[ 2020 ] Williams F1 Team - Mercedes

[bigpat]

Unfortunately the car still looks like a bit of a blunt instrument compared to the competition.
The fact that the team says it is staying with last years concept, and evolving, though logical, I personally see as a sign of lack of funding. Not surprised if the tub is the same as last years.

I can't see them moving a long way forward, but if they can at least qualify a race with other teams in terms of pace, that will be a good, realistic goal. Unless you have the resources of McLaren, the culture shift in people and design takes 12-18 months to bear fruit. I see them switching attention to 2021 before June....

[Zynerji]

Why this team isnt buying listed parts from Mercedes is beyond me.

At Williams, you can literally quantify the monetary cost of Pride as well as the stunning effect that it has on championship position.

[Mr Brooksy]

I think Andy Greens explanation on the W10, woops I mean the new racing point actually is totally relevant to the Williams philosophy.

He said something along the lines of, they had a fundamental design issue that they haven't been able to address since buying the Merc gearbox. He then talked about the rake difference between the Merc and their old cars (low vs higher), which is why they decided this year to copy everything as the gearbox dictates the design parameters of rake and effects the Aero philosophy.

I may be misunderstanding that interview, but it seems the rake defined by the design of the Merc gearbox and design philosophy they were trying to follow didn't work, no matter what they tried.

My guess is that Williams know this and choose to do their own box so they can follow their own philosophy. Which, lets face it has been screwed up terribly in 18-19. Throw in the mess with their correlation issues... Disaster!

We won't know if they can really get back to the sharp end until next year or 22 at the earliest as they are so far behind the 8 ball since the last few years mess.

Anyway that's just my take on the situation.

Hopefully they'll go carbon in 21 to match their new design philosophy. But cost will be the telltale factor I'm guessing.

[humble sabot]

Really? It always seemed like two. huh

[izzy]

Why this team isnt buying listed parts from Mercedes is beyond me.

At Williams, you can literally quantify the monetary cost of Pride as well as the stunning effect that it has on championship position.

Claire said yesterday that it's actually cheaper to make their own gearbox than buy one as they're mega expensive. Also the redundancy payments would be massive.

They need the redistribution, that's coming next year finally

[Zynerji]

Why this team isnt buying listed parts from Mercedes is beyond me.

At Williams, you can literally quantify the monetary cost of Pride as well as the stunning effect that it has on championship position.

Claire said yesterday that it's actually cheaper to make their own gearbox than buy one as they're mega expensive. Also the redundancy payments would be massive.

They need the redistribution, that's coming next year finally

More money chasing bad management and lack of vision is not a magic spell that grants success.

Old thinking in the new age is what has Williams chasing glory and never finding it.


And if the Mercedes kit is so expensive, I'd be inquiring into what a switch to Honda/RBR would cost. Maybe both race seats for RedBull juniors, but would move them up the grid while they rebuild.

[izzy]

More money chasing bad management and lack of vision is not a magic spell that grants success.

Old thinking in the new age is what has Williams chasing glory and never finding it.


And if the Mercedes kit is so expensive, I'd be inquiring into what a switch to Honda/RBR would cost. Maybe both race seats for RedBull juniors, but would move them up the grid while they rebuild.

they don't want to be a B team, that is the whole point. Lawrence and McLaren have gone for Mercedes i don't suppose there's anything wrong with how they price their gearboxes compared to Honda

obviously things have gone wrong for Williams, for a long time, and yes their culture has been out of date, but Claire can be learning can't she. She was so positive and encouraging in the Sky booth i think she has been. And she wants the team to stay a proper garagiste team i think that's great, so much more fannable than a B/slave team

They should get a lot more prize money now, and we can see how much difference funding can make from McLaren and Racing Point, so let's see

[Zynerji]

More money chasing bad management and lack of vision is not a magic spell that grants success.

Old thinking in the new age is what has Williams chasing glory and never finding it.


