Great post! Totally agree. Williams is enduring another very badly designed car, unfortunately it's produced a few of these over the past decade. Many more than any other full constructor, but at the same time, we have produced a car not long ago that was one of the only cars capable of racing the totally dominant Mercedes in 14 and 15 at a handful of tracks.bill shoe wrote: ↑01 Sep 2018, 19:16Like everyone else who's a Williams fan, I've been busy having no fun this season. But I think the performance situation is not as dire as mid-season results suggest.
If you figure the realistic pace difference between the Williams drivers (~ slowest in field) vs. the Force India drivers (a really good driver pair at the top of their games) then I think that alone explains most of the pace difference.
The remaining difference is down to now-understood aero problems, and once you identify the problem and the cause then you are well on your way to fixing those.
So I don't see any need for Williams to panic, ditch their in-house transmission capability, and become a component-assembler team. They are positioned reasonably well technically for the next 2-3 years.
Financially is different story. If slow-ish pay drivers in basically quick cars help Williams survive as a genuine constructor for the next couple years then so be it.
To throw away the gearbox Dept because we designed a bad Aero car makes very little sense from a technical standpoint. Yes it's still a titanium cased box, but that shouldn't be impossible to engineer when they are ready to. Don't forget that this Dept was responsible for the ultra small box that other teams simply couldn't do a few years back.
Financially there is an argument for the short term, but I think that's all the argument has in its favour.
Will Williams jump to the front of the grid next year with or without a Mercedes gearbox? No. Will using the Merc box save Williams millions? I'm not so sure, as I doubt the Williams gearbox is all that different from 14. Can Williams sink money into a new gearbox design? Probably not, but the gearbox is not their biggest concern is it?
Let's focus on what we need to fix, and then build from there. We have had the Stroll cash injection for upgraded facilities (obviously we aren't at Mercedes level) which will help, but I think we need to keep looking for better staff, not buying tech from others.
I can not see why we can't go back to fighting at the front of the midfield next year if we completely understand what we did terribly wrong this year.
Well apart from running average pay drivers of cause. We need some experience!
)
