2016 Williams Martini Racing F1 Team - Mercedes

[Powy]

Not sure if this is the appropriate thread to post this funny video (feel free to move it):

[Martin_F]

...
But it seems to be a pattern.
Has this something to do with their car(s)?

Got your questions answered by Valtteri itself!!

"
Valtteri Bottas: My season starts here

Valtteri Bottas believes his performance at the Russian Grand Prix is a sign of things to come after he recorded his best result of the season.

The Finn started from second in Sochi and spent the early stages of the race dicing with Kimi Raikkonen and Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton, before ultimately losing out to both as he finished fourth, ahead of Williams teammate Felipe Massa in fifth.

"We made a step forward here," Bottas said. "But I think it will be a very close battle with Red Bull. It's a long season and even small developments will help.

"It should be a tight battle but I think my season really starts from here. It was quite a positive weekend, so hopefully we'll have many good results to come from now on."

Bottas claimed a podium finish at the 2014 Russian Grand Prix and was heading towards the same result in the 2015 event before a last lap collision with Raikkonen ended his race. There was no repeat of a coming together between the Finns this year, however, as Raikkonen went on to claim third.

When asked about his battle with the 2007 world champion, Bottas said: "He seemed to struggle a bit in the last two corners, before the restart, so I managed to get close to him and get a tow - that helped!"

"In the first stint I could still keep Kimi and Lewis behind but in the second stint the pace difference was too big. I think that, even if I had kept them behind for longer, it would have been just a matter of time before they would have got through."

Rob Smedley, Head of Vehicle Performance at Williams, agreed that the Grove-based outfit maximised its performance in the race.

"We've got to be reasonably pragmatic about it and understand where we are coming from compared to Ferrari," said Smedley. "Our principal target was to beat Red Bull which we did fairly comprehensively.

"The positive is that we've moved closer to the pace of Ferrari and we are there racing with Ferrari and a little bit -- even though it comes from Lewis's reliability yesterday -- a little bit with Mercedes. We're moving forward."
"

This explains his attitude, but not what happened during the race.
Williams was stronger in Sochi than on the other tracks.
So perhaps, just perhaps, Bottas/Massa had more confidence in the car, or at least it may have been just more predictable.

However, Bottas' statement does not say anything about why they struggle to fight for position after a long straight at all.
It only says "I will do a Sochi-race more often from now on."
That's a nice goal, but I would have to assume that this should be the case at every race, right?

But I have a big suspicion that Williams are bad (as in really bad) cars under heavy braking.
Otherwise, I would have to assume that Massa and Bottas are simply not hungry enough to fight ...
And this I refuse to believe.

I will dig out some examples as to what I mean in a couple of days.

Did you see how quickly Hamilton and Raikkonen both pulled a gap after overtaking Bottas?
That tells me that the Mercedes and the Ferrari were quite a bit quicker than the Williams.
I was actually impressed with how long Bottas could keep them both behind.

[LookBackTime]

Smedley: Williams buoyed by closer pace to Ferrari

Rob Smedley says Williams can take satisfaction from moving closer to Ferrari’s pace at the Russian Grand Prix, though the British team’s performance chief insists the main goal was to beat Red Bull.

After a mixed start to its 2016 campaign, Williams brought a series of upgrades to Sochi and ended up securing its best overall result of the season so far with Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa finishing fourth and fifth respectively.

Not only did the pair help close the gap to third-placed Red Bull in the Constructors’ championship, the Finn also out qualified Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and kept his fellow countryman at bay in the first stint of the race.

“We’ve got to be reasonably pragmatic about it as well and understand where we are coming from compared to Ferrari,” Smedley said. “They’ve had a lot of pace on us in these first three races and I think if you look at the pure pace in this race then we are edging closer towards them again. It was always going to be a really big ask to try and beat them today, we knew that.

“Our principal target was to beat Red Bull which we did fairly comprehensively but I guess what we can take away from it -- the positive is that we’ve moved closer to the pace of Ferrari and that’s a good thing.”

