2024 Williams Racing F1 Team

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Logan needs to work on his poker face. Interviewed by F1tv

He says internally everyone in the team in terms of numbers are happy with where the car is

He says they have a "great car" and that they have plenty of "ideas and.. tricks"

[Moctecus]

Pat Fry has clarified a few details about the gearbox situation here:

- retaining the 2023 Mercedes gearbox was the only option
- Mercedes decided they could only produce enough units for two teams
- Motorsport-Magazin say Williams has no contractual guarantees for an up-to-date unit, unlike Aston Martin

Fry about going back to producing their own gearbox:

"I'm sure that will happen. In the long term, we should go back to making our own gearbox," says Fry. "Because the rear suspension is more aerodynamic than anything else these days, we should go in that direction for our own aero development."

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[McMika98]

James is being very disingenuous, he recently said that they were late with the shakedown because they were pushing as late as they can and then here he says a key car decision was made based on aero results from April last year. Had they had the 2 shakedown, they could have easily ironed out the niggling issues throughout testing.

Pat sounds more honest and truthful; the issue stems from Merc production rate and they offered discount as compensation which will be meaningless as they will lose out more than 20million based on constructor standings. Williams has been royally shafted by being made to stick to a 2023 suspension that was one of the poorest out there and limited rear diffuser performance. No surprises the driver are already complaining about rear instability.

On a completely new car, they needed to do a Haas and get as much track time as possible. James is on the hot seat, can't see this car getting P8.

[CaribouBread]

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Last year Aston had one of the best traction character both in acceleration and deceleration with that Merc gearbox/susp. I think it can work well with a good aero map. Merc surely couldn't make it work with their aero so i don't think its end all be all like you're making it out to be. Less than ideal but can be worked around for sure.

[McMika98]

Albon says that Silverstone shakedown would have ironed out the issues seen here and clearly mentions delays in factory. On the Merc suspension, he dances around the question but a year old part is a massive compromise and in this tight midfield fighting for hundredths of second, it will show.

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Albon says that Silverstone shakedown would have ironed out the issues seen here and clearly mentions delays in factory. On the Merc suspension, he dances around the question but a year old part is a massive compromise and in this tight midfield fighting for hundredths of second, it will show.

Vowles highlights the reasoning in this interview and mentions that it would also save $1mn

[McMika98]

$1million is chump change, they risk losing 20 Million + on constructors position.

As for the aero work, the floor is still basic and not even Rb19 level. The whole point of push rod was to allow for more diffuser volume, increasing rear downforce.

[CaribouBread]

$1million is chump change, they risk losing 20 Million + on constructors position.

As for the aero work, the floor is still basic and not even Rb19 level. The whole point of push rod was to allow for more diffuser volume, increasing rear downforce.

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I think the money bit is an excuse, trying to save face, I believe Merc doesn't have the capacity to build latest parts or doesn't find it cost effective to provide it to a third team anymore. And Williams can't really refuse - they probably can't build a rear susp. g. box inhouse that's as good as last year's Merc in house anyways. They're in a tough spot.

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Even if the aero is "still basic" (how are you judging this?) you cannot conclude that the extra 4 months of development time that would've been lost had they waited for Merc's latest suspension design isn't worth more.

And if it is just saving face and fully down to Merc's capacity then how is that Williams' fault? They are financially significantly weaker than AMR so naturally they will be the one to miss out.

Additionally, development budgets under the budget cap era are on the order of $10m so a $1m bonus could make a difference to the number of upgrades they're able to bring

[Xyz22]

James doesn't seem to be someone that likes to rely on bullshit.

Clearly, not having the latest rear suspension is not ideal, but maybe it was the right compromise for Williams. In the long term, if they want to aim to be a consistent midfield team, they will have to be able to build their own gearbox and suspension, that is for sure.

[McMika98]

The hope is that they have a new floor already in the works, proven out in wind tunnel and going through production. Once Merc ramps up their spares list and make the gearbox and rear available to williams, they can combine both upgrades for a big step in the first quarter.
Vowles said that they will be aggressive with development and upgrades so one would hope they don't have to limit to last year concept at the rear which would be less rewarding.

The 1 million is such a red herring, probably going to spend 3-4 million on car crashes. But main point is that they risk losing millions more for each place in constructors. Just for reference, hanging onto P7 last race was almost 10 million

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/why-p ... /10552526/

This year will be even close competition for P8 to P10, frankly my expectation was top midfield and fighting podiums in rare occasions hence the disappointment to know they might be scrapping for single points.

[CaribouBread]

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And if it is just saving face and fully down to Merc's capacity then how is that Williams' fault? They are financially significantly weaker than AMR so naturally they will be the one to miss out.

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Not really putting the blame on anyone here, just how it happened to play out given Willaims position - I think they still have the capacity to make most out of their situation and the last year susp. they're running isn't as bad as some make it out to be. It has limitations, sure, but it can be made to perform really well. Like Aston demonstrated last year!

[McMika98]

Interesting post shakedown interview. Someone obviously did not get the script, the question mentions 2024 Merc rear suspension and James gave a coy- we have that in back of our car now answer.

Mileage and Reliability were not what was hoped for

[Moctecus]

Episode 3 of the BBC podcast Back at Base contains a few interesting bits of information:

- after a few late weight increases, they started 2023 with a significantly overweight car
- they had expected to be on target, but hadn't kept a firm enough grasp on mass during the design process
- Dave Worner led a project to take at least 10kg out of the 2023 car, which resulted in more fundamental changes for 2024:

So we realised through incoming intel from other teams should we say that our chassis was a bit of a porker. So we focused on the 2024 chassis. That was the first thing we started looking at. We ring fence resource within design to start looking at designing and making that chassis in a completely different way to any way that Williams had ever done before with a view to taking many, many kilos out of it more than the target 10 kilos that we've tried to save in 2023.

Vowles adds:

It was brought to my attention that the work that we're asking the organisation to do is the equivalent of three years worth of evolutionary jump but to be completed in just six months.