Stay on topic eh?

This thread is to discuss the FW32.

Even FW30 was not that bad. FW32 clearly the worst Williams car ever.

I think we can conclude that after the first 4 races the car just doesn't have the pace, especially during the race. I believe it just lacks downforce and is underdeveloped because of the engine change etc.

Question is, do Williams have the resources to improve the car like, for example the McLaren last year?

Williams has had a lot downforce last year, but their topspeeds was low and comsumption too high due to weak Toyota engines. Now their topspeed looks quite competitive with new Cosworth engine. I had expected better of it and a faster Williams overall.

I'm sure that Williams do have the resources to improve the FW32, but it has to be at a faster rate than it's competitors, which I believe is unlikely. If things don't pick up in the second half of the season, we will get the all to frequent reply that their energies have been moved into the new car (FW33).

It isn't fast enough, simple as that. Can they improve like McLaren last year? I don't think so, not to that extent at least. I can't see Williams improving to the point of winning races this year.

Shame but the buck has to stop somewhere. There have been too many seasons of being relatively fast pre-season, then mid-field form followed by the "we are concentrating on next season" around 2/3rds of the way through the year.

That's before we get started on strategy!

The lack of downforce and mechanical grip must be the main fact. Rubens is great in rainy conditions and was obvious he just didnt have grip to attack corners, was a sitting duck to better cars. Even when he had slight tyre advantage in the changing conditions he couldnt attack like the others (Sutil climbed the order, rubens was stuck in the beggining of the race). They are bad in hot conditions because of lack of cooling and they are terrible in cold conditions cause the tyres wont build enough temperature.. In resume, a nightmare!!!

It will get better.

It can't get much worse.

Only way it can is if one of the new teams starts beating Williams. That's not going to happen, is it?

F32 is better than F31, the problem is they haven't improved as much as other cars from 2009

I think the Sam Michael-led design team is clearly a bit stale.

Need to do a Sauber and hire a new man near the top of the chain.

Draw a graph of recent history leading to Sam's time as Technical Director and plot results against it. It won't look pretty IMO. I don't want to make anyone a scapegoat but Sam has not been the man for the job. If they can't bring in some really excellent new blood they are gone. They can't keep on saying the same old same old. William are less likely to rebound this year than Sauber IMO.

Nakajima actually performed quite well in 2009. Incredible how almost everyone, has forgotten that there had been occasions in 2009 when he was on course to score points before bad luck interveened. Turkey is a perfect example. While running a respectable fifth, he made his last pit stop. Had everything gone to plan, he would have come out of the pits still in a point scoring position as I remember. However, problems with a sticking wheel in the pitstop ended his chances. Also I was impressed with his qualifying performance in Britain, going fastest in Qualifying 2 and ending up on the grid. Shame he couldn't live up to that performance in the race. He was also unlucky in Hungary to, suffering more pit stop problems and ending his chances again. I am certainly not saying he was an amazing driver, more average than anything. I am well aware he put in some terrible performances last year. But give him his due, he was also unlucky.

Anyway, this post will probably be deleted for being unrelated, so to prevent that I better mention the FW32. All I can say, is that it has been the same with Williams for years now. They look fast in pre-season testing but always have an average season. In my opinion, they need to withdraw from being so conservative on the design front and try something new and radical. Red Bull, a rather young and inexperienced team compared to Williams, took the risk and made it work. Williams has nine contructors championships to their name and over thirty years of racing experience, so on paper they could make it work even better than Red Bull. Saying that, cars dont race on paper!

Kazuki deserved his 2009 drive based on his 2008 performance. He did have some bad luck, but he also needed resting. He should have been sent back to Japan for six weeks being put back into the car when he was refreshed. It was not pretty watching him follow in Alex's footsteps later in the season.

I agree that there needs to be a shake up with the design department. I remember being worried all those years ago when Geoff Willis left that there wasn't someone to fill the void and it still seems to be the case. Hopefully Adrian Newey wins the championship with RBR and gets bored there and decides he needs another new challenge!

Down with Sam! Down with Sam!

Don't rely on a translation from a Portuguese interview. Let's wait and hear what is said by Williams.

There is a story on the front page where RB acknowledges there are problems with the car. He says they know what some of them are, but don't expect them to be fixed soon. It's a shame he doesn't let us know exactly what they are!

