2018 Williams F1 Racing - Mercedes

[bill shoe]

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!

I would think the sackings would have been Paddy's decision in the first place. If big deal changes like this were not initiated and supported by him then 1). Who is running the technical ship?, and 2). Paddy should quickly resign due to lack of support from team.

I don't like to see people going out the door, but I think it's a sign that Paddy has the authority to do what he wants, and that means he will be resonsible for results over the coming seasons. Good.

[djos]

I would think the sackings would have been Paddy's decision in the first place. If big deal changes like this were not initiated and supported by him then 1). Who is running the technical ship?, and 2). Paddy should quickly resign due to lack of support from team.

I don't like to see people going out the door, but I think it's a sign that Paddy has the authority to do what he wants, and that means he will be resonsible for results over the coming seasons. Good.

Agreed, he's making the changes needed to remove dead wood and take the team forward, as a long suffering Williams fan, I sincerely hope he succeeds!

[dren]

I assumed they hired de Beer to take the car aerodynamically forward. He failed, but the Ferrari he was responsible for didn't fail. I was surprised the car didn't take a step up the grid this year when it was first revealed.

[godlameroso]

I have a thread in the aero section, 2018 aero developments, in it I show why the Williams aero is not good. Hint: it has to do with Haas lack of performance around Monaco.

[dren]

The Haas has been quick at just about all tracks; the Williams has been the opposite. The Williams is having issues with their vortices interaction with the floor when the car changes direction; they are losing down force on turn-in. Haas isn't suffering from that.

[godlameroso]

The Haas has been quick at just about all tracks; the Williams has been the opposite. The Williams is having issues with their vortices interaction with the floor when the car changes direction; they are losing down force on turn-in. Haas isn't suffering from that.

They were in Monaco.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/haas ... s-1042052/
"We're missing quite a few parts on the floor and that cost us quite a lot of downforce," said Grosjean.
"Because you don't run a car with this geometry, you don't get the map so you don't know what it does around the corner.
"We would make this thing and put it in a windtunnel to try to find out what it does in yaw, but we lost downforce.
"You guide the air where you want it, and if you take these parts off you don't know where it goes and you're not going to investigate where it goes because you're never planning to run it like this."

They couldn't keep the bits on the car since this area is in line with the floor and any raked car is going to have trouble there.

After they removed the bits in question Haas bargeboards looked exactly like Williams' bargeboards, and their performance suffered. Putting 2 + 2 together leads one to assume that this area is extremely important. It's only reinforced by the fact the fastest cars this year have a very streamlined wing looking version. You can read more about it here.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=27064

[skwdenyer]

I assumed they hired de Beer to take the car aerodynamically forward. He failed, but the Ferrari he was responsible for didn't fail. I was surprised the car didn't take a step up the grid this year when it was first revealed.

It may well be that de Beer’s concept can only be made to work with the resources available elsewhere...

[sprint car76]

Sorry, but haas has made it's aero work with less a budget than williams. This is not a budget problem this is a people problem.

Before anyone gets started on this being a driver problem, kubica has made the same judgement as the other drivers, mid corner instability.

Paddy lowe is the overall boss and somehow didn't take this problem serious even though all the drivers complained right from the first test. Only as the season progressed did he start to realize the extent of the problem. Makes you wonder how a team with this many seasoned engineers could miss the mark this badly. Does this give us a little insight into why merc's decided not renew his contract? The basic car itself is very impressive but there is a fundamental flaw in their aero that need fixing quick.

[bill shoe]

I figure Paddy has not been slow to act. He came in at roughly the beginning of 2018 design, and after a few 2018 races Paddy has let a couple key people go.

Just knowing there's a problem in itself doesn't tell you why and who should have been covering it better. That takes a bit of time, thought, and interaction with people in technical meetings. Probably the most important moment is not when the team realized the 2018 car had a problem, but rather the moment when the team started rationalizing the lack of track correlation with CFD, wind tunnel, etc. as a normal situation.