And if the Mercedes kit is so expensive, I'd be inquiring into what a switch to Honda/RBR would cost. Maybe both race seats for RedBull juniors, but would move them up the grid while they rebuild.

they don't want to be a B team, that is the whole point. Lawrence and McLaren have gone for Mercedes i don't suppose there's anything wrong with how they price their gearboxes compared to Honda

obviously things have gone wrong for Williams, for a long time, and yes their culture has been out of date, but Claire can be learning can't she. She was so positive and encouraging in the Sky booth i think she has been. And she wants the team to stay a proper garagiste team i think that's great, so much more fannable than a B/slave team

They should get a lot more prize money now, and we can see how much difference funding can make from McLaren and Racing Point, so let's see

Better to be B team than a laughing stock.

And Claire (fine lady, btw) has had 8 years... Anyone with a different last name would have been fired long ago.

And more money doesn't equal success, just ask Toyota. It takes leadership earning the trust and respect from its team members, people development, work atmosphere, positive encouragement, and a servant leader mentally.

Employees always over deliver in those situations.

If hired today, I could do it in 2 years. Ive done it successfully for the last 16 years in many other types of businesses, and I can tell you from experience, that no matter the industry, leadership is what leads to excellence, not budgets.

[Webber2011]

More money chasing bad management and lack of vision is not a magic spell that grants success.

Old thinking in the new age is what has Williams chasing glory and never finding it.


And if the Mercedes kit is so expensive, I'd be inquiring into what a switch to Honda/RBR would cost. Maybe both race seats for RedBull juniors, but would move them up the grid while they rebuild.

they don't want to be a B team, that is the whole point. Lawrence and McLaren have gone for Mercedes i don't suppose there's anything wrong with how they price their gearboxes compared to Honda

obviously things have gone wrong for Williams, for a long time, and yes their culture has been out of date, but Claire can be learning can't she. She was so positive and encouraging in the Sky booth i think she has been. And she wants the team to stay a proper garagiste team i think that's great, so much more fannable than a B/slave team

They should get a lot more prize money now, and we can see how much difference funding can make from McLaren and Racing Point, so let's see

Better to be B team than a laughing stock.

And Claire (fine lady, btw) has had 8 years... Anyone with a different last name would have been fired long ago.

And more money doesn't equal success, just ask Toyota. It takes leadership earning the trust and respect from its team members, people development, work atmosphere, positive encouragement, and a servant leader mentally.

Employees always over deliver in those situations.

If hired today, I could do it in 2 years. Ive done it successfully for the last 16 years in many other types of businesses, and I can tell you from experience, that no matter the industry, leadership is what leads to excellence, not budgets.

I don't doubt you are very good at what you do, but just to clarify, what exactly do you think you could do for Williams in 2 years ?

Are you meaning a restructure of the work force and leadership ?

[izzy]

Better to be B team than a laughing stock.

And Claire (fine lady, btw) has had 8 years... Anyone with a different last name would have been fired long ago.

And more money doesn't equal success, just ask Toyota. It takes leadership earning the trust and respect from its team members, people development, work atmosphere, positive encouragement, and a servant leader mentally.

Employees always over deliver in those situations.

If hired today, I could do it in 2 years. Ive done it successfully for the last 16 years in many other types of businesses, and I can tell you from experience, that no matter the industry, leadership is what leads to excellence, not budgets.

So in 2017 were you posting "no no don't appoint Paddy he'll be a disaster"?

[netoperek]

More money chasing bad management and lack of vision is not a magic spell that grants success.

Old thinking in the new age is what has Williams chasing glory and never finding it.


And if the Mercedes kit is so expensive, I'd be inquiring into what a switch to Honda/RBR would cost. Maybe both race seats for RedBull juniors, but would move them up the grid while they rebuild.

they don't want to be a B team, that is the whole point. Lawrence and McLaren have gone for Mercedes i don't suppose there's anything wrong with how they price their gearboxes compared to Honda

obviously things have gone wrong for Williams, for a long time, and yes their culture has been out of date, but Claire can be learning can't she. She was so positive and encouraging in the Sky booth i think she has been. And she wants the team to stay a proper garagiste team i think that's great, so much more fannable than a B/slave team

They should get a lot more prize money now, and we can see how much difference funding can make from McLaren and Racing Point, so let's see

Better to be B team than a laughing stock.

