2023 Williams Racing F1 Team

[trinidefender]

In other news, I guess we are still waiting for a TD? Not that they definitively need one, but somebody’s got to be responsible for developing this car and the FW46.

I think Williams absolutely needs a technical director as quickly as possible. I would even say that they need to get a consultant to atleast oversee the work that's being carried out till the new technical director joins the team.

McLaren did something similar by getting Pat Fry in a consultancy role till James Key joined the team. That was a very good move by McLaren as it allowed them to start the 2019 season in a good shape.

George Russell already talked about how everyone at Williams were working all over the place when there was no technical director so it's extremely important for Williams to not end up into that situation again.

The question is who? Depending on who you believe, Demaison did not set the world alight when it comes to rallying the technical department to pull in a certain direction. Before him, the last TD/CTO was Paddy Lowe, who left the place in a worse state than he arrived, whether it was his fault or not. They need someone with an open mind who is going to be able to navigate the inertia of a directionless workforce. Maybe someone like Marcin Budkowski (who was head of aero at McLaren once upon a time) or Nick Chester?

I doubt Dorilton are going to whip out the checkbook to steal a Dan Fallows or James Allison-type, or even a James Key, so I'm trying to think of people that are not currently CTO/TD. I mean, say what you want about Binotto (gardening leave I know) but he at least got that team to produce a fast car, something Williams hasn't done in a decade and hasn't done consistently for nearly two.

If Ferrari removed Binotto instead of him leaving on his own accord then I believe, unless the contract is structured in a very weird way, that gardening leave cannot apply. If a company fires you then they can't stop you going to a competitor.

[continuum16]

I think Williams absolutely needs a technical director as quickly as possible. I would even say that they need to get a consultant to atleast oversee the work that's being carried out till the new technical director joins the team.

McLaren did something similar by getting Pat Fry in a consultancy role till James Key joined the team. That was a very good move by McLaren as it allowed them to start the 2019 season in a good shape.

George Russell already talked about how everyone at Williams were working all over the place when there was no technical director so it's extremely important for Williams to not end up into that situation again.

The question is who? Depending on who you believe, Demaison did not set the world alight when it comes to rallying the technical department to pull in a certain direction. Before him, the last TD/CTO was Paddy Lowe, who left the place in a worse state than he arrived, whether it was his fault or not. They need someone with an open mind who is going to be able to navigate the inertia of a directionless workforce. Maybe someone like Marcin Budkowski (who was head of aero at McLaren once upon a time) or Nick Chester?

I doubt Dorilton are going to whip out the checkbook to steal a Dan Fallows or James Allison-type, or even a James Key, so I'm trying to think of people that are not currently CTO/TD. I mean, say what you want about Binotto (gardening leave I know) but he at least got that team to produce a fast car, something Williams hasn't done in a decade and hasn't done consistently for nearly two.

If Ferrari removed Binotto instead of him leaving on his own accord then I believe, unless the contract is structured in a very weird way, that gardening leave cannot apply. If a company fires you then they can't stop you going to a competitor.

Yes but I think he jumped right before he was about to get pushed. I mean from his perspective getting fired and no gardening leave vs resigning and getting paid a fair chunk to basically do whatever you want makes it a pretty easy decision, especially when you consider the fact he was probably burnt out and not desperate for another job. Either way though, I doubt he’d go to Williams because he has been a Ferrari man for decades; the only place I could see for him is Sauber/Audi but even that’s a stretch.

[organic]

The car has an exceptionally loose rear end. It wants to always step out, especially on traction Albon will like this - he likes oversteer generally speaking

The problem is the low-speed understeer even on low fuel is still there despite the new tyres

[Moctecus]

James Vowles on his first impression of Williams's competitiveness (via AMuS):

New Williams team boss James Vowles sees signs of improvement: "We are up there with the field. If everything goes well, we can fight with Alpha Tauri and Haas for eighth place." Albon's sixth fastest time on the first day of testing was achieved on C4 tyres, but the car was not in the qualifying trim.

[organic]

James Vowles on his first impression of Williams's competitiveness (via AMuS):

New Williams team boss James Vowles sees signs of improvement: "We are up there with the field. If everything goes well, we can fight with Alpha Tauri and Haas for eighth place." Albon's sixth fastest time on the first day of testing was achieved on C4 tyres, but the car was not in the qualifying trim.