[sprint car76]

Paddy started march 2017. He knew the 2017 Williams had problems. The 2018 was his car. All of us williams fans had high hopes. Sorry but when your the boss, its your fault, ask the head of any department in business. This is the type of problem that he needs to turn around fast if he is to retain his job, shares or no shares. Williams are in a very precarious position with the impending loss of their sponsor.

He came in with a big reputation and now finds himself behind force india, and even haas a 3rd year team. Not good.

[dren]

The Haas has been quick at just about all tracks; the Williams has been the opposite. The Williams is having issues with their vortices interaction with the floor when the car changes direction; they are losing down force on turn-in. Haas isn't suffering from that.

They were in Monaco.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/haas ... s-1042052/
"We're missing quite a few parts on the floor and that cost us quite a lot of downforce," said Grosjean.
"Because you don't run a car with this geometry, you don't get the map so you don't know what it does around the corner.
"We would make this thing and put it in a windtunnel to try to find out what it does in yaw, but we lost downforce.
"You guide the air where you want it, and if you take these parts off you don't know where it goes and you're not going to investigate where it goes because you're never planning to run it like this."

They couldn't keep the bits on the car since this area is in line with the floor and any raked car is going to have trouble there.

After they removed the bits in question Haas bargeboards looked exactly like Williams' bargeboards, and their performance suffered. Putting 2 + 2 together leads one to assume that this area is extremely important. It's only reinforced by the fact the fastest cars this year have a very streamlined wing looking version. You can read more about it here.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=27064

So a problem Williams says isn't easy to fix is as simple as slapping a wing to the lower front of its barge boards?

The Williams car isn't working as designed. The Haas car does work as designed, but has issues when it's run in a configuration it wasn't designed for.

[godlameroso]

Nope, not that simple. Takes a bit of time to manufacture new parts. At least a 4 week lead time from them figuring out what's wrong, designing the new parts, fabricating and testing them and getting them on the car. YMMV depending on your budget.

[Big Tea]

I figure Paddy has not been slow to act. He came in at roughly the beginning of 2018 design, and after a few 2018 races Paddy has let a couple key people go.

Just knowing there's a problem in itself doesn't tell you why and who should have been covering it better. That takes a bit of time, thought, and interaction with people in technical meetings. Probably the most important moment is not when the team realized the 2018 car had a problem, but rather the moment when the team started rationalizing the lack of track correlation with CFD, wind tunnel, etc. as a normal situation.

Also, they need to take care they do not throw out the baby with the bath water.
Quite often the position where problems are brought to attention is not where they originate.
First impression could be that output from stream X is unsatisfactory, bu this is equally likely to be the result of streams A and B coming together at that point. Dispensing with the person here then makes things much worse.

It takes time to investigate

[ringo]

Paddy may have known the issues from the start but let it play out to confirm for sure if these were terminal or repairable. When he sees they have crap box on their hands for the rest of the year he let wood and debeer go. Whihc is really the right thing to do.
Williams can come good for next year if they adopt the philosophy of any of the top 5 cars. they just need a stable platform to build on that bring them back fighting for points and then podiums again.

[adrianjordan]

Sorry, but haas has made it's aero work with less a budget than williams. This is not a budget problem this is a people problem.

Before anyone gets started on this being a driver problem, kubica has made the same judgement as the other drivers, mid corner instability.

Paddy lowe is the overall boss and somehow didn't take this problem serious even though all the drivers complained right from the first test. Only as the season progressed did he start to realize the extent of the problem. Makes you wonder how a team with this many seasoned engineers could miss the mark this badly. Does this give us a little insight into why merc's decided not renew his contract? The basic car itself is very impressive but there is a fundamental flaw in their aero that need fixing quick.

Haas might have a lower budget than Williams, but they make substantial savings by buying as much as they can from Ferrari. This allows them to focus their remaining resources where they need to.

Williams, on the other hand, develop the vast majority of their car in house.