Also Peter Windsor makes huge mistakes predicting the future. I wonder if he has any sense of talking for F1 anymore.

Sure, and I think in current climate having a competent manager with some backing is probably better than having a "star" designer (of course it's best to have both). I wonder whether there was something which we don't quite know which affects people. Maybe it has to do with IPO?zoro_f1 wrote:Toto Wolf was not a engineer or designer. He is a man with a (money) bag. The car is in final phase but in a long term it will affect the team prospect.
Women by nature speak more (3 times as much as men), devote more brainpower to chit-chat could be an attractive quality in a development driver.Susie Wolff to debut Williams FW35 at Idiada
Speaking about Susie’s continued role with the team Mike Coughlan, Technical Director, commented: ‘’Susie has proved herself to be a valuable addition to our driver roster and her feedback during simulator sessions is second to none. As a result we will be stepping up her role this year and I’m looking forward to the progress we can make with Susie’s input in conjunction with that of Pastor and Valtteri.’’
Well now, I'm confused. 2012 saw Valtteri Bottas as reserve and test driver. When exactly did Susie get enough miles in the FW34 to have "second to none" ability to feedback the simulator compared to the real thing?WilliamsF1 wrote:Susie Wolff to debut Williams FW35 at Idiada
Speaking about Susie’s continued role with the team Mike Coughlan, Technical Director, commented: ‘’Susie has proved herself to be a valuable addition to our driver roster and her feedback during simulator sessions is second to none. As a result we will be stepping up her role this year and I’m looking forward to the progress we can make with Susie’s input in conjunction with that of Pastor and Valtteri.’’
WilliamsF1 wrote:Women by nature speak more (3 times as much as men), devote more brainpower to chit-chat could be an attractive quality in a development driver.Susie Wolff to debut Williams FW35 at Idiada
Speaking about Susie’s continued role with the team Mike Coughlan, Technical Director, commented: ‘’Susie has proved herself to be a valuable addition to our driver roster and her feedback during simulator sessions is second to none. As a result we will be stepping up her role this year and I’m looking forward to the progress we can make with Susie’s input in conjunction with that of Pastor and Valtteri.’’
Apparently, despite Windsor talking about new guys coming, the restructuring has been done in house, Xevi Pujolar, who was Pastor race engineer, takes a senior job on the pitwall (pretty much Gillan's function), Pastor and Valteri get new race engineer.WilliamsF1 wrote:Williams departures: Mark Gillan, Tom McCullough (to Sauber) and Mark Barnett (to Force India).
Hi is only giving some nice comments about Susie´s work in the simulartor, no more no less, he says nothing about driving the actual car.Cam wrote:Well now, I'm confused. 2012 saw Valtteri Bottas as reserve and test driver. When exactly did Susie get enough miles in the FW34 to have "second to none" ability to feedback the simulator compared to the real thing?WilliamsF1 wrote:Susie Wolff to debut Williams FW35 at Idiada
Speaking about Susie’s continued role with the team Mike Coughlan, Technical Director, commented: ‘’Susie has proved herself to be a valuable addition to our driver roster and her feedback during simulator sessions is second to none. As a result we will be stepping up her role this year and I’m looking forward to the progress we can make with Susie’s input in conjunction with that of Pastor and Valtteri.’’
This kind of smacks as a PR stunt. Bottas arguably had more simulator experience combined with actual FW34 time than Susie did and probably more simulator time than both Maldo and Senna. In fact, just how often did Susie drive the FW34? You'd think feedback of a simulator would only be good if you had the real thing to compare it too. Or am I missing something here?
this is very different issue comparing to winter testing. i am begining to wondering, is it the car or is the driver!?"I think we're back to the condition of two years ago in the team," said Maldonado. "We need to work very hard to solve the problems. The car is undriveable at the moment and we need to work. That's it."
Maldonado believes the main issue is Williams failing to get the right set-up for the Albert Park track. "For whatever reason, we didn't adapt our car to this track, whatever the conditions," he said.
"In the wet we were slow, in the dry as well." The Venezuelan is slightly more optimistic about his race prospects. "The pace for tomorrow seems to be much better but qualifying pace is really bad," Maldonado said.
the [source]
Valtteri Bottas was a little more adaptive to his car. He said:Pastor Maldonado: It was a disappointing end to a difficult weekend for myself and the team. The car was not responding as we hoped in the conditions today and unfortunately I lost the back end and ended up in the gravel. We need to work hard to solve the problems in the car to be ready for the next race in Malaysia.
Valtteri Bottas: I had a good start from my grid position and it felt great to be back racing again. A small mistake a few laps in cost me some places though. We got the maximum performance we could from the car today and although the pace isn’t there yet, there are still some positives to take away. The next race is only a week away, so we will work very hard to prepare as best we can and try to score our first points of the season.