Williams FW43

[holeindalip]

This car has some very interesting details. It looks like the first time we are seeing, but they seem to carry over from last year's car. I guess no one cared to look back then!

I like the aggressive look. The engine cover looks like a pregnant goat but side pods are extremely tight. The livery looks like a clown with war paint.. i hope she goes well.

It does look like a pregnant goat but if you look back and compare it to last years engine cover it is much smaller and shrink wrapped in parts like the air inlet and down the spine into the shark fin and around the exhaust......

[Vasconia]

I does look more elaborated than the previous car, which is a good sign. They should return to the midfield and forget last year`s nightmare.

[Lotus102]

I does look more elaborated than the previous car, which is a good sign. They should return to the midfield and forget last year`s nightmare.

I suspect they’ll still be at the back, at least at first, but I hope within touching distance of the next slowest. If, as I suspect, a couple of teams decide to go all in on 2021 and run a slightly updated version of the 2019 car this year, then Williams might be a bit more in the mix.

At the moment, the only thing we have to judge the car on is the outward packaging, where they have at least made some improvements over 2019. And it should be said that tight packaging isn’t everything - the 2018 Sauber was pretty bulky generally, and was quick in midfield terms. However, fact that the car is at the very least on schedule and possibly even ahead (note that Williams planned a digital-only launch even though, as it turned out, the car was ready to turn a wheel within minutes of that event) is an excellent sign. It suggests that last year’s problems - bottlenecks in manufacturing, and the design mismanagement that required a last-minute redesign of the braking system and several illegal aspects of the car - are well and truly in the past. It’s impossible to say yet whether better processes mean a better car, but they could hardly make for a worse one.

[Manoah2u]

I does look more elaborated than the previous car, which is a good sign. They should return to the midfield and forget last year`s nightmare.

They themselves mentioned this year could even be worse compared to last year,
and looking at how things went down last year there's no way they'll make the midfield.
At the very best the updates will keep them within 107% rule, or simply fix some stability
issues. You only need to look at their drivers to know they won't make it.
I don't get the hype around Russell, and Latifi even less.

I expect this car to make minimal updates throughout the season, and that the team will
focus on 2021 completely. Anything else would be foolish anyway.
Even if they gain more points compared to 2019 (highly unlikely), they're still gonna finish
last in the standings.

What they need to do is use this season to make sure their calculations and simulations
are atleast a 99% match in real life. They were in the dark the last 2 seasons, so if they can't
fix that, then 2021 could even be worse.

[Lotus102]

It was Rob Smedley who said things could get worse, if I recall, not anyone currently associated with the team, and he was simply reacting to the idea that 2019 was as bad as things could possibly get. Claire actually said that internally, 2019 was not as bad as 2018, and “We are in a much better position; all the work we did last year in changing the philosophy around aero has now paid off.” Even last year they were never in danger of making 107% so I very much doubt that will be an issue. There's no sense I'm getting from within the team that things might go backwards even further. E.g.:

Doug McKiernan:

“We have paid significant attention to understanding the problem areas of the FW42 and we have carefully chosen parts of the car to develop, those that would give us the most performance for the resources we have. The main concept behind the FW43 is that it is a continuous development of the FW42, with no fundamental concept changes to the layout. The most important indicator that we are on the right path will be the level of correlation we have between the tool kit we use to design the car and what the track data is telling us. There has been a healthy development rate in the wind tunnel, and we have found reasonable improvements in the cooling efficiency. The team has addressed the mechanical issues that affected it in 2019, these include the brakes and the overall weight of the car. We have made some good progress across these areas and will continue to focus on them during the season.”

Adam Carter:

“The decision to retain some of the core architecture of the FW42 means there has been less resource invested in developing new concepts, which in turn has rewarded the design team with greater bandwidth to optimise their work, evident in both packaging and component detail. By preserving some key parameters, it has allowed for an uninterrupted development programme within aerodynamics in order to maximise the efficiency of the resources. As we head towards the pre-season tests and then onto the race season, the most important measure will be the progress relative to our peers, along with our intention of continuing our recent record of reliability."

So no expectation management ahead of another disaster, and no sense that in-season development will be curtailed.

...But I agree, it will all come down to correlation. If all the aero rake work and development of analysis tools undertaken last year works out, it'll be OK. If it didn't, it'll be a disaster.

[charliesmithhd]

[NtsParadize]

No diffuser pics?

[Sevach]

[Vasconia]

I does look more elaborated than the previous car, which is a good sign. They should return to the midfield and forget last year`s nightmare.