Williams drivers have been quick to point out that the Grove-based outfit’s return to form found its roots in the specific nature of the Sochi Autodrom. But Smedley is confident the evolutions have also played a key part in Williams’ strong showing in Russia.

“As usual it’s never one thing it’s a bit of a mixture of both. Definitely it suits our car, not as much as it has in the past if you compare it just to Ferrari, so it’s not as if we come here and we have a big advantage over them, certainly to Red Bull that is the case.

“Compared to Ferrari that’s not entirely the case so the two things that are working for us here are the upgrades that we’ve got on the car, they are definitely working and that’s good and in addition just getting the tyres to work.

“Getting the front tyres to work especially which has been a bit of a problem for some of the other teams and we’ve managed to do that.”

[XRayF1]

Got your questions answered by Valtteri itself!!

"
Valtteri Bottas: My season starts here

Valtteri Bottas believes his performance at the Russian Grand Prix is a sign of things to come after he recorded his best result of the season.

The Finn started from second in Sochi and spent the early stages of the race dicing with Kimi Raikkonen and Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton, before ultimately losing out to both as he finished fourth, ahead of Williams teammate Felipe Massa in fifth.

"We made a step forward here," Bottas said. "But I think it will be a very close battle with Red Bull. It's a long season and even small developments will help.

"It should be a tight battle but I think my season really starts from here. It was quite a positive weekend, so hopefully we'll have many good results to come from now on."

Bottas claimed a podium finish at the 2014 Russian Grand Prix and was heading towards the same result in the 2015 event before a last lap collision with Raikkonen ended his race. There was no repeat of a coming together between the Finns this year, however, as Raikkonen went on to claim third.

When asked about his battle with the 2007 world champion, Bottas said: "He seemed to struggle a bit in the last two corners, before the restart, so I managed to get close to him and get a tow - that helped!"

"In the first stint I could still keep Kimi and Lewis behind but in the second stint the pace difference was too big. I think that, even if I had kept them behind for longer, it would have been just a matter of time before they would have got through."

Rob Smedley, Head of Vehicle Performance at Williams, agreed that the Grove-based outfit maximised its performance in the race.

"We've got to be reasonably pragmatic about it and understand where we are coming from compared to Ferrari," said Smedley. "Our principal target was to beat Red Bull which we did fairly comprehensively.

"The positive is that we've moved closer to the pace of Ferrari and we are there racing with Ferrari and a little bit -- even though it comes from Lewis's reliability yesterday -- a little bit with Mercedes. We're moving forward."
"

This explains his attitude, but not what happened during the race.
Williams was stronger in Sochi than on the other tracks.
So perhaps, just perhaps, Bottas/Massa had more confidence in the car, or at least it may have been just more predictable.

However, Bottas' statement does not say anything about why they struggle to fight for position after a long straight at all.
It only says "I will do a Sochi-race more often from now on."
That's a nice goal, but I would have to assume that this should be the case at every race, right?

But I have a big suspicion that Williams are bad (as in really bad) cars under heavy braking.
Otherwise, I would have to assume that Massa and Bottas are simply not hungry enough to fight ...
And this I refuse to believe.

I will dig out some examples as to what I mean in a couple of days.

Did you see how quickly Hamilton and Raikkonen both pulled a gap after overtaking Bottas?
That tells me that the Mercedes and the Ferrari were quite a bit quicker than the Williams.
I was actually impressed with how long Bottas could keep them both behind.

Actually I was, too!
But I never doubted his nerve, driving capability and his car's straight line speed.

What I stated was what I saw now for a couple of times.
Both drivers almost never take the inner line to avoid being overtaken.
Riccardo always uses this defense. Verstappen, too. And a couple of others.
What drives both Massa and Bottas to actually avoid the inner line so much?
(One of the replies to my initial post suggests some reasonable explanation, but I do not quite buy it. Yet.)

