2019 Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

[toraabe]

It will probably end up as Mercedes Junior team.. Just as Sauber is for Ferrari

[roy928tt]

I find the position Williams are in very sad, I live in Adelaide and in my younger years I got to experience Williams at their best. I pains me to see them bumbling around at the back of the grid.
Over the years I've tried to keep up with F1, but I spent many years working remote and sometimes things slipped by me.
I recall reading Webber's book and his comments regarding his feedback ie. they didn't want it. Meanwhile Shumi was very much involved with what Ferrari were doing ie winning. I found it incomprehensible that Williams wouldn't be following Ferrari's lead. Was it in Newey's book where he was supposed to be consulted on major decisions? but Frank and Patrick "forgot" to tell him about HHF replacing Hill?

I think the decline of Williams has been long and steady, It seems that PL tried to bring about change, but the entrenched culture has refused to yield. I'm afraid the future looks bleak.

It would seem a change in management style is required,I think it would require external advisors to be brought in and fortitude on the part of current managers to stand by and be dictated to. It is one of my pet subjects, F1 team management. And I hold one man as an example, Flavio. The T shirt salesman.Had never been to a GP before Adelaide '88 next thing he is managing a team, a few short years and the team is world champions, then the core of that team go off and become champions for another 5 years....meanwhile in the Williams pits they are not copying the winning formula.

David Richards,Prodrive. He's not getting any younger and probably doesn't need the job but he is the kind of manager who could sort the show out. It's not the Williams way to be dictated to but desperate times.....

[ChrisF1]

David Richards won't be welcomed near Williams, nor would he entertain the thought after they blocked him entering F1 with Prodrive.

[Manoah2u]

Bye bye Paddy !
http://classic.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/141929

this team is spiraling down in lightspeed.

even though i don't believe by any means Paddy should take the blame like he's getting, surely he has failed in some areas and takes part of the responsibility.

a leave of absence i'd say means that they're doing 2 things: 1 something for the world outside, 2 the team itself.
i'd say 2 is because of team morale at home base. thing is, it doesn't change the real problem which is the team itself.
any TD there would have ended up the same in the toxic williams environment. imagine Mattia Binotto going there a year back or so. He'd be burned to the ground, instead, now he's hailed as the next coming by getting Ferrari in a winning position. I think Paddy Lowe also would have good results at Ferrari. I don't believe he's a Adrian Newey by any means, but he's far from what people are making him out now.

I doubt there's any huge investigation going on or it would have been in the reputable news or seen in new technical directives. Maybe some minor changes but we'll see as no mentions of those either.

You'll see it when the car is changed to pass scrutineering in Australia. Why would new technical directives need to be issued when Paddy Lowe and Williams can't even read what is there in the first place?

if they can't even produce a new car on time with certainly a year or so, then there is zero chance that they're gonna have a car ready next week if the entire car is illegal.

I wonder what else needs to happen before old Frank finally finds the courage to fire (or at least demote) his daughter. Surely some of the blame here has to fall on her shoulders.

i made the effort of making a very expanded post on all aspects, after a fellow poster mentioned the family fueds. unfortunately my computer crashed and i did not have time nor motivation to do it all over again. perhaps i will later on. interestingly i actually mentioned 2 people other posters mentioned before:

Eric Bouiller, which i could see Williams contracting to fill up or aid Claire. I don't mean that positive though, as i dont believe Eric is capable for the job any more than Claire. He'd be the wrong one.

Gascoyne would be much more interesting. I don't have high regards of him but atleast he is capable of fixing the team so he'd be the right man for the job to be honest.

I'd also say the man they'd need is Bob fernley. he should be available.

Bob Fernley and Mike Gascoyne would certainly be a pairing to fix the team.

anyway, part of the problem is not that the genuine problem is claire. she's a big problem of it and needs to step down.but the biggest problem is frank, who is not capable of doing his job and is too stubborn to admit it and do what he should do: step away completely. as long as frank still is in charge, which he is, this team will not move forward.

