2018 Williams F1 Racing - Mercedes

[kptaylor]

So news in the Silly Season thread says KUB has helped secure a Polish sponsorship to offset some of the lost money to Williams and may partner with Russell!

[bill shoe]

I hope they keep Sirotkin to partner Russell, because Sirotkin is at least a decent qualifier (usually outqualifies Stroll despite Stroll having an extra season in F1 plus massive private testing under his belt) and is a known quantity.

Russell could prove his F1 credentials by outqualifying Sirotkin in all but a couple races, with an average advantage of maybe 3 to 5 tenths.

But what does Russell need to do against Kubica? Who knows how fast Kubica is over a season of qualifying, so who knows what Russell needs to do?

[marmer]

I hope they keep Sirotkin to partner Russell, because Sirotkin is at least a decent qualifier (usually outqualifies Stroll despite Stroll having an extra season in F1 plus massive private testing under his belt) and is a known quantity.

Russell could prove his F1 credentials by outqualifying Sirotkin in all but a couple races, with an average advantage of maybe 3 to 5 tenths.

But what does Russell need to do against Kubica? Who knows how fast Kubica is over a season of qualifying, so who knows what Russell needs to do?

Kubica is probably not far off his old level which most felt was very high

So if Russell was to beat him constantly and the issue for kubica being slower is nothing to do with his arm then he would look far better than just beating sergi or lance

[bill shoe]

So Force India has confirmed Perez for next season, but not Stroll. This implies the Stroll exit negotiations may not have been completed at Williams. This implication may be wrong, but if it's accurate...

I think Williams would holds all the cards, every last one. They can genuinely accept having Lance pay his way for another year. No problem really, they've hosted him for two seasons already. But Mr. Stroll (Lance's father) can't accept another season of Lance at Williams because it would probably be a year-long exercise in getting his butt kicked by an up and coming Russell.

But I figure if Mr. Stroll is good with that then so am I. We'll wait and see.

[kptaylor]

So an Ocon/Stroll swap includes not just Merc but Stroll Sr as well? A good chance Williams will see a Merc deal and/or a Stroll/RPFI buyout then. Interesting...

[Big Tea]

According to Mark Hughes, a change of the wind tunnel belt texture caused their correlation issues.

Wind tunnel correlation to the reality of track was particularly poor – and this was puzzling because simulation had previously been a Williams strength even when there were other limitations...Had anything significant been changed? Only the wind tunnel belt. Therein lay a story. It was of a new specification, supposedly more advanced in that it simulated the texture of the track surface. It seems to have been here that a major part of the problem arose.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/opin ... e-williams

In the "Evolution of Aerodynamic Testing in F1" thread, jjn9128 explains how wind tunnels can go wrong and how it may have gone wrong for Williams-

At 60m/s in the wind tunnel that air is travelling at 120-150m/s or Mach 0.35-0.43 so the air is going to be compressible. But at the dynamically similar speed (36m/s) on the track the air under the car is only at Mach 0.2-0.26... so the air in the tunnel is compressible but with dynamic similarity on track (at the same Reynolds number) it isn't.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=27353&start=30#p774604

So correlating data between an FIA-compliant wind tunnel (60% scale at 60 m/s) and real on-track behavior involves tricky issues with compressible flow under the car. Is it possible that these tricky issues mean you actually want a smooth belt rather than a "more advanced" rougher belt that simulates the track surface?

I know it is far from straightforward, but I can not understand how a calibration run would not have been done using a model of known performance. Last years car.

Had they run last years car (model) would it not have had discrepancies with the the already known data? and would this not have been questioned and tackled before starting construction of 'this years car'?.

It seems very strange that they seemed not to know where the problem lay, which suggests they did not calibrate against a known model. As mentioned in the article, this indicates a lack of... something... in the technical department.

Do they not also do tests for external customers? This will not look good

[Morteza]

[Manoah2u]

`they see me rollin', they hatin'

[bill shoe]

Oh please oh please oh please

The 2018 Williams chassis clearly has problems but if Williams had, say, drivers at the 2018 Force India level then they would not be back of the pack. Paddy Lowe is working on the car side, and Claire is working on the drivers. From Joe Saward's blog-

There was a note saying that Claire Williams is still looking for money to try to get Esteban Ocon to drive the second Williams in 2019.

https://www.motorsportweek.com/joesaward/id/00328

Russell and Ocon would be an awesome pair! And really Russell needs a proven quality driver to compare himself to. Sirotkin, although doing well against Stroll, isn't going to provide Russell any useful benchmark. Ocon is quick, solid, respected. He's a walking benchmark, and he's about two weeks away from collecting unemployment.

[kptaylor]

Toto needs to stop trying to play games. It's the obvious best/only seat for Ocon but Claire also knows this and wants a deal Toto is refusing to make.

[netoperek]

Even with my possible pro-Kubica bias put aside, I think Russel-Ocon would not be a good pairing, simply because they're both very young and haven't experienced many different bleeding edge cars before. I find them both very talented, but it's hard to tell how well and fast will they adapt to changes and be able to pinpoint weaknesses of a car. I have a feeling that next year's Williams will have quite a few of them. I imagine it is easier to adapt with a vastly experienced driver alongside You, explaining the basis of some odd car reactions. I'd like to see Ocon in F1 as much as everyone else. I'd be happy if he took Russels place to be honest. I just think that they could really do with someone like Alonso, Hulk, Kimi (or Kubica) to partner him and balance youth with some routine.

[marmer]

Even with my possible pro-Kubica bias put aside, I think Russel-Ocon would not be a good pairing, simply because they're both very young and haven't experienced many different bleeding edge cars before. I find them both very talented, but it's hard to tell how well and fast will they adapt to changes and be able to pinpoint weaknesses of a car. I have a feeling that next year's Williams will have quite a few of them. I imagine it is easier to adapt with a vastly experienced driver alongside You, explaining the basis of some odd car reactions. I'd like to see Ocon in F1 as much as everyone else. I'd be happy if he took Russels place to be honest. I just think that they could really do with someone like Alonso, Hulk, Kimi (or Kubica) to partner him and balance youth with some routine.

haven't they both tested the Mercedes ...

[netoperek]

...

haven't they both tested the Mercedes ...

And how would that fact help them manage and develop a designed from scratch 2019 spec Williams, in a meaningful way? With reg changes for 2019, this will probably be a noticeably different experience.

[marmer]

...

haven't they both tested the Mercedes ...

And how would that fact help them manage and develop a designed from scratch 2019 spec Williams, in a meaningful way? With reg changes for 2019, this will probably be a noticeably different experience.

They know what quick car feels like more so than stroll or sirgi do at the moment

[Big Tea]

Ocon is not that inexperienced now. We still think of him as the 'new boy' but he has been driving F1 since 2016, would probably have learned much at Manor, as they were starting at the bottom, FI for 2 years, and I think he previously tested for Lotus (??? his wiki says a practice session)

Add to this his Mercedes contacts and he has had more experience than many.