Williams FW37 Mercedes

[bill shoe]

Question? Is the Mercedes will give Williams the new engine in Monza ؟

The rumor mill surrounding the Red Bull engine situation keeps spurting out bits and pieces about Williams having the only "favored status" customer engine contract with Mercedes. Hopefully this gets them the new engines.

At this point Williams is still in a fight for their constructors position, but the Mercedes team proper is really not fighting anymore (first is pretty well locked up for them). Depending on your perspective or philosophy this could be used to justify Williams taking a go with a new-spec and Mercedes being conservative with the old spec... or the other way around completely.

[PlatinumZealot]

Question? Is the Mercedes will give Williams the new engine in Monza ؟

No one knows yet.

Mercedes have been so low key on their token use I am not even sure what version of the 2015 engine they're on.

[tomazy]

Question? Is the Mercedes will give Williams the new engine in Monza ؟

Aperantly not?

The move represents a tactical change by Mercedes, with the development only available to the works team for now and not customers Williams, Force India and Lotus, as it effectively pulls forward 2016 development.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/120601

[delladv]

Those are some photos from today with the old and the new endplate side-by-side:


Close-up:

[LookBackTime]

[Sevach]

[LookBackTime]

[LookBackTime]

[tomazy]

Is it just me, or does Valtteri have bigger gurney flap on the rear wing than Felipe?

[JDC123]

I find it extremely odd that williams chose not to bring low drag endplates specially designed to work with their low downforce wing. The fact that the wing sits quite low, with a fair amount of the endplate sticking up above the top of the highest part of the wing makes me think that the lower profile/tier of the wing is the same spec they use at most races and only the second element is a smaller low drag version in an attempt to bring low downforce wing at a fraction of the cost. Considering williams did extremely well last year at high speed tracks and the advantage mercedes powered cars have over the rest, I would expect monza to be the place they push for another podium. Instead they risk falling into the grasps of force india and lotus who both appear to have brought 'proper' low drag wings.

[tomazy]

I think it is a thing of finances. Williams is probably thinking that the money they have is better spant on other areas of the car that are beneficial on 90% of the circuit. Teams run a high DF aero on most of the tracks. In Canada/Spa and maybe Bahrain most of them have medium DF package (not Williams they ran with standard high DF package). Monza is the only circuit on the calander that requires a low DF aero and most of the teams invest in special rear and front wings. Williams has standard FW only much smaller angle, they have standard RW endplates, and DRS mehanism (main plane as you mentioned also?) only the flap is new and R&D for this is I would imagine minor. Last year was the same, they did have a special FW but didn't use it, and the rear wing was from FW35 Monza package .

[JDC123]

I think it is a thing of finances. Williams is probably thinking that the money they have is better spant on other areas of the car that are beneficial on 90% of the circuit. Teams run a high DF aero on most of the tracks. In Canada/Spa and maybe Bahrain most of them have medium DF package (not Williams they ran with standard high DF package). Monza is the only circuit on the calander that requires a low DF aero and most of the teams invest in special rear and front wings. Williams has standard FW only much smaller angle, they have standard RW endplates, and DRS mehanism (main plane as you mentioned also?) only the flap is new and R&D for this is I would imagine minor. Last year was the same, they did have a special FW but didn't use it, and the rear wing was from FW35 Monza package .

But when the likes of sauber can bring a low downforce rear wing to monza you would expect williams, a team who expected to be challenging ferrari for second in the constructors championship. Monza would be the perfect place (and they may still be faster than ferrari in the race) to claw back some points from ferrari if they had brought a fully optimised package.

[LookBackTime]

I think it is a thing of finances. Williams is probably thinking that the money they have is better spant on other areas of the car that are beneficial on 90% of the circuit. Teams run a high DF aero on most of the tracks. In Canada/Spa and maybe Bahrain most of them have medium DF package (not Williams they ran with standard high DF package). Monza is the only circuit on the calander that requires a low DF aero and most of the teams invest in special rear and front wings. Williams has standard FW only much smaller angle, they have standard RW endplates, and DRS mehanism (main plane as you mentioned also?) only the flap is new and R&D for this is I would imagine minor. Last year was the same, they did have a special FW but didn't use it, and the rear wing was from FW35 Monza package .

But when the likes of sauber can bring a low downforce rear wing to monza you would expect williams, a team who expected to be challenging ferrari for second in the constructors championship. Monza would be the perfect place (and they may still be faster than ferrari in the race) to claw back some points from ferrari if they had brought a fully optimised package.

Cost benefits problem! They think it makes more sense to spend the money one other things with better return.

Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: We've tested a myriad of mechanical components, new transmission developments, new suspension developments, plus other developments which we're putting in the pipeline for the future which the team have put a lot of effort in to.

[Just_a_fan]

There is always the possibility that changing the endplates wouldn't make much difference to the drag their car makes. Just because others do it doesn't mean it's the only way to go.

[Morteza]