2016 Williams Martini Racing F1 Team - Mercedes

[Juzh]

Aside from that, the manor situation last year illustrates perfectly who gets and who doesn't get mercedes PUs.

Teams that throw their engine supplier under a bus?

Teams that can actually spend money on a proper f1 car.

[FoxHound]

Aside from that, the manor situation last year illustrates perfectly who gets and who doesn't get mercedes PUs.

Teams that throw their engine supplier under a bus?

Teams that can actually spend money on a proper f1 car.

C'mon.....Er, McLaren!?


I'll make this very simple.

Had Red Bull reduced their budget for 2 seasons from the 480 they spend, to the 180 million Williams spend, they'd have 600 million to blow on an engine programme.
Williams do not have this luxury, and get Mercedes PU's out of necessity in what is actually a symbiotic relationship for both Williams and Mercedes.

So you can whine about this all you like, Red Bull are not a Mercedes customer. Please do not confuse narcissistic self entitlement with engine supply.

[turbof1]

Somebody tell how in earth this revolving around Red Bull? It has no place here. Period.

Reading a bit back tells me this argument revolves around "whether or not WIlliams saw something that told them the Merc PU was going to be very good". Aside this argument being there just to have an argument (the discussion really looks unneeded and redundant), Williams probably knew what they were getting and Mercedes probably had a projection of Williams' competitive position. Williams also knew what the costs were relative to the Renault PU.

[Juzh]

Mercedes probably had a projection of Williams' competitive position.

And we're back to square one. They also had manor's projection of competitive position.

[turbof1]

Why yes obviously. Not that Marussia is related in this in any other way then the gearbox/suspension deal with Williams.

But again: Mercedes knew what Williams would bring and Williams knew what Mercedes would bring. Deals which go up to 25 million are never made while staying in the dark. I can't see the point of argument. Mercedes did research into the capacity and resources of Williams. The conclusion is obvious: With the exact same PU Mercedes would start on a better platform and would outdevelop Williams. Which translated into the reality we know.

But: you make a deal with 2 parties. Williams probably got some none-sensitive data from Mercedes before accepting the deal. It's safe to assume anyhow they were properly informed. The contract they made is a premium one, so Williams is nowhere disadvantaged in the deal by being a smaller team then Mercedes.

[LookBackTime]

BARCELONA TEST 3 - DAY 1

17 MAY 2016
Driver: Alex Lynn
Chassis / Engine: FW38-01 / PU106C Hybrid
Location: Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, 4.655km
Weather: Warm and Dry
Maximum air & track temps: 23ºC / 39ºC


Rod Nelson, Chief Test & Support Engineer: It was a very successful day. We’ve been doing a lot of aero testing today on development items. We also went through a programme looking at some Monaco set-up alternatives. It was a very interesting day for us with plenty of data to look through, and we got through our entire planned programme. It was good to have Alex back in the car today. He drove the FW37 last year, so it is quite interesting to hear his view of where we’re going with the FW38. It is quite a different beast, and race drivers don’t always notice the difference because they drive it every week and changes tend to be fairly marginal. For him, he is looking back several months. It is interesting to talk to him about it and get a different point of view. He did a great job for us, it was a very clean day to complete our programme. Overall, I’m feeling very positive, and now we’re looking forward to getting Felipe in the car tomorrow to carry on with the work that Alex started today.

Alex Lynn: I think we had a really positive day. We’ve run through everything, and probably more than we ever anticipated on the programme. We’ve had a lot of good running for the team in terms of the next few races, and got some good information. We did some good work on the medium tyre, and in the afternoon it was more Monaco based performance work.

Alex Lynn: 1.26.071 (9th) on lap 28/86.

Quickest time: S. Vettel, 1:23.220 on lap 62/103.

The Williams Mercedes FW38 will be back on track tomorrow for day two of the test with Felipe Massa at the wheel.

[LookBackTime]

Felipe Massa: Verstappen must now confirm his brilliance

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/felip ... ce-737751/

[LookBackTime]

BARCELONA TEST 3 - DAY 2

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18 MAY 2016
Driver: Felipe Massa
Chassis / Engine: FW38-01 / PU106C Hybrid
Location: Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, 4.655km
Weather: Warm and Dry
Maximum air & track temps: 23ºC / 44ºC


Rod Nelson, Chief Test & Support Engineer: It was another productive day to end the test. We spent most of the time with Felipe looking at the aero performance of the current car and looking into development work for next year as well. It was a fairly positive day with a clear direction, and we’ll be using that data to feed back into the development work we are doing at the moment for this year’s and next year’s car.

Felipe Massa: It was an interesting test. We worked on so many things for developing and improving the car on the aero side, which was our biggest aim for these two days. We tried a lot of different things for the future so it has been an important two days and key to get a lot of mileage.

Felipe Massa: 1:27.167 (9th) on lap 10/94.

Quickest time: M. Verstappen, 1:23.267 on lap 43/118.

Williams Martini Racing will be back on track next week for the Monaco Grand Prix.

[Sevach]

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/willi ... gn-738482/

Pat Symonds on the topic of 2017 vs 2016.

Focus already been switched it seems.

[domh245]

Only in aerodynamics though, but it makes sense. The only way they can do well next year is to spend more time working on next years car, unlike the top teams who can just throw money at it.

[ME4ME]

I think this basically settles their drop to 4th in the WCC.
It's a good decision none the less.

[Mr Brooksy]

I think this basically settles their drop to 4th in the WCC.
It's a good decision none the less.

I agree, it's a good decision as Red Bull has evidently pulled clear and if rumours are true they will be the team making life hard for Ferrari not Williams unfortunately. And as has been mentioned in the article there are still updates coming that are already on the production update schedule so the FW38 will still improve for a while.

But who in the teams behind can catch up and outscore Williams by the end of the season? Maybe McLaren but highly doubt it. But I can't see anyone else. So P4 looks pretty certain.

I'm a bit concerned though about Pats comments regarding carry over philosophies. I hope the FW39 is a new concept, one that propels it back to fighting for wins.

It's been too long...

[Sevach]

Pat's comments make me wonder if Williams is looking at the Mercedes hydraulic suspension or something like it.

When he talks about "carry over" i think he's talking about tricky systems such as that one.
I mean, obviously the geometry is going to be a lot different.

Focussing the aero team in 2017 is the correct decision imo, since aero is what needs all the time in the world.
The FW38 being a direct evolution of the 36/37 line is already at the small details change an there aren't any huge steps that can be made without spending a lot of time and money.

Regarding the teams behind Williams in the championship.
Force India just introduced a big package in Spain, maybe they will get to grips with it better in the next couple of races, but despite these upgrades they are still behind in performance right now.
And they are likely to switch development pretty soon as well.

Mclaren... depends on Honda really, i also don't see Mclaren developing their chassis so furiously that can overcome the power deficit with the new rules just around the corner.

[LookBackTime]

Pat's comments make me wonder if Williams is looking at the Mercedes hydraulic suspension or something like it.

...

I am quite sure that the development line - the hydraulic suspension. They have seen benefits from using this technology, so it is worth investing in it.

[bill shoe]

Williams pitstops--

The best-in-paddock pitstops are due to a "working group". Aaagh!, so basically the great performance comes from a committee. I suppose there's a lesson there about focus and hard work.

And they are not going for flashy records, they are actually trying to be consistent-

"We're not always going for the big numbers because if you reach for the moon, you fall on your arse, so we're just trying to get consistently low twos and we're doing that."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.ph ... tstop-pace