David Richards,Prodrive. He's not getting any younger and probably doesn't need the job but he is the kind of manager who could sort the show out. It's not the Williams way to be dictated to but desperate times.....

I'd say that's a good shot at it too.

still, with things how they are now: again, the car won't race in melbourne.
i'd even wonder whether they'd be there. At the very best friday practice.

[munudeges]

I am still convinced Williams have some lukewarm engineers holed up in the team for years and it's very difficult and political to have them extracted and replaced with younger more talented guys. They continue to be plagued with bad chassis and suspension design. Paddy's only fault was not restructuring dramatically enough.

This is where I give Adrian Newey more credit than he is generally given. When he walked into Red Bull it was still a terribly political post-Jaguar mess. There were Chinese whispers and all sorts of plotting behind his back to make him fall into their way of working, so he brought in some industrial investigators and had those causing the trouble fired.

Not only did Lowe not do that, and maybe he couldn't, but ultimately he just wasn't up to scratch technically. The aerodynamic problem they had last year was a big clue they had a TD who just didn't have the all-round chops aerodynamically, and that's where a modern F1 car really succeeds or fails badly. Someone like Newey or especially John Barnard would *never* have insulted themselves by producing the bag of bolts that Williams eventually brought to testing. The paint would have been peeling off the walls. If the problem was with the team and not them they would have resigned immediately.

[munudeges]

I would like to see Gascoyne or Symonds back or both. Gascoyne could really get the team to hustle

Symonds no. Gascoyne, yes. Not only does he have the technical background but he is brutal and ruthless enough to do what's necessary.

How things might have been different had they stepped back and given Newey the role of Technical Director.

[ScottB]

It's hard to piece it all together, but...

Top guys who were responsible for car design were fired for last year's mess. Lowe was in place as Tech Lead for this year's car, but as others have pointed out, that's not designing the car, that's managing the process. That the car was late, and possibly illegal, you can absolutely lay at Lowe's doorstep.

But the car also appears to still be bad, perhaps not as bad as before, but still. That suggests that either the wider design / engineering team is not up to the task, or management is in such a bad state that the staff aren't in a good place / motivated to produce their best work. At the time of Russell being announced, I recall Joe Saward commenting that he thought having a more highly thought of 'talent' might improve morale at the factory over the two pay drivers that were there before, so perhaps there's something in that.

In short, I don't think swapping Lowe for A.N.Other Tech Lead is going to solve what seems to be a much wider problem. Whether that problem is the quality of the staff, the morale of the staff or a mix of the two, is the question...

[PowerandtheGlory]

It's hard to piece it all together, but...

Top guys who were responsible for car design were fired for last year's mess. Lowe was in place as Tech Lead for this year's car, but as others have pointed out, that's not designing the car, that's managing the process. That the car was late, and possibly illegal, you can absolutely lay at Lowe's doorstep.

But the car also appears to still be bad, perhaps not as bad as before, but still. That suggests that either the wider design / engineering team is not up to the task, or management is in such a bad state that the staff aren't in a good place / motivated to produce their best work. At the time of Russell being announced, I recall Joe Saward commenting that he thought having a more highly thought of 'talent' might improve morale at the factory over the two pay drivers that were there before, so perhaps there's something in that.

In short, I don't think swapping Lowe for A.N.Other Tech Lead is going to solve what seems to be a much wider problem. Whether that problem is the quality of the staff, the morale of the staff or a mix of the two, is the question...