They themselves mentioned this year could even be worse compared to last year,
and looking at how things went down last year there's no way they'll make the midfield.
At the very best the updates will keep them within 107% rule, or simply fix some stability
issues. You only need to look at their drivers to know they won't make it.
I don't get the hype around Russell, and Latifi even less.

I expect this car to make minimal updates throughout the season, and that the team will
focus on 2021 completely. Anything else would be foolish anyway.
Even if they gain more points compared to 2019 (highly unlikely), they're still gonna finish
last in the standings.

What they need to do is use this season to make sure their calculations and simulations
are atleast a 99% match in real life. They were in the dark the last 2 seasons, so if they can't
fix that, then 2021 could even be worse.

Last year was a disaster from the beginning with a very undeveloped car which started to run late .This year the car looks more elaborated and its running normally and with constancy since the first day. I don´t understand why this year should be even worse.

[PhillipM]

Just from the onboards today the car looks way more stable than last year on corner entry if nothing else.

[Sevach]

[Just_a_fan]

https://imgr1.auto-motor-und-sport.de/V ... 671207.jpg

The cape, under-nose turning vanes and then the barge boards present an almost-continual line of bodywork to channel air.

Also, note how air from the cape is finding its way to the front of the floor. It appears that some is being bled through under the nose, over the t-tray and to the floor leading edge, the rest being used by the bargeboards, presumably help to deflect the front tyre wake.

[Francesc]

No diffuser pics?

[Manoah2u]

I does look more elaborated than the previous car, which is a good sign. They should return to the midfield and forget last year`s nightmare.

They themselves mentioned this year could even be worse compared to last year,
and looking at how things went down last year there's no way they'll make the midfield.
At the very best the updates will keep them within 107% rule, or simply fix some stability
issues. You only need to look at their drivers to know they won't make it.
I don't get the hype around Russell, and Latifi even less.

I expect this car to make minimal updates throughout the season, and that the team will
focus on 2021 completely. Anything else would be foolish anyway.
Even if they gain more points compared to 2019 (highly unlikely), they're still gonna finish
last in the standings.

What they need to do is use this season to make sure their calculations and simulations
are atleast a 99% match in real life. They were in the dark the last 2 seasons, so if they can't
fix that, then 2021 could even be worse.

Last year was a disaster from the beginning with a very undeveloped car which started to run late .This year the car looks more elaborated and its running normally and with constancy since the first day. I don´t understand why this year should be even worse.

I don't understand why it's so hard to read or accept the words of the teams themselves.
here you go.

https://f1i.com/news/365801-smedley-war ... liams.html
https://www.essentiallysports.com/willi ... b-smedley/

Smedley warns that 'it can get worse' at Williams

Smedley, who left Williams at the end of 2018, knows from experience that a team's decline can be locked in a bottomless pit.

"There would always be a philosophy that it can’t get any worse," Smedley told Reuters' Alan Baldwin.

"Having been around the block a few times in motorsport, and Formula 1 in particular, (I know) the reality is it can get worse than this.

"We talk about how it can’t get much worse than 2019, but we said that about 2018. And we said that about 2017. The reality is that 2020 can actually be worse than 2019."

"Anyone who thinks that you can turn things around from where Williams are now to suddenly arrive back in the top five of the championship, they are very much mistaken. It is just incorrect," he said.

"Now I’m on the outside I can hope, but when I was on the inside I didn’t want to just hope.

"It’s a tragic case. I’m not of the generation that can’t remember when Williams won a world championship.

Smedley, a former Ferrari engineer, admitted that when he was in Maranello he learned a valuable lesson. He strongly believes that nobody can live on past achievements, and Williams are falling into the same trap.

To make matters worse, Williams F1 have had to watch as some prominent sponsors departed altogether or joined a rival team. Chief among those, were Martini, PKN Orlen and more recently, Rexona. Martini left the sport, while Orlen joined Alfa Romeo and Rexona are heading to McLaren.

[Lotus102]

I don't understand why it's so hard to read or accept the words of the teams themselves.
here you go.

Smedley had left Williams a year before he made those comments. If you look at my post above you'll see that everything coming from current Williams personnel was cautiously positive. In any case, I'm not sure why we should pay too much attention to counsels of despair, especially as I remember predictions from a certain quarter this time last year that Williams would fold before Abu Dhabi

All that aside, it's pretty obvious from today's running that this year is not going to be worse than last year. The car was built on schedule, it's clearly a big step forward in build quality, and handling seems good from the outset - and more importantly, the technical management is not shambolic. I dare say Williams will still be at the back to start with, but is unquestionably in a better state than last year. The internal rebuilding seems to have paid off.