Williams FW41 Mercedes

[Sevach]

[tomazy]

[Sevach]

Some sort of testing going on it seems.

[PhillipM]

Strange place for temperature strips.

[ScrewCaptain27]

Rear wing flow-viz. Note the flow separation:

Source: Racecar Engineering

[ScrewCaptain27]

Rear view of the gearbox (AMuS):

[Morteza]

Via AMuS

[Sevach]

[Mr Brooksy]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/will ... z-1036896/

According to Wurz and Motorsport it's the diffuser. Interestingly Williams thinks it's been a design flaw that dates back to 2015. Might explain the fall down the grid since then, and possibly the serious issue with the past few years wet weather performance?

[PlatinumZealot]

Diffuser would have been an easy fix so I think it's more than that.

[netoperek]

Diffuser would have been an easy fix so I think it's more than that.

Not if it has been a starting point for rest of the design, or at least the experimental stage (wind tunnel and testing) - i.e. shaping the feed by moving from end to front with the design/tweaks.

[PlatinumZealot]

Diffuser would have been an easy fix so I think it's more than that.

Not if it has been a starting point for rest of the design, or at least the experimental stage (wind tunnel and testing) - i.e. shaping the feed by moving from end to front with the design/tweaks.

The diffuser is at the back of the car so I'd everythng elder as OK it would be only one thing to fix withought affecting the parts up front. That is obviously not the case here.

[PhillipM]

Doesn't work like that, most of the flow structure from the front wing, suspension, bargeboards is all aimed at sealing the floor and helping the diffuser, it's never as simple as changing one part.

[bill shoe]

It's not just the diffuser, and it's not just all the parts (front wings, barge boards, etc.) that attempt to seal and control the diffuser.

Williams need to go back and figure out why their technical processes (CFD, wind-tunnel, on-track instrumentation), and human processes (interpretation and reconciliation of all the technical info) were not reliably identifying problems that now seem to have been going on in-reality on-car on-track for some time (years?). Then they need to identify the technical problem. Then they need to identify technical solutions.

Possibly partial answers exist for middle or later issues already, but it's necessary to flesh out the processes in the earlier stages if you want to get anywhere. It's kind of like the first step of recovery from alcoholism: It starts by admitting you have a problem. Now that's a challenge for Paddy!-- He will either fail at this because he's a newcomer, or he will succeed at this because he's a newcomer.

[Thunder]

Some Off Topic Posts have been moved to the Team Thread.