I agree that letting Lowe go isn't going to do a thing. In fact common sense would have said to keep him in charge wait to see how the car does in the early races and then make a decision- because then he would become a natural fall guy if the car was rubbish again. By going now, it's the team that looks a shambles. Plus where can you find a Tech Director at this time of year that's been in the current Formula without waiting 12+ months. Maybe Lowe needed to be harsher, but he's won titles in the last 10 years with a top team - that must count for something. He must be working on 10-20% of what he had at Mercedes - but he knows whats needed to win in the current formula. Williams should have stuck to what they did well and swallowed their pride and bought in some more parts on the car when they had the chance. Im not saying go all the way towards a HAAS model, but why spend time, money and resource on something that nobody sees anyway that you just need to do the job. Concentrate on doing the bits that they could do well, based on their talent pool and budget and expertise, instead of trying to do the whole thing and spreading yourself to thinly. They cant afford to throw away somebody like Lowe, that's the behaviour of a top 3 team with money to burn and people queuing up to work there.. who wants to go to williams now? Its a listing Ship, and bringing in an old 'wildcard' to solve problems isnt going to help. Better to play it safe, build a solid car that could be improved during the season, aim for 6th/7th/8th this year and build again for next year, not trying to re-invent the wheel and making another bad car. I hope Williams turn in some decent races this year, because without that the money will go and then all will be for nothing.

[Unc1eM0nty]

The statement wording "leave of absence" is intriguing though

"for personal reasons" - has anyone heard and roumours on this, it sounds far from permanent

[Manoah2u]

The statement wording "leave of absence" is intriguing though

"for personal reasons" - has anyone heard and roumours on this, it sounds far from permanent

To be very honest, despite my initial thoughts being different, i'm wondering whether this isn't actually Paddy Lowe safeguarding himself and 'stepping away for personal reasons' is to save himself from getting humiliated and losing his chances in the f1 in the future.

I very much doubt Paddy is really or fully to blame for the problems, even if he'd be appointed as 'responsible'.

A totally different example, but let's say a top chef is asked to work at a ailing restaurant. he's not given full freedom, he has to do with what's already there. he can't fire anybody, there is no money, he's just a guy with experience and good skills. the stove is broken, people are lazy, complaining, demotivated and don't like the new guy and are sour because no one of them was promoted chef. a customer arrives, orders steak and fries, and it's a mess.
why? because the chef is so bad? no, the problem is the same, it's just somebody else that's dumped into the mess.
can you then blame the chef? not really, you might blame him stating he's the chef so ultimately he's responsible, but well, the mess isn't his fault. At best, you could argue he hasn't changed the environment so it does work, but if he's not allowed, then what's he gonna do?
well, the only option then is to haul ass and say sort it out yourselves.

and quite frankly, that might very well be what Paddy is doing right now.
will he get backlash for such a move? sure. is that fair? don't think so.

but he'll save his ass from losing any chance in f1 afterwards and safeguard his 'legacy' or name.

expect paddy, if he's out permanently, which i am sure will happen, will go to Renault.

[Raleigh]

David Richards won't be welcomed near Williams, nor would he entertain the thought after they blocked him entering F1 with Prodrive.

I could see David Richards buying out the entry but otherwise he’s not going to be interested and it’s unlikely the Williams name would continue in F1.

If he did get back into F1 the team would likely be either as Prodrive or Aston Martin.

[dren]

I read it'd be more expensive to fire him than to excuse him on leave. Not sure if that's true. Williams is in a sad state, that is true.

[munudeges]

The statement wording "leave of absence" is intriguing though

"for personal reasons" - has anyone heard and roumours on this, it sounds far from permanent

It is permanent. This piece of non-speak is likely for legal and contractual reasons until they can sort out the expensive mess they've got themselves into. From Paddy's point-of-view it saves his reputation for a limited period of time.

This has been done many times before when it suits everyone to say that it's a 'mutual' arrangement.

[Morteza]

https://twitter.com/tgruener/status/1103641463634751490

[F1NAC]

The statement wording "leave of absence" is intriguing though

"for personal reasons" - has anyone heard and roumours on this, it sounds far from permanent

It is because it would cost team a lots of money to get him fired without reaching some kind of agreement.

https://twitter.com/tgruener/status/1103641463634751490

They should really consider switching Claire. Apart from that 2014, the whole team is in mess. Without strong leader there won't be strong team which Claire evidently isn't. For the good sake of WIlliams.