2017 Williams Martini Racing Team - Mercedes

[Carinni]

Well done Felipe! P8!

[atheonr]

Lance is in this team just because of his father's money.

[Sevach]

Good drive by Massa.

[Carinni]

But even Haas is in front! Too bad. Seems Williams is really lack of the ability to design a title challenging car, n even unable to keep being the best of the rest. Always failed to win the development race in mid season.

[LookBackTime]

BELGIAN GRAND PRIX
27 AUG 2017

Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium
7.004 km / 4.352 miles

Race Notes:

- Felipe Massa finished 8th and Lance Stroll 11th in the Belgian Grand Prix
- Both drivers had a strong start to the race on the supersoft tyre with Lance maintaining position whilst Felipe made up two places to P14 from P16 on the grid
- Lance pitted for a set of soft tyres on lap nine and re-joined in P17
- Felipe pitted on lap 11 from P8 for a set of soft tyres
- Both drivers benefitted from a safety car on lap 29 and pitted for the ultrasoft tyres with Felipe coming back out in P8 and Lance in P14
- Felipe maintained position whilst Lance made good progress on the ultrasoft tyre to make up three places to P11
- Felipe is now 11th in the Drivers’ Championship, ahead of Lance in 13th. The team remains fifth in the Constructors’ Championship with 45 points

Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer: Congratulations to Felipe for a great race and four points. After his difficulties through the last month with missing the race in Hungary, it is great that he could come back to such a challenging circuit and deliver a strong result for the team. I am sure no one is happier about that than he is. With Lance, one or two missed opportunities, so not a perfect race, but he brought the car home just outside the points, so it was a credit worthy result. It was a very difficult weekend up to today for the team and both drivers, so overall we were happy to put that right to some extent during the race today.

Felipe Massa: I’m very happy with the race today, it was like a victory. Great start, great overtakes, good pace for the car we struggled with yesterday, so I’m really happy and also to be able to keep the cars behind at the end. I think today was a very intense race, but I’m so happy. I know eighth place is not a nice position, looking at everything I have achieved in my career, but today the way I drove the car and the way I drove in this race, it was definitely like a victory and I’m so happy. For sure there’s a lot to understand and improve in the car, like what wasn’t working in the last two races, but I’m happy with the perfect race I had today.

Lance Stroll: Certainly this was better than yesterday, but we just missed out on the points, which was unfortunate. We got lucky with other cars dropping out, but today was definitely a lot better. It was unfortunate that I had damage at the end when overtaking Magnussen at the safety car restart. I broke a piece of the front wing and just had to survive until the end. Without this I could have been attacking Sainz for points, but it was a good race with plenty of stuff happening and I had fun. It was great to see the car was working better in the race than in qualifying.

[Carinni]

Lance is in this team just because of his father's money.

Need no mention! But I think he is still better than a taxi driver

[LookBackTime]

https://twitter.com/WilliamsRacing/stat ... 0512174081

[Sevach]

One thing is for certain, Williams needs to do a reset for next year in terms of car concept.

[Mr Brooksy]

One thing is for certain, Williams needs to do a reset for next year in terms of car concept.

Couldn't agree more! This year was always going to be difficult due to Symonds having designed the FW40 following the concepts of the FW36 (as Symonds said in a few interviews from last year from memory) only to be replaced just as the car was being finished at the factory. Then for Paddy Lowe to arrive who just finished the latest Mercedes, who then had to understand the FW40, get major upgrades started (gearbox and turning vanes in front of the cockpit for more downforce which contradicts Symonds original philosophy), get a cashed up rookie up to speed, have a slowing retired driver as lead, and last but not least also have a new head of aero in Dirk de Beer take over from Somerville. It seems in recent history every time a change of design head occurs, they have to struggle through that year's car - most notably the horror 2013 season, 98 and when Sam Michael took over. Let's hope at least we can maintain 5th with a car that at best (as things stand now) qualifies in the lowest quarter of the field.

At this point last year is looking like a good year still...

It's still a bad situation all round in my opinion.

[Carinni]

Just may write off this car, folllowing fw36 concept, no matter what n how many updates from 2014-2017，can't solve the fundamental issue: No mechanical grip, a piece of --- at slow corners, now even a --- in faster corners

[LookBackTime]

Present for all Williams fans!

The Story of Legendary Williams FW14B - Full Documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6rd-L7OhTY

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[LookBackTime]

Williams 2018 car to feature "substantial changes" - Lowe
By: Lawrence Barretto, Journalist

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/will ... ar-946623/

The Williams Formula 1 team will be making “quite substantial changes” to keys areas of its car’s philosophy for next season, according to its technical director Paddy Lowe.

Williams is currently fifth in the constructors’ championship with 45 points but is locked in a tight midfield battle with Toro Rosso, Haas and Renault, with just 11 points separating the four teams.

“We will be making some quite substantial changes,” said Lowe, who joined the team from Mercedes ahead of this season.

“There are lots of different things that we’ll be doing and we’re well into that at the moment. There will be quite a few areas where we will be changing philosophy.”

Felipe Massa said Williams is falling behind in the development race, after both its cars failed to progress from Q1 in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix.

When asked by Motorsport.com if he agreed with that assessment, Lowe said: “That’s always possible.

“It’s difficult to conclude anything from single races, as there is a lot of variation from circuit to circuit.

“We have to look at the trends. We are fighting hard in that midfield group. We haven’t created any distance ahead of it but if anything we’ve slipped well into it in the last couple of months.

“We need to understand if that's something where we’re going wrong or if we have been outdeveloped.”

Lowe said Williams, which is believed to have the sixth-biggest budget of the 10 teams, was working hard to get the most out of its resources but conceded the team could be more efficient.

“We need to improve in all sorts of areas, that’s the nature of the competition,” he said. “It’s about outcompeting the other teams in all teams in all the important areas.

“We have a set of resources and it's our job to do the best we can with those resources. It’s about efficiency. We can be a lot more efficient than we are being at the moment.

“As we achieve more success, that will attract more resources to improve ourselves still further. That’s the formula of grand prix development.”

[LookBackTime]

https://twitter.com/tgruener/status/902518026477686788 Google translate:

"Stroll in Hockenheim
The driving hours for Lance Stroll continue. After the GP Canada, the Canadian had rented the Austin circuit to gain additional experience with a 2014 Williams. Six days before the GP Belgium, Stroll showed up on a secret mission in Hockenheim and turned round for a day. Photographers were unwanted."

[marmer]

Williams since the new engines have come in have made the worst progress compared to all teams current. Yet media never seems to give them a hard time over there performance they normally just say the car doesn't perform well on X track.
There were the best customer team in season 1 and over the old regs slowly fell behind new regs come in and Massa at the start of the season was able to be competitive in the top ten. Along with stroll eventually. Now all the other teams have out developed them and they battling to make q2
There is no reason for this they have a bigger budget than force India and some other non Mercedes teams yet since 2014 have never out developed a team only being helped by having two half decent drivers and a Mercedes engine. Just think of the trouble they would have been in with a Honda

Sent from my HUAWEI VNS-L31 using Tapatalk

[LookBackTime]

Williams' Paddy Lowe coy on Fernando Alonso transfer talk

http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/24184/ ... nsfer-talk

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