2018 Williams F1 Racing - Mercedes

[netoperek]

sprint car76, if You try to express Your dislike towards Kubica, better try harder as neither of Your arguments is actually hitting the target. To answer Your questions though, Williams driver choice might have been somewhat biased by healthy paycheck from both of them, which I guess when spent on some major drafts like for example Paddy and Kubica, both very capable in their respective positions, where hoped to balance the drivers lack of experience, by giving them a decent car. Both SS and LS have not one, but two race engineers EACH, and all of them are pretty experienced. As Rob Smedley putted it: "now there's a good equilibrium in terms of level of seniority across the cars", which might even sound like a pun . Even though I am much more of a Kubica's fan than SS or LS, I amongst others actually noticed Lance's progress. He is maturing and good for him. That's probably why Sergey had to give up his FP1, not Lance, when feedback was needed most, as Barcelona is THE track, where all the updates are brought. Lance even admitted that he tries to get as much as he can from Kubica's presence to become a better driver. Lance can show some respect to Robert, so can You. But whether You like it or not, neither of our young drivers are going to top Kubica's experience and skill anytime soon. If the car had some unidentified issues up until now and is "embarrassing", might be partly drivers fault, for not giving precise enough feedback. When Kubica was hiried in a role his in now, both him and Paddy stated that his first job will be evaluating and enhancing simulator usefullness, which is somewhat in line with what Ringo posted and why they knew they're in deep sh.t.
But let's be optimistic they can sort it all out eventually, shall we? We have some testing ahead of us, let's hope that it will bring some answers

[sprint car76]

First off i don't "dislike" kubica. There are too many very good drivers coming up that are going to fill the seats that will be available. Sorry for robert but his time has passed. That's not disrespect thats just reality. Secondly his engineers are not experienced F1 engineers. His race engineer is James Urwin who started as strolls engineer in 2017, previous job was a race operations analyst. His other engineer is luca baldisserri who's last race engineer experience was in 2002. Both i am sure are fine engineers but they are not going to fix the aero problem even with kubica's input. Dick de beer, and his crew are the one's to figure out what has gone wrong between the wind tunnel and the race track.

I can understand the love for kubica he was one of my favorites too. Unfortunately the accident derailed his F1 career, maybe for good. Time and circumstances catches up to everyone.

[Gator86]

During the Sky coverage (FP3 I think), one of the commentators mentioned that the Polish word for embarrassed in English could also mean shy in English. The commentator thought Robert might have meant that the car was shy on turn in or something like that. This is from memory and I don't have any links, so be gentle if I'm mistaken please.

EDIT: Yep, I was wrong. Part of the SKY Sports F1 interview: "Although, I felt embarrassed when I was driving inside the car because it was so difficult and I felt so slow in some places."

http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12476/ ... spanish-gp

[piast9]

I don't buy this. "Zawstydzony" and "wstydliwy" are maybe slightly similar but they are two different words. I don't think that it could cause the slip of the tongue when Kubica was interviewed in English.

[flmkane]

Old vid of Kubica. You can see he has a tendancy to grip the steering wheel very lightly, even when he was young and undamaged.



Obviously his right hand isn't helping much these days, but still, his old vids are interesting in comparison to nowadays.

[miguelbento]

Old vid of Kubica. You can see he has a tendancy to grip the steering wheel very lightly, even when he was young and undamaged.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv5PHoR2-lo

Obviously his right hand isn't helping much these days, but still, his old vids are interesting in comparison to nowadays.

In the video he is activating the F-Duct with the left hand.

[flmkane]

Old vid of Kubica. You can see he has a tendancy to grip the steering wheel very lightly, even when he was young and undamaged.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv5PHoR2-lo

Obviously his right hand isn't helping much these days, but still, his old vids are interesting in comparison to nowadays.

In the video he is activating the F-Duct with the left hand.

Yup thats true.
But his right hand?

[IamLegend]

This team is going from bad to worse, will they be up for sale eventually?

"Dirk de Beer has stepped down from his role as Head of Aerodynamics at Williams with immediate effect…
His departure marks the end of a relationship that has lasted for just over one season, with De Beer having previously held the same role at F1 rivals Ferrari.

It comes just weeks after Ed Wood left his role as chief designer for personal reasons."

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/head ... -team.html

[Sevach]

I don't know if this is lack of money or De Beer being sacked for this car lackluster performance.

[godlameroso]

Their aero is pretty bad, with only a modest fix in sight, it won't be until next year that they'll be able to rectify this year's mistake, they'll be able to make patchwork improvements to maybe get points, but I'd start focusing on next year. They tried to copy the Mercedes and got a few critical concepts wrong.

[sprint car76]

Williams has just fired head of aero dirk de beer. First ed woods now beers, house cleaning. paddy next?

[Just_a_fan]

According to https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/44309487 :

Williams have discovered that a major aerodynamic flaw is responsible for the car's lack of pace this year.
When the front wheels turn, they disrupt the intended airflow to the back of the car, and the critical rear floor area suffers an aerodynamic 'stall', robbing the car of downforce and grip on corner entry.

Sounds like fundamental problem on a modern car where dealing with the front tyre wake is central to performance.

[djos]

Williams has just fired head of aero dirk de beer. First ed woods now beers, house cleaning. paddy next?

Paddy is a shareholder, he's not going anywhere!

[skwdenyer]

According to https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/44309487 :

Williams have discovered that a major aerodynamic flaw is responsible for the car's lack of pace this year.
When the front wheels turn, they disrupt the intended airflow to the back of the car, and the critical rear floor area suffers an aerodynamic 'stall', robbing the car of downforce and grip on corner entry.

Sounds like fundamental problem on a modern car where dealing with the front tyre wake is central to performance.

As ever, we don't know the back story (and probably never will). But I'd lay some odds on this being a mix of lack of budget, lack of experience with operating at such low budgets, and some large expectations of progress.

New complex aero strategies require a lot of testing (sim and tunnel). If there simply aren't the resources to do all of this (and all those staff at Ferrari have to be doing something), either the concept needs to be dialled-back, or risks have to be taken. If you have a new TD in town with high hopes, the weight of expectation, and a ticking bomb in the shape of a loss of a major sponsor, you can see how this might unravel.

I knew Ed Wood 25 years ago (not seen him since); assuming he hasn't changed out of all recognition, I can quite imagine him not liking a shift in emphasis from doing it right (within the means) to trying to take a bigger step than feasible with available resources. You only have to look at Williams' continuing use of a titanium gearbox for evidence of that approach - it works, so don't spend scarce resources on changing it.

So, we'll have to see what happens now. I note that the CD has been given "full design authority" but is that a promotion or a poisoned chalice?

[bill shoe]

Current-gen aero around front wheels stops at the end of this year. 2019 sees narrower front wings that attempt to eliminate "outwash" vortexes that have been critical to aero performance since 2009. Nominal purpose of 2019 change is to make cars less aero-sensitive when they are following close behind someone, but hmmm it's also very very convenient for cars like Williams that have a fundamental weakness in this area.

Maybe Williams in 2018 should try to quickly copy more aggressive Merc front wings to see if that's a quick fix. Then, regardless of result, only spend remaining 2018 time 1). improving human and aero processes, and 2). work on next year's car.