[efuloni]

Y

This explains his attitude, but not what happened during the race.
Williams was stronger in Sochi than on the other tracks.
So perhaps, just perhaps, Bottas/Massa had more confidence in the car, or at least it may have been just more predictable.

However, Bottas' statement does not say anything about why they struggle to fight for position after a long straight at all.
It only says "I will do a Sochi-race more often from now on."
That's a nice goal, but I would have to assume that this should be the case at every race, right?

But I have a big suspicion that Williams are bad (as in really bad) cars under heavy braking.
Otherwise, I would have to assume that Massa and Bottas are simply not hungry enough to fight ...
And this I refuse to believe.

I will dig out some examples as to what I mean in a couple of days.

Did you see how quickly Hamilton and Raikkonen both pulled a gap after overtaking Bottas?
That tells me that the Mercedes and the Ferrari were quite a bit quicker than the Williams.
I was actually impressed with how long Bottas could keep them both behind.

Actually I was, too!
But I never doubted his nerve, driving capability and his car's straight line speed.

What I stated was what I saw now for a couple of times.
Both drivers almost never take the inner line to avoid being overtaken.
Riccardo always uses this defense. Verstappen, too. And a couple of others.
What drives both Massa and Bottas to actually avoid the inner line so much?
(One of the replies to my initial post suggests some reasonable explanation, but I do not quite buy it. Yet.)

With all due respect, I think you are completely wrong.

Did you see Massa defending his position against Ric, Rai and Ham in China? And he won one of these fights, keeping the Merc behind until the end of the race. He did it cause it was the right call.

But in Sochi it was a different situation. Wha you are suggesting could compromise the entire race strategy, only to fight for a lost cause. Being too much 'hungry' is not always the best (maldonado?). If Bottas had being incisive defending his position against Hamilton in the beggining of the race, he would probably lose his position to Massa in the end of it. For Massa, too much effort agains Lewis could, at that point, cost his position to Max.

The drivers need to be smart and take care of tyres with the rules.

[bill shoe]

I'm late to the party here, but...

Sochi-- VERY NICE !!! Great weekend for constructors points and bodes well for the future!!!

And fourth straight weekend they are quickest pitstops! LookBackTime's pics of Williams practicing pitstops on Thurs/Fri/Sat were fantastic, absolutely showed the intensity that gets Williams this performance. Was that Claire Williams in one of the pics, calmly watching the practice? If so, she's not off in the motorcoach holding meetings, she's out in the pitlane watching pitstop practice! Nice! We've haven't had a race yet where it's really paid off, but it will come. Williams will take down some big dogs during pitstops.

[FrukostScones]

Smedley: Williams buoyed by closer pace to Ferrari

Rob Smedley says Williams can take satisfaction from moving closer to Ferrari’s pace at the Russian Grand Prix, though the British team’s performance chief insists the main goal was to beat Red Bull.

After a mixed start to its 2016 campaign, Williams brought a series of upgrades to Sochi and ended up securing its best overall result of the season so far with Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa finishing fourth and fifth respectively.

Not only did the pair help close the gap to third-placed Red Bull in the Constructors’ championship, the Finn also out qualified Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and kept his fellow countryman at bay in the first stint of the race.

“We’ve got to be reasonably pragmatic about it as well and understand where we are coming from compared to Ferrari,” Smedley said. “They’ve had a lot of pace on us in these first three races and I think if you look at the pure pace in this race then we are edging closer towards them again. It was always going to be a really big ask to try and beat them today, we knew that.

“Our principal target was to beat Red Bull which we did fairly comprehensively but I guess what we can take away from it -- the positive is that we’ve moved closer to the pace of Ferrari and that’s a good thing.”

Williams drivers have been quick to point out that the Grove-based outfit’s return to form found its roots in the specific nature of the Sochi Autodrom. But Smedley is confident the evolutions have also played a key part in Williams’ strong showing in Russia.

