams isn't a charity!)

[TheDeuce]

What's the deal with cost caps and capital expediture? Are teams allowed to spend money to improve their bricks and mortar facilities outside the cap?

If not, how can any team such as the new Williams ever catch up with the top teams that were blatantly able to dump hundreds of millions on facilities just ahead of the caps..

I know the lesser performing teams get extra CFD and wind tunnel time but that's only so useful if certain key workshops at the factory are sorely out of date. You kind of need good facilities to make good use of the extra aero R&D time.

[thegreenhell]

The cost cap is designed primarily to limit Opex not Capex, so infrastructure costs are mostly excluded.

[TheDeuce]

thegreenhell said:

The cost cap is designed primarily to limit Opex not Capex, so infrastructure costs are mostly excluded.

I figured they must be but is there any easy to make sense of explanation of that split? Do you have a useful source for how that's worked out?

I see endless crossovers between the two in practice.

[stemll]

It is mentioned in here

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/vowles-f1-cost-c...

Boils down to teams being given exemptions for capital investment. Seems Aston were given it for their new wind tunnel. Seems there may be changes/clarifications due next month. One would hope that the top x teams in the previous season are excluded from this to try and lift the bottom teams' performance to close the gaps.