Williams FW45

[PlatinumZealot]

The car is beautiful, but I'm worried about floor sealing and overall front tyre wake outwash. This amount of undercut streamlining looks way too much, but it remains to be seen. We have every reason to expect Williams to be topping the speed traps again.

Also it makes me sad to see such quick design convergence across the grid. Seems like we'll be having Ferrari and Haas on one side and 7 other lookalikes and whatever Mercedes ends up looking like.

The aim seems to be to extend the front barge board effect (of previous regs) rearward to the throat of the floor venturi to help lower the pressure in the area.

[krisfx]

The car is beautiful, but I'm worried about floor sealing and overall front tyre wake outwash. This amount of undercut streamlining looks way too much, but it remains to be seen. We have every reason to expect Williams to be topping the speed traps again.

I'm sure the aero team at Williams know a bit more than you do, so you have no reason to be worried

[Holm86]

The car is beautiful, but I'm worried about floor sealing and overall front tyre wake outwash. This amount of undercut streamlining looks way too much, but it remains to be seen. We have every reason to expect Williams to be topping the speed traps again.

I'm sure the aero team at Williams know a bit more than you do, so you have no reason to be worried

I don't think you know who you're talking to, Vanja has a lot of experience in CFD and has made a lot of great posts on his CFD analysis of F1 cars. So he can definitely give an educated guess.

[Vanja #66]

I'm sure the aero team at Williams know a bit more than you do, so you have no reason to be worried

I know they know quite a bit more than I do, but we also all know they went the wrong way with launch spec car last year. As ringo mentioned elsewhere, these cars are so similar, making changes to sidepod bodywork won't be difficult this year, so every team will have a second, third, maybe even fourth chance to improve during the season.

[McMika98]

I'm sure the aero team at Williams know a bit more than you do, so you have no reason to be worried

I know they know quite a bit more than I do, but we also all know they went the wrong way with launch spec car last year. As ringo mentioned elsewhere, these cars are so similar, making changes to sidepod bodywork won't be difficult this year, so every team will have a second, third, maybe even fourth chance to improve during the season.

To be fair their concept relied on the floor being lowered to the ground and due to porpoisong they would break the car during the grand prix. They had holes in the sidepod which was never seen in action. Their front wing does leave a lot to be desired.

[SmallSoldier]

The FW45 looks the part!

Also, it seems that a bit of rake will be the norm this season

[Venturiation]

track footage by williams looks stable

https://www.williamsf1.com/posts/c77830 ... autoplay=1

[EJ22B]

The FW45 looks the part!

Also, it seems that a bit of rake will be the norm this season

https://i.imgur.com/bh2fCrB.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/XZDgOxC.jpg

Looks like the Williams team has taken a decent step this season. The power unit packaging looks tight which isn't usually we see in a Williams car. Also, the bodywork looks to have quite a lot of detail in certain areas.

It also looks like they have retained the last year's chassis with modified suspension and track rod points, rear wing and drs assembly and a lot of other parts. That should allow them to have a healthy development budget for this season as they are saving money by carrying over so many old designed parts.

With Vowles in as the team principal, Williams should be able to hire some top tier personnel to lead the technical team.

[McMika98]

track footage by williams looks stable

https://www.williamsf1.com/posts/c77830 ... autoplay=1

Compared to the Aston Martin which was driven in the morning, the floor on the Williams is very low almost touching the ground whilst a clear daylight can be seen on the Aston Martin. Also a floor stay on the Williams is not visible but almost every other car has one. Have they found a suspension setup to be compliance with the new floor reg and then drop under load? The Merc fans are having a panic attack with the car displaying proposing like traits on a wet track.

Last year they had to ditch the concept because they had to get the floor running on the ground to get the downforce, video below from testing from one of the forum member.

[organic]

track footage by williams looks stable

https://www.williamsf1.com/posts/c77830 ... autoplay=1

Compared to the Aston Martin which was driven in the morning, the floor on the Williams is very low almost touching the ground whilst a clear daylight can be seen on the Aston Martin. Also a floor stay on the Williams is not visible but almost every other car has one. Have they found a suspension setup to be compliance with the new floor reg and then drop under load? The Merc fans are having a panic attack with the car displaying proposing like traits on a wet track.

Last year they had to ditch the concept because they had to get the floor running on the ground to get the downforce, video below from testing from one of the forum member.

Agreed the Williams looks to be running very low in their shakedown compared to what we've seen in other shakedowns. But we don't know what teams were doing vs what they're going to do for a race setup which is all that matters

[SmallSoldier]

The FW45 looks the part!

Also, it seems that a bit of rake will be the norm this season

https://i.imgur.com/bh2fCrB.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/XZDgOxC.jpg

Looks like the Williams team has taken a decent step this season. The power unit packaging looks tight which isn't usually we see in a Williams car. Also, the bodywork looks to have quite a lot of detail in certain areas.

It also looks like they have retained the last year's chassis with modified suspension and track rod points, rear wing and drs assembly and a lot of other parts. That should allow them to have a healthy development budget for this season as they are saving money by carrying over so many old designed parts.

With Vowles in as the team principal, Williams should be able to hire some top tier personnel to lead the technical team.

It’s definitely one of the most complete Williams we have seen before the start of a season… I don’t know if James will be able to bring people with him, but he will definitely inject Williams with knowledge on what made Mercedes not only good from technical perspective, but also from a management perspective, that might be the biggest asset.

[tomazy]

Some nice fotage of FW45:







I dont remember the cooling device on top of the nose beeing there last year, It cools something below the chassis if you look at the mechanic with the hose. So there is another air vent down there or something (last video, 3:30). They have gotten rid of the driver cooling hole in the nose, but I dont think that they would activly cool this in the garage?

[organic]

Slater says here that Williams are not a fan of the late reg changes to floor edge/diffuser throat height as they were already developing a car for very low ride height (potentially Merc style?). I guess doesn't bode well for new car if they had to swap ride height concept halfway through designing/development

[tomazy]

FW45 has the most extreme undercut of any car seen thus far. The outwash is less extreme, but it is furher back and coveres more of the floor. The undercut can be clearly seen at 7:54 in the attached video.

[organic]

FW45 has the most extreme undercut of any car seen thus far. The outwash is less extreme, but it is furher back and coveres more of the floor. The undercut can be clearly seen at 7:54 in the attached video.

Yup it's very extreme. Applying cfd eye logic and taking into account statements made in media it seems they're going all in on efficiency first