[ 2020 ] Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

[bigblue]

My guess is that 'head of design' is a managerial role, meaning day to day management of the design office, while the chief designer manages the actual design process without having to worry about person management - but that's not based on anything concrete, other than that I can't see any other way it makes sense that the deputy chief designer is head of design rather than the chief.

Yes, I kind of guessed at this too, but am none too sure. Someone ask Claire ...

[JordanMugen]

My guess is that 'head of design' is a managerial role, meaning day to day management of the design office, while the chief designer manages the actual design process without having to worry about person management - but that's not based on anything concrete, other than that I can't see any other way it makes sense that the deputy chief designer is head of design rather than the chief.

Yes, I kind of guessed at this too, but am none too sure. Someone ask Claire ...

Isn't the former position normally called "Engineering Director" or "Head of Engineering", while the "Chief Designer" would (logically) be involved in design and conceptual decisions?

It's no big deal for Williams to use different names, of course.

For comparison's sake, Red Bull uses the positions "Chief Technical Officer" (Newey) -- a chief designer type position, "Chief Engineering Officer" (Marshall) -- a chief mechanical engineer type position responsible for the mechanical design of the car, "Head of Aerodynamics" (Fallows) -- self-explantory, "Chief Engineer, Car Engineering" (Monaghan) -- a chief race engineer type position, "Technical Director" (Wache) - a technical manager and suspension/tyre engineer position, and "Head of Performance Engineering" (Waterhouse) -- unclear but has a vehicle dynamics background. https://redbullracing.redbull.com/team#

Presumably the Chief Engineering Director and Technical Director roles are most similar to William's Head of Design.

[Lotus102]

My guess is that 'head of design' is a managerial role, meaning day to day management of the design office, while the chief designer manages the actual design process without having to worry about person management - but that's not based on anything concrete, other than that I can't see any other way it makes sense that the deputy chief designer is head of design rather than the chief.

Yes, I kind of guessed at this too, but am none too sure. Someone ask Claire ...

Isn't the former position normally called "Engineering Director" or "Head of Engineering", while the "Chief Designer" would (logically) be involved in design and conceptual decisions?

It's no big deal for Williams to use different names, of course.

Some of these titles seem to be more about seniority than the detail of the job. Williams also has a Chief Engineer - Adam Carter - who had taken the ‘head of design’ role since the reshuffle following Paddy Lowe’s departure, I presume temporarily until someone could be recruited to the role. Doug McKiernan had held the Chief Engineer role since Feb 2018, but he stepped up to ‘design director’ (I think another temporary appointment) when Ed Wood and Dirk de Beer left. Since then, McKiernan has been described by Claire as ‘Chief Aerodynamicist’ a couple of times - I don’t know if that’s his formal title.

So they seem to have:

Chief designer - David Worner
Chief Engineer - Adam Carter
Deputy Chief Designer/Head of Design - Jonathan Carter
‘Chief Aerodynamicist’ - Doug McKiernan
Head of Trackside Engineering - Dave Robson

Robson and Adam Carter seemed to be holding a sort of de facto technical director position for much of last year. Right now they seem to have a fairly flat structure with no absolute head honcho on the technical side. They seem to have been fairly relaxed about that, with no real effort that I can see to appoint someone to that role

[Lotus102]

Hint at the colour scheme of the FW43 here

https://twitter.com/cepparacing/status/ ... 65409?s=21

[Lotus102]

Decent long read about Williams on the F1 site

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... ADQ1S.html

Notable bits for me are around outsourcing:

“We have gone through that process and we will be outsourcing a handful, a small proportion of parts, but keep the bulk within the manufacturing team we have in house. One thing we don’t want to do is lose the capability, particularly around certain parts like gearboxes. That needs to remain in house. We won’t be suddenly switching to a Haas model, but there are certain things that it makes sense financially and from a time efficiency perspective to outsource.”

...the appointment of a CTO

“I do think the CTO role probably needs to be filled at some point, but it has to be the right person. We’re not going to rush into it. We have some clear criteria for that person. They have got to add a huge amount over and above the senior technical management team. We haven’t found them yet.”

[Morteza]

https://twitter.com/Motorsport/status/1 ... 43360?s=19

[Manoah2u]

i dunno if i've missend anything, but has Latifi released his racing number?

[tomazy]

Yes he did, he will be racing with number 6

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... WWAJl.html

[proteus]

https://i.redd.it/snyywl4j95g41.jpg

I believe this red belongs to Rokit as part of their drinks programme.

[Jip]

[Lotus102]

Interesting. Blue with red trim, then?

[DAMNINice]

Does anyone know why they do not have any Mercedes reference?
Normally the costumer teams had a “powered by Mercedes” sticker or a three pointed star somewhere.

[PowerandtheGlory]

Does anyone know why they do not have any Mercedes reference?
Normally the costumer teams had a “powered by Mercedes” sticker or a three pointed star somewhere.

Good point...

[JordanMugen]

Does anyone know why they do not have any Mercedes reference?
Normally the costumer teams had a “powered by Mercedes” sticker or a three pointed star somewhere.

Mercedes customers never had that. There is a Mercedes emblem on driver uniforms and team uniforms.

[Jip]

Livery looks good. They are already on track today. Good signs compared to last year!