2018 Williams F1 Racing - Mercedes

[godlameroso]

The car can be improved, just like the McLaren can be improved, they're failing to do something the other fast teams are doing, and perhaps it's not easy to change for them.

[JoeE]

given how bad the car is and the lack of an experienced driver to try and develop the car and guide him through a very trying period, stroll isn't actually doing too bad if you just look at his performances, it's just his personality in interviews that stops me liking him, an attitude of "we've got money so everyone must be nice to me".

to be honest i can understand stroll senior not being happy as he can see his money and his son's career being wasted but there's no excuse to treat paddy like that where it can be caught on camera, once again it smells of "we've got the money and don't care about you "

I don't quite get how someone can think that Stroll is doing a good job. Yeah he is about as fast as Sirotkin, but he was last year quite often a second slower than Massa, after all that preparation the year before.
In my book both are about on the same level as Ericsson, and Leclerc is usually more than 7 tenths quicker than Ericsson.
So I think the main problem with the performance of Williams is just down to the drivers and a non-paydriver would put the car somewhere around 10-12th.

even with been stuck in a "dud", if you listen to him on the radio, you soon see hes a slow learner, always asking question and always confused about what is going on with. money or not, hes just not learning quick enough

[tinvek]

given how bad the car is and the lack of an experienced driver to try and develop the car and guide him through a very trying period, stroll isn't actually doing too bad if you just look at his performances, it's just his personality in interviews that stops me liking him, an attitude of "we've got money so everyone must be nice to me".

to be honest i can understand stroll senior not being happy as he can see his money and his son's career being wasted but there's no excuse to treat paddy like that where it can be caught on camera, once again it smells of "we've got the money and don't care about you "

I don't quite get how someone can think that Stroll is doing a good job. Yeah he is about as fast as Sirotkin, but he was last year quite often a second slower than Massa, after all that preparation the year before.
In my book both are about on the same level as Ericsson, and Leclerc is usually more than 7 tenths quicker than Ericsson.
So I think the main problem with the performance of Williams is just down to the drivers and a non-paydriver would put the car somewhere around 10-12th.

even with been stuck in a "dud", if you listen to him on the radio, you soon see hes a slow learner, always asking question and always confused about what is going on with. money or not, hes just not learning quick enough

i agree with placing him at the same level as ericsson, i don't think he'll ever be world champion but he's a solid number 2 driver for a team at williams' current level, i never said he was doing a good job but at the same time i don't think he's as bad as some claim, the fact that he normally does well on the first lap points to some good racing instinct and ability and whilst he does appear to be a bit "slow" at picking up the situation etc, we don't know how much of that is down to the williams environment / driver development plus as has been pointed out elsewhere, the radio clips from liberty can be misleading and seem at times to be used to portray a different story to what the full conversations show.

i always thought sirotkin never shone in lower formula and he always looked like the type of driver that would never get to F1 but would be a good safe pair of hands in LMP2 but maybe williams have seen something, apart from money, from their testing that made them sign him.

it's quite possible that williams see sirotkin as the perfect number 2 driver but choosing or needing stroll as their number 1 is depriving them of the experienced leadership and input they clearly need at this time. at the very least they should be giving one of the friday morning slots to an experienced driver and use the same driver at every race to provide some consistent feedback, if kubica is unwilling / unable to do that, williams should find another ASAP, an experienced driver won't design a better car but he would provide better feedback and a comparison to how a good car should feel, neither stroll, despite all his pre F1 testing, nor sirotkin have ever experienced a proper mid field car under the current aero regulations, and may well think that a characteristic of the williams behaviour is just a normal for a a current F1 car when in fact it is a fundamental problem.

what ever they do, williams needs to do something fast, before they disappear down an ever shrinking viscous circle of poor results leading to poor income leading to poor results etc till they become another team lotus

[Singabule]

At least they have rexona to support financially and by their deodorant, so no bad smell in garage. Just joking.. I see their problem not in drivers, but trying to bite more than they could chew. All the change in aero is derived from other team idea and as Newey said, always stick to your concept.

[marmer]

At least they have rexona to support financially and by their deodorant, so no bad smell in garage. Just joking.. I see their problem not in drivers, but trying to bite more than they could chew. All the change in aero is derived from other team idea and as Newey said, always stick to your concept.

Trouble with the concept they had was it peaked in 2014 when they where not far off the top pace on a few tracks. It then fell back year on year and didn't pick up when the regs changed to wider cars. So at that point why stick with it.

[Mr Brooksy]

Kubica is doing another FP1 this weekend, so does that mean we will be getting some of the anticipated upgrades to fix this car? Or was it one of the pre planned sessions?

Last I read, the new parts will be much closer to the summer break.

[rscsr]

I really think that main problem this year are the 2 paydrivers.
I compared the qualifying times when the slower Williams driver gets eliminated to the fastest driver of that session.


So do we really believe that the car lost 1 percentage point or does Stroll just perform as he did last year?

