Williams Martini Racing has finally confirmed Valtteri Bottas will race with the team for a fifth consecutive season, with Lance Stroll making his Formula One debut alongside him for the 2017 FIA Formula One World Championship.
This forum contains threads to discuss teams themselves. Anything not technical about the cars, including restructuring, performances etc belongs here.
Mr Brooksy wrote:Heck yes! That's great news! Let's hope Williams keep recruiting top people like this. I was hoping for James Allison, but this is as good I feel. And to poach from Red Bull is an achievement as they were very adamant they were keeping James.
Pat has done a great deal for Williams dragging it back towards the pointy end of the field, but we always needed a new younger talent to go forward from here.
Just a guess : papa Stroll had a role in this hire too
07 OCT 2016
Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka
5.807 km / 3.608 miles
FP1
Weather: Warm and dry
Air & Track Temperatures: 21-24°C / 30-36°C
V Bottas, FW38-03, PU106C Hybrid, 1:35.381 (10th)
F Massa, FW38-02, PU106C Hybrid, 1:36.169 (16th)
Quickest time: N. Rosberg 1:32.431
FP2
Weather: Warm and dry
Air & Track Temperatures: 24-25°C / 31-34°C
V Bottas, FW38-03, PU106C Hybrid, 1:34.028 (9th)
F Massa, FW38-02, PU106C Hybrid, 1:34.127 (11th)
Quickest time: N. Rosberg 1:32.250
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: It was a fairly normal Friday for us and we completed most of the work that we needed to in FP1 and FP2. We tested different suspension geometries and aerodynamic components, which we’ll have to analyse tonight, but everything looked reasonably good. In the afternoon we concentrated on the balance of the car and tyre performance, and it all went smoothly. Everything looks good on both low and high fuel runs so I think we are in our normal position, maybe a little bit further forward. The weekend has started quite well.
Valtteri Bottas: I think it was a pretty straightforward Friday. We got everything done that we had planned and there were no big issues. Balance-wise, I’m already pleased with the car but we still need to focus on tyre performance. I think getting more performance out of the soft tyre over one lap is the key, and then on the long runs we need to get both of the compounds working at 100%.
Felipe Massa: It was a normal Friday. We were mostly just trying to understand the tyres, the different aspects of the car and doing the long runs. I think we need to analyse where we are compared to our competitors tonight because this weekend is going to be another fight, but I hope we can have a good one.
Tweet Share on Facebook
08 OCT 2016
Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka
5.807 km / 3.608 miles
Qualifying Notes
Weather: Warm and dry
Temperature: Air 23-24°C Track 26-28°C
Q1
V. Bottas: 1:32.383 (5th)
F. Massa: 1:32.562 (10th)
Quickest time: S. Vettel: 1:31.659
Q2
V. Bottas: 1:32.315 (11th)
F. Massa: 1:32.380 (12th)
Quickest time: N. Rosberg: 1:31.858
Q3
V. Bottas: -
F. Massa: -
Quickest time: N. Rosberg: 1:30.647
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: It’s disappointing to be 11th and 12th and not make it through to Q3. However, what we can see is that our drivers are evenly matched and we’ve got most of what we could have out of today. The car just wasn’t quick enough. It’s going to be more about the race around here and we can definitely have a good strategy from where we are. We’ve got the car set up with a good compromise for all conditions, so whatever the weather brings we will be prepared. We’ve got to look forward now and get as many points as we can tomorrow.
Valtteri Bottas: Looking at our qualifying performance here from the past few years it’s disappointing not to be in Q3. We just weren’t quick enough today. I had a little bit of traffic in Q2, but the speed just wasn’t there. The positive thing from today is that we have a free choice of tyres for the race. We have the same opportunity that we had in Malaysia to do something different with the strategy, hopefully we can make good use of that.
Felipe Massa: That wasn’t the qualifying we expected. I think the biggest surprise were the laptimes from Haas. They qualified in front of both us and Force India in Q2. We are one tenth slower than the Force Indias, like we were in Malaysia, but I’m surprised by Haas. It’s true that our laptimes on the new tyres wasn’t so great, so I’m a bit disappointed with that. The race tomorrow will be tough. It will be a very big fight. But we’ll try everything we can to have a strong race and hopefully score some good points. All we can do is try.
09 OCT 2016
Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka
5.807 km / 3.608 miles
Weather: Warm and dry
Temperature: Air 21-22°C, Track: 25-27°C
Race Notes:
•Felipe Massa finished ninth and Valtteri Bottas 10th in the Japanese Grand Prix
•Both cars began the race on the medium tyre, but lost positions at the start, with Valtteri falling to P13 and Felipe P14
•On lap 24 Felipe stopped for a set of hard tyres to push for a one-stop, as did Valtteri on lap 26
•After a slightly slower pitstop, Valtteri re-joined behind Felipe on track in P13. Both cars moved up the order as those ahead pitted, and overtook Sainz for P10 and P11 on lap 30. When Grosjean came in for his final stop Felipe and Valtteri moved up to P9 and P10 where they finished the race
•Valtteri remains seventh in the Drivers’ Championship, while Felipe reclaimed ninth position
•The team remains fifth in the Constructors’ Championship with 124 points, 10 points adrift of Force India
•Congratulations to Mercedes on securing their third consecutive FIA Formula One World Constructors’ Championship title.
