Williams F1 Team 2013

[Sevach]

I hope they hire some aero guys with him.

[xpensive]

In ll honesty, I doubt if Symonds ever designed a car, didnt he always have a chief designer like Cascoyne or Bob Bell with him?

[Sevach]

He was Schumacher race engineer back in the day.

He is a lot more track, setup and development directions than an aero oriented guy.

[raymondu999]

I think X's point is that Symonds is not an artist in the sense of designing the cars - rather, he is the "manager" of the engineers.

[Sevach]

Look a point!!!!

Still worst season ever, but hey not zero.

[Richard]

It's that time of year when we need our traditional "Silly Season" thread to avoid multiple team threads talking about the same thing. We usually try to keep the team threads to discussion of this team, this season.

Silly season chat this way http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... ead#unread

[Sevach]

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/van-d ... -williams/

This bit of news regarding Williams.

[Seamus]

Robin Frijns is free agent now..

[munudeges]

In ll honesty, I doubt if Symonds ever designed a car, didnt he always have a chief designer like Cascoyne or Bob Bell with him?

He has never been in that position before in his entire career. Going from Coughlan, someone with a long track record and a protege of John Barnard, to someone like Symonds shows they really don't know their backside from their elbow. Mind you, Ferrari did that with Pat Fry and he is Symonds's equivalent. Someone who knows how to screw a car together but not what's going on.

[Sevach]

Symonds is a Fry/Brawn (maybe aero era Patrick Head) type, he understands cars but isn't the guy who will put the finishing touches (the all important finishing touches) into a project.
I think Ed wood is still chief designer (for a long time now) and Jason Sommerville chief aero.

In hindsight losing Wolff might've been the kiss of death, he was doing some good moves (if we are to believe rumours Lowe was coming to Williams not Mercedes).

[GitanesBlondes]

Symonds is a Fry/Brawn (maybe aero era Patrick Head) type, he understands cars but isn't the guy who will put the finishing touches (the all important finishing touches) into a project.
I think Ed wood is still chief designer (for a long time now) and Jason Sommerville chief aero.

In hindsight losing Wolff might've been the kiss of death, he was doing some good moves (if we are to believe rumours Lowe was coming to Williams not Mercedes).

I don't think losing Wolff was the kiss of death per se.

The team has been on a long downward slope for many years for numerous reasons that cover both the technical and driver-side of things.

Williams in my estimation suffers from the same problem a few of the teams on the grid have - no cohesive structure. After the debacle that was the FW-35, if the FW-36 is more of the same, then I suspect they will wallow near the back of the midfield before the team eventually folds.

What I can't figure out though is how the FW-33 was garbage, then they suddenly got somewhere with the FW-34, and then they are right back in the same position with the FW-35 as they were with the 33. What made 2012 different?

[Blackout]

What made 2012 different?

The Renault engine (one of the reasons) which helped them improve the car in many areas.
But what makes 2013 different?

[miguelalvesreis]

What made 2012 different?

The Renault engine (one of the reasons) which helped them improve the car in many areas.
But what makes 2013 different?

The Tyres

[Manoah2u]

What made 2012 different?

The Renault engine (one of the reasons) which helped them improve the car in many areas.
But what makes 2013 different?

The Tyres

+ exhaust, + no senna [i'm not talking about his performance, rather his technical input - bottas has'nt had the experience and maldonado doesn't seem to be such a 'technical' character. bruno having his experience with that awful HRT which only could do with setups to improve surely would have made an addition] + loss of barrichello [key factor in the technical demise, barrichello is a very good driver, very great personality, and good communicative skills packed with the most experience + valuable technical expertise].

I say it's the pack of things that send Williams to the back of the classroom. Time and time again changing just too many elements. They lost the toyota engine, went to cosworth = disapoint. Cosworth > Renault = better, yet seem to lack understanding of a potentially good car [maldonado win]. Loss of Rosberg [great driver], dumping Barrichello.
Budget shrinking critically due to loss of points and increasing costs. Less involvement of Sir F.Williams over the years.
Having the wrong people at play [Toto Wolff surely did have a good impact on the team, yet, I can only see Toto as a selfish guy that wants what he wants. Without delving in whether bottas is a good driver or not, Bottas should not have gotten into that team [yet] because it's not the wise thing to do for the team. Bottas there is Toto's desicion, and having that female test/reserve driver [which is Toto's b*tch] does not bring anything to the team either]. Senna got a seat, and imho, even though Bruno isn't near the level of his uncle [though we might have thought differently if he had that Brawn seat in 09 and homed in a win in his debut season], it was very unfair to take away friday practice and dump him after just 1 year. Maldonado brought in the money williams needed to survive, yet, it did not bring them to the midfield or the front, rather left them cold in the back.
They did some innovative designs on the gearbox, but seemed to lack functionability for the package [aerowise]. Again, I think this is due to lack of technical expertise. Maldonado crashed the car too many times which essentially gets them to lose valuable points. Bottas as a rookie did'nt do much, either.

Williams today seems to show an atmosphere of 'disatisfaction' and 'unpleased' personnel, and that is deadly for results.
I don't know where williams will go from here, but since BMW left williams, it's been going spiralling downwards ever since.

I really hope they'll get their act together with the new era and the addition of Mercedes' engines, but I wonder if Williams is simply gone glory and perhaps it's time to just slowly fade away out of F1 and another team/name to take over the entire team and build up a new team. Perhaps Prodrive, AstonMartin, i dunno. I just feel like Williams' days are over.
I hope i'm proved wrong.

[taperoo2k]

Williams are in a period of transition at the moment - Sir Frank to Claire Williams. She appears to have taken some of the better decisions in recent times. You'll have to wait and see what she can manage to achieve, from what I've heard about her she has the same fire for F1 and winning that her dad has. If anyone is going to get the team back to it's winning ways it will be her. However they have to at least get back to fighting for top 10 finishes more often next season to attract the money.