Expectations and reality for Williams in 2008

[WhiteBlue]

Sam Michaels at the launch of the FW30:

The FW30 should represent a good step forward when all of the many small areas of attention and improvement are brought together in the overall package.

Williams finished fourth in the constructors' championship with 30 points.

Niko Rosberg at the Chinese GP 2008:

It's very dispiriting to be starting the race in 15th place like last weekend in Japan. I gave everything in the sessions and extracted the maximum out of the car, but it just didn't come together today.


Kazuki Nakajima qualifying in 17th place:

I knew it would be quite difficult today in qualifying from my experience during P3 this morning. There were some points on the track where I really needed to improve, but I didn't manage to make any headway during qualifying.


1. Ferrari 142
2. McLaren 135
3. BMW Sauber 128
4. Renault 66
5. Toyota 50
6. Scuderia Toro Rosso 34
7. Red Bull 29
8. Williams 26


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It looks like everybody made progress except for Williams. They are on the same level as last year but the competiotion ran away.

[vyselegend]

As we already discussed several times, there is obviously a flaw in FW30's design that prevented it to work properly whenever aerodynanic eficiency has been the key factor (which means pretty much everywhere aside from the few street circuits like Monaco, Singapore etc).

Your own suggestion (from another thread) about the original front wing design being flawed by the wheel's aero turbulences under steering conditions is sounding credible to me. Then it is obvious Williams is not the team which has the resources to follow the car maker's rate of development, let appart making some ground because of such time costing mistake. So IMO the FW30's ambitions reached the "game over" status as soon as Malaysia (first "real" F1 track with fast corners), when the trouble appeared.

Still, if you hide this aerodynamic flaw, like in Australia, Monaco and such layouts, it becomes obvious the FW30 is along the best suspentions/power train/transmition package, as it handles remarkably through the tight streets.

Another thing that has to be noted while looking at raw rankings is that the team failed to capitalise on some of the few occasions they had to shine. Melbourne and Singapore were successes (at least for Nico), but the Monaco crash prevented Rosberg from scoring 5 points (yet Kazuki scored two), Canada was a missed opportunity, and Valancia pace was good, but unfortunately it did coincide with STR's emergence in the top ten.

All in all I believe the car is much better than what the score suggest, but Williams still struggles to stay in the development fight for a whole season, obviously because of restricted budget, but also probably because of some mistakes (I think the kind of mistakes which come with taking risks to try and catch those who are above, while if they'd went the conservative way their progress would have been hid by other's similar progress). In the end when you look at Honda, who lost ground also following some design mistake resulting from (unreasonable?) risks, and still struggles since then, Williams shouldn't blush. That's fierce competition.

And like Honda they must have turned their focus on 2009 for a long time already, again taking some risks, by betting on the flywheel system. If they succeed you'll call them genius, and if they fail you'll rant about bad management...

[ESPImperium]

Personally i think this car is a development from the FW29 and FW28, whith were good cars, the FW29 in particular, but i think the car had the same design concept as the RB4/STR3, R28, F2008, MP4/23, F1.08 and the VJM-01, they used last years car and tarted it up, tryed a new few things on it, some worked and some didnt. In the case of the FW30, most of the didnt.

However, i feel that Williams will have something up their sleeves for 2009 as they, i feel, moved to the 09 car earlier than most, but not as early as Honda, who moved as early as Malasia/Bahrain i think, as their car just bombed for the second year running.

Toyota have been the only tram, apart from Honda this year that launched a brand new car, but their car was good out of the tin, and developed well and made ground on the Red Bulls early on, but got caught by the Renaults and are getting STRs towards the end of this season.

[axle]

Oh look ANOTHER thread by WhiteBlue about Williams and their failings this year.

Yawn, move on, get a life.

FWIW, the fact Williams are very good at mechanical grip could be key next year.

[WhiteBlue]

so are you betting that Williams will be back to top 3 teams next year?

[Spencifer_Murphy]

Its not really a suprise that the car is underperforming. Yes statistics may show that the Williams has made a step back but thats ignoring a key factor.

Do you REALLY believe that Williams are focusing much of their attention to the car this year? Come on, be serious. The FW30 was indeed a major step forward at the beginning of this year, since then Renault & Toyota have developed their car beyond that of Williams and have as such leapfrogged them in the standings.

Lest we forget Renault & Toyota (especially Toyota) are manufactuer teams and - although Renault's budget is relativly small - I'd hazard a guess that they can afford to deveote more resourses to this years car than Williams can at this moment in time.

I say that becuase next year's cars obviously require HUGE input by the designers and Williams cannot afford to loose out next season, this season was never going to be all that important. If they devoted everything to the short-term goal of finishing 4th or 3rd this year they almost certainly fall back down in 2009 and therefore take a major step back ni their mid-to-long term goals (getting back to winning ways I imagine)

The fact that this years car is no longer being developed and their resultant lack of pace is nothing short of inevitable.