That is impressive to be honest. They were miles behind Haas last season for the most part

[ME4ME]

Albon has said over the winter that they had one main weakness that the team needed to work on and that was wheel locking under braking and/or breaking while turning. He said they will know at the first test in Bahrain drving through turn 10 if they've solved the problem or not.

I've seen Williams locking the inside front wheel there all morning. Obviously they haven't solved the problem.
Bad sign.

[organic]

Albon has said over the winter that they had one main weakness that the team needed to work on and that was wheel locking under braking and/or breaking while turning. He said they will know at the first test in Bahrain drving through turn 10 if they've solved the problem or not.

I've seen Williams locking the inside front wheel there all morning. Obviously they haven't solved the problem.
Bad sign.

Apparently the noises from the Williams garage are very positive despite this..

Albon is saying on the live feed:

"We're not in a bad place", "I do still feel like cars carry a DNA... It's hard to get rid of certain issues over a year - it takes more work into it. It feels like our extremes are less this year; our low speed to high speed balance has always been a talking point for us... we're fighting with less oversteer and understeer, but we're still fighting with it"

Jolyon: [how did the car feel when you first got in]

Albon: "we clearly had pace straight away" "we're not running [engine modes and fuel loads of qualifying last year]" "but it's all relative"

Talks about the turn 10 lock-up issue and said "I think we're making progress [on this issue but we're obviously still locking up there]"

Buxton: What were you aiming for coming into the test

Albon talks about working on through-corner balance and they hope that will help race pace come to them. And they want to work on specific characteristics that cause certain corners to hurt them massively which happened last year. It meant if a track had one of these bogey corners they couldn't compete

[organic]

Just realized the team and drivers didn't talk about wind sensitivity despite how windy Bahrain can be. Seems they're likely to have made steps in this regard

[organic]

According to The Race in their testing day 2 podcast James Vowels said that at the end of 2022, they not only lost their Team Principal and Technical Director but also axed their head of aero.

So at the moment they're trying to recruit a technical director and head of aero coming into the season...

I guess long term it's likely to be good but in the short term their development may not go smoothly

[McMika98]

According to The Race in their testing day 2 podcast James Vowels said that at the end of 2022, they not only lost their Team Principal and Technical Director but also axed their head of aero.

So at the moment they're trying to recruit a technical director and head of aero coming into the season...

I guess long term it's likely to be good but in the short term their development may not go smoothly

Yeah very bad circumstances but it appears the previous regime did a good job as the car is at least competitive. Albon race sim was same time as KMag and the car was marginally quicker, especially straight sections but still slower on twisty sector 2. The baseline car is solid though with minimal bouncing.

The car is still sensitive to wind however and during most of Albon low fuel runs the car was twitchy. His final interview mentions the car still has same DNA of being difficult to drive

[JordanMugen]

...and Technical Director but also axed their head of aero.

FX went with Captio I suppose, but why did they replace the head of aero? Williams seem to have been making good progress since 2020 if I am not mistaken?

Yeah very bad circumstances but it appears the previous regime did a good job as the car is at least competitive.

So why replace them? I don't get it.

Capito (& therefore FX) may have had personality clashes, but the rest of the Williams technical team has generally been doing a steady job of improving, from being at the back of the pack to regularly mixing with at least one car in the top 15 in the races IMO.

[organic]

How much of that improvement is the sliding scale? They have the most WT time of anyone and yet they produced (to be frank) a dog last year. Maybe the team internally didn't meet certain targets with in-season development and that was the end of the line for their aero head. It's hard to say without knowing anything

[Zynerji]

I think James Key may be available soon...

[McMika98]

I think James Key may be available soon...

But he is doing a terrible job at McLaren for someone who was touted to replace Newey at some point. Vowles is already at the same position. I'd be interested in poaching a technical head from Racing point Aston Martin. For years they have been punching above their weight

[Zynerji]

I think James Key may be available soon...

But he is doing a terrible job at McLaren for someone who was touted to replace Newey at some point. Vowles is already at the same position. I'd be interested in poaching a technical head from Racing point Aston Martin. For years they have been punching above their weight

Who are we kidding? They are all about to be designed by GPT4 anyway