[sprint car76]

So it's the drivers eh! I guess then mclaren should get rid of alonso because he can't solve their aero problem.

How many articles does it take where lowe admits that they have an aero problem that they haven't been able to solve. Do posters not read kubica's interview after running the car for the whole two days at the last test. He states "i'm not driving the car, the car is driving me"

As the aero on these cars gets more complicated the driver input becomes less important. When merc had their setup problems last year how did they solve it? The engineers at the factory went on 24 hour shifts to come up with the solutions, not the drivers.

Posters maybe forget that last year stroll qualified 4th in the rain, 5 positions ahead of massa. Isn't rain the equalizer when it comes to talent? How many times is it stated by posters that rain brings out the real talent. This is a driver who was 18 at the time.

[rscsr]

So it's the drivers eh! I guess then mclaren should get rid of alonso because he can't solve their aero problem.

How many articles does it take where lowe admits that they have an aero problem that they haven't been able to solve. Do posters not read kubica's interview after running the car for the whole two days at the last test. He states "i'm not driving the car, the car is driving me"

As the aero on these cars gets more complicated the driver input becomes less important. When merc had their setup problems last year how did they solve it? The engineers at the factory went on 24 hour shifts to come up with the solutions, not the drivers.

Posters maybe forget that last year stroll qualified 4th in the rain, 5 positions ahead of massa. Isn't rain the equalizer when it comes to talent? How many times is it stated by posters that rain brings out the real talent. This is a driver who was 18 at the time.

Yeah sure, Lowe will go and say that Stroll sucks publicly, when his father pays the bills.

The BS that the driver doesn't matter is ridiculous, especially when Leclerc is a second faster than Ericsson, or Vettel is several tenth faster than Räikkönen. And Hamilton is getting paid fortune to drive in that Mercedes. Just put Gutierrez in, he will win the championship anyway.

And what does 1 race matter, when he was on average more than 1% slower than Massa. It just means that on another occasion he was 2% slower.

[dren]

Sure the driver matters, but the car matters more. It's obviously a handful to drive just by watching on boards.

[rscsr]

Sure the driver matters, but the car matters more. It's obviously a handful to drive just by watching on boards.

Yeah sure, when the car is a second faster than all the others. But Leclerc put the Sauber on P8 and Ericsson on P15.
And last years Williams was also quite a handful to drive, when you judge it from Strolls onboards.

[Zynerji]

Williams need to get OCO. Claire should be calling Toto for an Ocon/ listed parts kind of conversation.

[Mr Brooksy]

Kubica is doing another FP1 this weekend, so does that mean we will be getting some of the anticipated upgrades to fix this car? Or was it one of the pre planned sessions?

Last I read, the new parts will be much closer to the summer break.

Ok, so to answer part of my own question as everyone seems far more interested in bitching about drivers... again.

AMuS reports (translated):

Williams
A new underbody is part 1 of a series of modifications designed to get the Williams FW41 up and running. "Until the summer break, the package is complete," promises chief technical officer Paddy Lowe. For the Red Bull Ring Sergey Sirotkin does not expect any miracles. "Williams was not good on this track a year ago. And we had problems at the last race in Paul Ricard. We have another difficult weekend ahead of us. But I have high hopes for the modifications coming to the car in the next few weeks. "Sirotkin has to vacate his cockpit for Robert Kubica in the first practice session on Friday.

So if I'm reading this correctly, they have the parts built, but we will only test the floor this race weekend?

[marmer]

Williams have given themselves a problem with having two pay drivers and making a slow car.

In previous years pay drivers either knew the car was awful and where just looking to start in F1 or where paired with real talent. Example would be stroll had Massa in first year.

While your the pay driver you can't complain and mope about if your car is slow if your being beaten by your team mate. Well you can but no one cares (will Stevens)

As soon as you have two pay drivers in a team the size of Williams that should expect to be in the points more often than not. The drivers have a right to call the team out as they are giving them all the £ to have a race seat that should be decent.
They are customers and want to get what they pay for.

[Big Tea]

Williams have given themselves a problem with having two pay drivers and making a slow car.

In previous years pay drivers either knew the car was awful and where just looking to start in F1 or where paired with real talent. Example would be stroll had Massa in first year.

While your the pay driver you can't complain and mope about if your car is slow if your being beaten by your team mate. Well you can but no one cares (will Stevens)

As soon as you have two pay drivers in a team the size of Williams that should expect to be in the points more often than not. The drivers have a right to call the team out as they are giving them all the £ to have a race seat that should be decent.
They are customers and want to get what they pay for.

I have absolutely NOTHING to back it up, but can not help feeling the Stroll influence goes far deeper than a driver.
Someone is making decisions that are not working or not making decisions maybe.

We can all see that the car is even worse than it should be. If they have money, and it is not being spent on drivers where is it going, it is not showing up in development.

They bring in a respected head and nothing changes. Sounds like - meet the new boss, same as the old boss.