And Claire (fine lady, btw) has had 8 years... Anyone with a different last name would have been fired long ago.

And more money doesn't equal success, just ask Toyota. It takes leadership earning the trust and respect from its team members, people development, work atmosphere, positive encouragement, and a servant leader mentally.

Employees always over deliver in those situations.

If hired today, I could do it in 2 years. Ive done it successfully for the last 16 years in many other types of businesses, and I can tell you from experience, that no matter the industry, leadership is what leads to excellence, not budgets.

Coaching BS. If You don't have enough resources (and it doesn't refer only to money), regardless of how good You're at managing them, You still will be short on resources. I don't say Claire is a good manager, actually personally I don't like her actions, but I don't have enough data to say she hasn't maximised her options.
You also have to be really full of Yourself to claim You'd fix that in two years, not even knowing the true situation and limitations. I ran businesses only for a decade, so I'm not as experienced as You. I ran my career through a longer path, trying to gain as much practical experience as I can, taking on as many different tasks in as many different industries and as difficult I could handle before I started doing businesses not 100% in my control. I also used that time and opportunity to observe different management models implemented in companies that used my services. Only then I started building my managerial experience on my own businessess. I've been through managing with sufficient resources, streched resources and outright without any meaningful resources. My conclusions are that there's no simple formula for optimal management. There are many variables that have to be considered, human resources - their quantity, quality and characteristics, being the most important one, that dictate what will be a successful model and those can be extremally varied. I've seen companies in same sector, with similar size and staff size, having nearly identical methods used and one was successful while other struggled. Go figure.

Back to the topic. I think they want to stick to their own manufacture in as wide a spectrum as they possibly can due to several reasons.
One might be to not lose valuable staff. If You remove whole department it's not that easy to reactivate it once You've bounced off the bottom. Even if You don't reduce Your staff in the process, there might be a set of valuable assets that would simply lose interest if You take fun part of the job (engineers do that). Those might be the people that indirectly make other departments work as well or It may also be connected with Williams Advanced Engineering. Then the terms of the deal on the table might not be good enough to be considered. There might also be some long term obligations they need to meet. Then there is good old sentiment. If it's not based on sentiment, this might as well be the best decision they can make at the moment.

[Zynerji]

they don't want to be a B team, that is the whole point. Lawrence and McLaren have gone for Mercedes i don't suppose there's anything wrong with how they price their gearboxes compared to Honda

obviously things have gone wrong for Williams, for a long time, and yes their culture has been out of date, but Claire can be learning can't she. She was so positive and encouraging in the Sky booth i think she has been. And she wants the team to stay a proper garagiste team i think that's great, so much more fannable than a B/slave team

They should get a lot more prize money now, and we can see how much difference funding can make from McLaren and Racing Point, so let's see

Better to be B team than a laughing stock.

And Claire (fine lady, btw) has had 8 years... Anyone with a different last name would have been fired long ago.

And more money doesn't equal success, just ask Toyota. It takes leadership earning the trust and respect from its team members, people development, work atmosphere, positive encouragement, and a servant leader mentally.

Employees always over deliver in those situations.

If hired today, I could do it in 2 years. Ive done it successfully for the last 16 years in many other types of businesses, and I can tell you from experience, that no matter the industry, leadership is what leads to excellence, not budgets.

I don't doubt you are very good at what you do, but just to clarify, what exactly do you think you could do for Williams in 2 years ?

Are you meaning a restructure of the work force and leadership ?

Just restructuring to self balancing systems that require zero management to overproduce.

Synergy. That's why my online name is a play on the word.

[Zynerji]

Better to be B team than a laughing stock.

And Claire (fine lady, btw) has had 8 years... Anyone with a different last name would have been fired long ago.

And more money doesn't equal success, just ask Toyota. It takes leadership earning the trust and respect from its team members, people development, work atmosphere, positive encouragement, and a servant leader mentally.

Employees always over deliver in those situations.