“As usual it’s never one thing it’s a bit of a mixture of both. Definitely it suits our car, not as much as it has in the past if you compare it just to Ferrari, so it’s not as if we come here and we have a big advantage over them, certainly to Red Bull that is the case.

“Compared to Ferrari that’s not entirely the case so the two things that are working for us here are the upgrades that we’ve got on the car, they are definitely working and that’s good and in addition just getting the tyres to work.

“Getting the front tyres to work especially which has been a bit of a problem for some of the other teams and we’ve managed to do that.”

sorry, but they get carried away.

Sotchi layout, low temps... made them look relatively good against Ferrari. Let's see what they can do at Barcelona, the ultimate performance indicator.

[LookBackTime]

Smedley: Williams buoyed by closer pace to Ferrari

...

“Compared to Ferrari that’s not entirely the case so the two things that are working for us here are the upgrades that we’ve got on the car, they are definitely working and that’s good and in addition just getting the tyres to work.

“Getting the front tyres to work especially which has been a bit of a problem for some of the other teams and we’ve managed to do that.”

sorry, but they get carried away.

Sotchi layout, low temps... made them look relatively good against Ferrari. Let's see what they can do at Barcelona, the ultimate performance indicator.

your opinion! but I think you underestimate the level of updates they brought to Sochi.

[superdowg316]

It's only May 4th and already some silly season speculation about Williams' 2017 driver line up (ignore typo in url, that was on Sky).
http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/ ... ms-in-2015

[LookBackTime]

Felipe Massa column: Williams now a match for Red Bull

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/felip ... ll-733362/

[Stalker1]

Williams is clearly benefitting form the 3-rd places in 2014-2015. They now can continously develop the car in-season and it is showing off.

[Stalker1]

Felipe Massa column: Williams now a match for Red Bull

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/felip ... ll-733362/

For now, they are! The upcoming Renault upgrade and signing in Verstappen may tip the balance bias Red Bull, but we will see.

[Manoah2u]

Felipe Massa column: Williams now a match for Red Bull

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/felip ... ll-733362/

Really?

RedBull is ahead of them in the WDC, they have had a DNS for Kvyat @ Australia, and in Russia Kvyat trashed RedBull's
chances for both himself and DannyRic, which means they would have been fairly lot more ahead from them in the WCC,
whilst Ricciardo is ahead of Massa and Kvyat is ahead of Bottas, who imho is really not performing as impressive as i've seen him do before.

As said, RedBull is gonna have a engine upgrade in Barcelona and have an offensively bigger budget to smash into their car compared to Williams.
meanwhile, i'll quote from the same article

"It will not be an easy weekend for us, but we will aim to make as many points up to Red Bull
as we can."

Quite frankly, i think Massa is being overambitious on his comments on how Williams would be in position to be a match for RedBull. RedBull has points to make up for after having a DNS for Kvyat, bad luck (again) for DannyRic, and the shards from Kvyat's clumsy Russia start, so to be honest, i think that is a very very bold statement from Felipe.

Kudos due where fit though, Williams in the past severly, really severly lacked their pitstop skills and was one of the slowest teams and had made some judgement errors but have made incredible achievements in their insanely fast pitstoptimes.
And their tactics during the Russian GP were spot on.

[ME4ME]

I think Williams are just encouraged by their recent upgrades. They were after all half a second quicker then the Red Bull in qualifying in Russia. But that is at the 4th most power-dependent track on the calendar.

You are right in giving them cred for their pit-stops. Operationally at the track they have been much better than in previous seasons.

I do think they'll be convincingly beaten by Red Bull over the season. Barcelona might be close. But from Monaco onwards Red Bull should leave them in the dust.

[LookBackTime]

F1 PITSTOP TECHNIQUES TO HELP IN THE RESUSCITATION OF NEWBORN BABIES

http://www.williamsf1.com/racing/news/f ... uscitation