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: Quite honestly, with the car and the pace we had this weekend that was pretty much all we could have done as a team. We played a risky strategy in order to get ourselves in the points and we got three points in the end. The team can be reasonably proud. We’ve acquitted ourselves well. It’s a shame for Valtteri because he had that ninth position in hand ahead of Felipe, and so we were keeping him out longer to give him better tyres towards the end of the race. Unfortunately, the stop was slower than our usual and he came out behind Felipe. Apart from that, I think the team has done a good job with no mistakes and we’ve pushed on to where we could be in this race. The overriding point is that the car just wasn’t quick enough and that has been the biggest disappointment of the weekend in both qualifying and the race. However, we’ve got four races left. We need to regroup, and understand how we are going to get some more performance out of the car for the remaining races. We will push forward and will not give up.
Felipe Massa: It was a tough race. We were really fighting from the beginning, to the end. We lost two positions at the start with both cars, maybe due to the tyres we had compared to the others. The pace at the beginning didn’t look very promising compared to the others. We tried to stay out long to do a one-stop, and it worked out. We would love to have finished ahead of Force India, but today they had a better car. We managed to score points with both cars after being just 13th and 14th during the first stint. I think it was a positive race and the strategy worked out very well.
Valtteri Bottas: As a team strategy-wise, we managed to do something different to our competitors so that was good. There definitely wasn’t any more we could have got out of today. In a nutshell, we need to make a quicker car and hope that the rest of the circuits in the calendar are better suited to us. We just didn’t have the pure pace today. From my side, being the lead car in the first stint I was hoping for the better strategy out of the two of us but that didn’t work out today. Looking ahead to Austin, I hope it’s better and more like Malaysia in terms of our pace in comparison to Force India. It’s just so difficult to predict these things nowadays, so we need to learn from today and hopefully we’ll perform better there in two weeks.
While encouraged by Williams's 2017 progress, Symonds acknowledges that there is no reference point, and he is also mindful of what its rivals could be doing.
Asked how the team is shaping up for 2017 by Autosport, Symonds said: "It's really hard to say because the gains we are making on aerodynamics on next year's car are just staggering.
"Every week in the windtunnel it's just pulling downforce onto the thing, but I can't believe we are alone on that.
"I'm sure that's happening in 11 windtunnels around the world, so you just never know.
...
...
"Of course the slope isn't quite what it was in the first month or so but it's still remarkable.
"Don't forget that not all the focus is on the aero.
"One of the things we have to cope with is handling these new prescriptions from Pirelli.
"It's not easy. Like most teams, we've had to do suspension geometry changes, we have had to do totally different types of brake ducts."
...
I was talking to someone from Manor over the weekend and even they're expecting 3 seconds a lap just from what they've got in testing already (I was actually asking him about sidepods given they stay the same width and most renders have them wider - he reckons that's because they're going to change shape around the front undercuts especially due to the tyre blockage but there's a few options and nobody wants to show their hand yet by talking about it), god knows what the big teams are going to pull out.
Williams is suppousedly waiting for Stroll's 18th birthday to announce him... because of Martini.
I didn't think of that.
U.S. legal drinking age, for better or worse, is 21. Will Lance drive the U.S. race with Martini logos while he's only 18, 19, etc..?
I certainly hope so, as i find all the advertising restrictions on alcohol and tobacco to be pointless and useless, when everyone already knows the risks involved these days.
“To be able to actually make something is awfully nice”
Bruce McLaren on building his first McLaren racecars, 1970
“I've got to be careful what I say, but possibly to probably Juan would have had a bigger go”
Sir Frank Williams after the 2003 Canadian GP, where Ralf hesitated to pass brother M. Schumacher
13:37 – European Formula 3 Champion Lance Stroll is set to graduate to Formula 1 next season, according to his father, Lawrence.
Stroll wrapped up the Formula 3 title at the penultimate round at Imola, before completing a hat-trick of wins at last weekend's finale at Hockenheim, ending the campaign with 14 victories from 30 starts.
Williams development driver Stroll, who turns 18 at the end of October, has been linked to the team for 2017, with incumbent Felipe Massa retiring at the end of the season.
"Lance will be in F1 next year," Lawrence Stroll is quoted by Journal de Montréal.
"You can write [that] in black and white.
"His success and his F3 championship represent a great achievement.
"But what I'm most proud of is how he managed to achieve such heights.
"You don't know how hard he has worked since the beginning of his career; his perserverance made him a Formula 3 champion. It's not a trivial [achievement].
"The road was long, arduous at times, but this is the best reward.
"Now he has reached his ultimate goal of Formula 1. I am convinced he will be successful there.
"It is a great challenge for which he has prepared for a long time."
Canada has not had a representative on the Formula 1 grid since Jacques Villeneuve left the sport mid-2006.