If hired today, I could do it in 2 years. Ive done it successfully for the last 16 years in many other types of businesses, and I can tell you from experience, that no matter the industry, leadership is what leads to excellence, not budgets.

So in 2017 were you posting "no no don't appoint Paddy he'll be a disaster"?

Im sure Paddy failed because he wasn't allowed to change the culture. Ive ran into that before, and was actually re-contracted to come back to a company that I left and do it again after they went right back to their old methods.

[Zynerji]

they don't want to be a B team, that is the whole point. Lawrence and McLaren have gone for Mercedes i don't suppose there's anything wrong with how they price their gearboxes compared to Honda

obviously things have gone wrong for Williams, for a long time, and yes their culture has been out of date, but Claire can be learning can't she. She was so positive and encouraging in the Sky booth i think she has been. And she wants the team to stay a proper garagiste team i think that's great, so much more fannable than a B/slave team

They should get a lot more prize money now, and we can see how much difference funding can make from McLaren and Racing Point, so let's see

Better to be B team than a laughing stock.

And Claire (fine lady, btw) has had 8 years... Anyone with a different last name would have been fired long ago.

And more money doesn't equal success, just ask Toyota. It takes leadership earning the trust and respect from its team members, people development, work atmosphere, positive encouragement, and a servant leader mentally.

Employees always over deliver in those situations.

If hired today, I could do it in 2 years. Ive done it successfully for the last 16 years in many other types of businesses, and I can tell you from experience, that no matter the industry, leadership is what leads to excellence, not budgets.

Coaching BS. If You don't have enough resources (and it doesn't refer only to money), regardless of how good You're at managing them, You still will be short on resources. I don't say Claire is a good manager, actually personally I don't like her actions, but I don't have enough data to say she hasn't maximised her options.
You also have to be really full of Yourself to claim You'd fix that in two years, not even knowing the true situation and limitations. I ran businesses only for a decade, so I'm not as experienced as You. I ran my career through a longer path, trying to gain as much practical experience as I can, taking on as many different tasks in as many different industries and as difficult I could handle before I started doing businesses not 100% in my control. I also used that time and opportunity to observe different management models implemented in companies that used my services. Only then I started building my managerial experience on my own businessess. I've been through managing with sufficient resources, streched resources and outright without any meaningful resources. My conclusions are that there's no simple formula for optimal management. There are many variables that have to be considered, human resources - their quantity, quality and characteristics, being the most important one, that dictate what will be a successful model and those can be extremally varied. I've seen companies in same sector, with similar size and staff size, having nearly identical methods used and one was successful while other struggled. Go figure.

Back to the topic. I think they want to stick to their own manufacture in as wide a spectrum as they possibly can due to several reasons.
One might be to not lose valuable staff. If You remove whole department it's not that easy to reactivate it once You've bounced off the bottom. Even if You don't reduce Your staff in the process, there might be a set of valuable assets that would simply lose interest if You take fun part of the job (engineers do that). Those might be the people that indirectly make other departments work as well or It may also be connected with Williams Advanced Engineering. Then the terms of the deal on the table might not be good enough to be considered. There might also be some long term obligations they need to meet. Then there is good old sentiment. If it's not based on sentiment, this might as well be the best decision they can make at the moment.

I've done it with minimum wage workforces, performance paid workforces, and silver-spoon generational takeovers.

It simply doesnt matter about budget. It's about self-balancing, empowering systems and re-alignment of payplans/methods to reduce the gap between 'what's best for the company' and 'what's best for the employees'. You really only have to manage the space between the those two in any business that hire humans.

[izzy]

Im sure Paddy failed because he wasn't allowed to change the culture. Ive ran into that before, and was actually re-contracted to come back to a company that I left and do it again after they went right back to their old methods.

but things got worse under Paddy. Cars weren't even ready, parts weren't made or ordered. And why are you excusing him when it's obviously Frank's culture? Claire is still only deputy TP, there is Frank still TP and probably overseeing the Technical Department, i read he was getting involved in last year's car, appointing Mike Coughlan who was the same but worse apparently with the old fashioned autocratic style, and bringing back Patrick Head who was exactly the same