It was quite a revealing and amusing interview, but not for the reasons many would think.
bill shoe wrote: ↑08 Mar 2019, 05:57
They won 4 championships in a row and could have won a couple more if not for the FIA tire meddling.
They won at least one championship in 2003 purely because of FIA tyre meddling when Bridgestone quite clearly weren't up to the job, and they really weren't from there on anyway. The 2005 car quite clearly wasn't up to the job regardless. It is quite funny to hear him talk there given the assistance provided to Ferrari by the FIA, but it does let slip the reason behind a lot of Ferrari's performance during that period - tyres.
I also had to laugh at how he described what happened in 1994 where he claims they weren't doing anything dodgy with their fuel flow because they had fuel already in the car. Sadly, the Hockenheim fire definitively puts paid to that one. Strangely, he neglects to mention that..............
Brawn? It depends on whether you define something as a hole or a slot. To go down that route you had to have some steer from the FIA that that was going to be OK with it because the whole car is built around it. That's all politics and has little to do with anything technical. If you manage to get something that generates a whole lot more downforce than anything else that others believe to be illegal you're onto a winner. He does later let slip it was a false situation which Mercedes had bought into. This was obviously after Mercedes had purchased the team and he'd made a nice packet out of it. One wonders if Mercedes then realised that they had been conned. This was talked about extensively on the infamous Mercedes thread. It was like déjà vu watching that video.
He's very eloquent, as he always is, but the double-speak that he hides behind is all there, and you've got to laugh as it's all part of the game.
He explains how Toto came in and gave a couple strong presentations to the board and convinced them to either "pull out" or "go for it". The result of Toto's presentation was that Mercedes quickly upped their game to the 900 people they have now.
Toto's presentation? I thought Ross was Team Principal there?
Ross quit because he determined he'd failed Mercedes and then he decided there were too many cooks in the kitchen.
He's right on that one. A few of us, again on that infamous Mercedes thread, mentioned that repeatedly at the time, and that scenario is why so many teams in Formula 1 still get themselves into trouble. The problem for Ross is he turned out to be one of those surplus cooks.
This is what Williams really needs right now.
Quite the contrary. It is a warning. You've got to give due credit, exactly where it is due, but there are an awful lot of people in Formula 1 who inflate their own importance. When a team like Williams are recruiting they need to be aware of and fight against that. In a top team like Mercedes or Ferrari, where there are a lot of people and a lot of resources to throw at things, you can often hide until the pressure of bad performances really hits.
"I knew when things didn't smell right." Touché, Ross. Williams are also going to have to apply that same logic, and perhaps Jonny Williams is the only person who can ultimately do it.
, but still...it's lot more healthy than F1. Top teams have to understand that if they don't give up their high-chair mentality, and winning only by spending more than their rivals, it will kill F1 sooner than later.
