2019 Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

[tomazy]

It's a shame that circumstances made it look different, but on the track where many critics suggested he would struggle with his hand, for the first time this season Robert has been better than Russel, who has been not too shabby either. Kimi damaged Roberts front wing on lap one, but the damage have not been bad enough to validate change. Decision not change during SC has been arguably not the wisest, but I get they wanted to diversify and it's not a surprise they play their tactics for George. Giovanazzi's attack happened with Robert on P15 just behind Kimi. After about 20 laps and finally pitting for hards, Robert has been able to register nearly 2s faster laptimes than George, despite "defend mode", then he sped up, gaining 2.6s a lap to the pack. About lap 30ish Kubica has already been doing 1.17.3 ( GR will get to 1.17.5 only at 61st lap iirc), faster than many other drivers on the track at the moment. From team radio, it looked like Robert wanted to gain as much ground before being lapped and then pit for fresh tires instead of loosing time being pushed aside when blue flagged. This didn't happen and worse yet, he had to "go defend" to "do Hamilton" and nurse the tires to the end.
After the race, when asked about strategy calls, he only responded that he always thought that driver in front gets a priority...
Anyways quite good race overall for Williams. At least they got some racing this time. Both drivers drove well and without mistakes, let's just hope the car will get more competitive next round.

Well, this is not quite true. Russell on lap 19 did a lap time of 1:17.608 and 1:17.599 the next lap, then he hit traffic. Kubica did a 1:17.749 on lap 31 and his fastest lap of 1:17.388 on lap 32 like you state, and then did 3 more laps in 1:17 (5 laps in 1:17) in total, but then his pace dopped to 1:18.5ish to the end of the race. I dont think he was in any traffic, except for beeing lapped. Russell on the other hand was doing lap times in 1:17.5 when he was out of traffic (21 laps in 1:17) .

Kubica did have a battle scared car, but he still did a couple of quick laps with it. I dont think it was problem with the tires, the times didn't deteriorate, but were mostly in the same ball park. Was he just not pushing knowing he 18th is the best he could do and just go to the finish with as litle risk as possible? Or was this lack of motivation and frostration that Williams didn't pit him before Russell?

[SmallSoldier]

Probably a combination of both... Given Williams apparent lack of spare parts and the fact that they may not want resources thrown at repairing parts, it isn’t unwise to just be careful and drive cautiously if there is no possibility of moving up the grid in a track like Monaco where a simple mistake will most probably break the car.

Even though I’m sure Kubica is a professional and he wouldn’t reduce his performance because of been “upset about an strategy call”, I’m sure there is a mental aspect that will also prevent him from going at the limit.

In any case, he has what was supposed to be the hardest track for him from a physical aspect behind him and that has to be a relieve.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[netoperek]

You're correct, George indeed had a couple of 1.17s right after Giovanazzi torpedoed Robert. I have written a summary of a report from a Robert's race feed I read and GR's fast laps must have got lost in the heat of an events. There are cool graphs here: https://www.racefans.net/2019/05/26/201 ... and-tyres/ that show how a race progressed for both of them. Race chart shows a period from lap 22 to 39 when Robert is catching up, reducing gap from 40 to 15 seconds. Then lapping starts. As I wrote earlier, he has been told to reduce the pace later on and conserve the tires until the end and it quite shows that after being lapped they're both driving to a target laptime.
Listening to radio feed, he indeed has been very frustrated with the team throughout the race and quite rightly so (Paul Williams isn't doing great job as his race engineer) but it hardly impacted his pace. Most of the time he was driving at pace he has been told to at setting he has been told to set.

[Morteza]

https://twitter.com/F1/status/1133060271243759617?s=19

[Manoah2u]

https://twitter.com/F1/status/1133060271243759617?s=19

yep, smash that car into the garage and step into a seat of the competition
KUB in GRO' Haas in 2020 please. I'd relish the competition between Kevin and Robert.
That makes a pretty good pairing inmho.

[bill shoe]

First good news (or any news) out of Williams in a long time. But quite vague. Williams are "hopeful" of being able to add significant performance to the car "in the coming months" as a result of an upgrade package.

https://racer.com/2019/05/30/williams-t ... h-upgrade/

The one half-saving grace will be if the upgrade package actually delivers a very solid and clear improvement (0.75+ s/lap?). The previous 3 or 4 years have had consistent promises of large mid-season upgrades that never seem to work at all.

[Manoah2u]

First good news (or any news) out of Williams in a long time. But quite vague. Williams are "hopeful" of being able to add significant performance to the car "in the coming months" as a result of an upgrade package.

https://racer.com/2019/05/30/williams-t ... h-upgrade/

The one half-saving grace will be if the upgrade package actually delivers a very solid and clear improvement (0.75+ s/lap?). The previous 3 or 4 years have had consistent promises of large mid-season upgrades that never seem to work at all.

i've seen too much talk and no walk from Williams, so i'm pretty held back about such a statement.
I'd love to see it, but having in mind that Kubica only recently said they're not expecting to be able to grab a single point this season i'm taking those claims with a gigantic grain of salt.
And obviously, also, because the rest of the field isn't just sitting development out. Williams is lightyears behind the rest and they're making small steps forward whislt the rest of the field is making huge steps forward.
3/4 of a second improvement sounds nice, but i'm more or less finding that as believable as the claims in those universal car tuner magazines where you can get 25+ hp from a 'sporty filter' and 50+ hp from a different exhaust pipe......

also, i'm pretty doubtfull about Claire's statement:

"Morale is still pretty good,"

[Manoah2u]

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/news ... -enough-rd

Rob Smedley: 'Williams F1 never invested enough in R&D'

Former Williams engineering head Rob Smedley opens up on the team's situation while Claire Williams promises a “significant” upgrade midway through the season

With Williams at the bottom of the 2019 Formula 1 constructors' championship, former head of performance engineering Rob Smedley has explained why the team is being left behind.

“The team [Williams] clearly needed a lot of work,” he says to Simon Arron.

“We instilled lots of new engineering practices, but the next part of the journey was R&D investment and that never happened.

“If you want to be a true constructor, you have to have that level of investment or you’ll be left behind, regardless of how good your people might be.

“I don’t want to talk about particular individuals, but it’s clear some bad decisions have been taken for the team to be in its current position. It’s a real shame.”

[Morteza]

Once again Williams had the fastest pit stop of the race

[munudeges]

Good news? Positivity? They are firmly rooted at the back of the grid, and they're not just a few tenths off but seconds off. If you want to be a constructor and you're still producing aluminium gearboxes something has gone badly wrong somewhere.

Paddy Lowe was the wrong guy, but the people who keep making those stupid decisions are still there. You can't keep throwing out soundbite after soundbite as Claire Williams is doing now. You can get away with continual bull in the corporate world. Formula 1 is a very different place.

[netoperek]

Velox.tv wrote, that Sir Patrick, currently being an advisor, after digging in a bit, advised (or insisted) that Claire should be sacked.
I always gave Claire benefit of doubt, but if Head says she's gotta go, she's gotta go then! I think he might be the best person to convince Frank, that she might just not have what it takes and needs to step down.

[search]

any idea what's exactly was/is the problem with Russel's car/engine? Will they be able to fix it for the Qualifying?

[MtthsMlw]

https://twitter.com/ChrisMedlandF1/stat ... 62881?s=19

[Manoah2u]

Velox.tv wrote, that Sir Patrick, currently being an advisor, after digging in a bit, advised (or insisted) that Claire should be sacked.
I always gave Claire benefit of doubt, but if Head says she's gotta go, she's gotta go then! I think he might be the best person to convince Frank, that she might just not have what it takes and needs to step down.

bring back the winning Williams.
took some time but daddy finally sees girl is lousy at her job.
im starting to feel much more positive vibes for Williams future if this is true.

[maxxer]

I just read that the drainhole cover accident cost them an electronics unit , f1 is ridiculous it is not a fault of williams fia should buy them a new one and compensate for not paying a welder to weld the bloody thing shut , cost the team a fortune and probably had to worknovernight which is limited also by f1 sissies