Engine, gearbox, aero and chassis. The rest is OK

BS

kinda like the DC radio transmission from a few years back... doesn't turn, doesn't stop, no traction, but apart from that its great!


I'm of the opinion of some others posting here that either Sam Michael needs to go or some other top people in the race team need replacing. Williams has grown stale and needs a serious shake-up if good results are to ever come again.

Hahaha. I can totally imagine DC saying that. Do you remember which year that was? I'd like to see if that clip exists somewhere on YouTube. There are some hilarious clips on there of DC.

i think it was 08, and Canada?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsTvHrvEkfo

Fun video, thanx PNSD.


BTW I What happened to Geoff Willis was interesting, He left Williams, went on to Honda to make the car which Jenson won, moved to RB helped the team building up RB5 solid car.

Sam Michael, is he so bad?

Sam Michael took over the Tech Chief at 2004, worked with Cossie, Toyota and Cossie again this year. He did worked on BMW units since 2001 under Head. Williams had Drives like Nick, Webber, Wurz, Nakajima, Rosberg and had hick up with Button. the team was not that stable during the time. Lots of political things happened between the time, Theissen vs Frank etc.

Do you, if you were a tech chief, think that you will peronr your best in such situations? You may say yes tho, but I do think that He might have put his nose more into politics and lost some concentration...



I don't want to compare, but look at MikeG. He worked at Tyrrell, Renault, Toyota an got purged while he has been named as one of the most skilled engineer, but Toyota time was not that great. All what I am saying is a graduate of engineering school can bet work on tech things set the politics aside...

I like Sam, he is a "nice" engineer. Look at Claire's twitties, the team likes him. He is as solid as his team - consolidated, loveable but nothing special. To be winner among sharks he should be more aggressive, a brave one, a genius full of tricks and original ideas in a fast changing environment.

The sooner Williams realize this the better. Put all efforts on getting a better technical director.

Thanks a lot!!!!

Outside of Williams, there is no-one that knows what the exact environment that Sam is operating in. If there is a weakness there then it should be sorted out and removed. But what if it is not Sam. What happens if we get rid of Sam and things do not improve? Where would that leave Williams and who would Sam's detractors turn on next? Any evidence that is put up against Sam is anecdotal. It is the evidence of a kangaroo court.

If there is an identifiable weakness within the team then it should be rooted out. Whoever it might be. In the absence of hard evidence let those that have the evidence do the rooting.

Source - Forix Autosport

AE: Chief Aerodynamicist
CD: Chief Designer
ED: Engineering Director
TD: Technical Director


------------------------------------------

Ed Wood (Chief Designer) :

John Tomlinson (Chief Aerodynamicist) :

Source Williams website

----------------------------------------

Who is the weakest link?

Williams should have bagged John Iley when he left Ferrari. Now he works for Mclaren.

That doesn't paint a very good picture for Sam any way you look at it. I am not saying he is solely responsible but I do remember Mark Webber saying when he was at Williams that Sam was working ridiculous hours (even by F1 standards). Maybe the problem is not that the wrong people are there but just not enough of them? It's a sign of weakness on the part of the people in charge, be it Frank, Patrick or Sam etc if they don't recognise where the weaknesses in the team are and deal with them. Be it wrong personnel or not enough of them

We are going off thread here. So sorry to everyone.

I am not defending Sam. I am not defending anyone. I am not saying that there is or is not a problem. Without doubt, there has not been much in the way of success during Sam's tenure as TD. That does not mean that it is Sam's fault. By his own admission, Patrick had lost focus. He had turned his attentions to his Atlantic project and was no longer prepared to put the 80-90 hrs a week that he said the TD's position required. Sam inherited a boat that was already rocking (no pun intended with Patrick's Atlantic project). I don't know if Sam was the best person for the job when he was appointed. I do not know whether Sam was compromise appointment in the fallout between Patrick and Mario. The only people that can provide an answer are the senior management of Williams and BMW at the time.

I am neither defending anyone or saying that any opinion posted here is wrong. I am saying be guarded in what you wish for. Your post clearly identifies the talent that has slipped through Williams' corporate fingers. I don't want Sam to be another casualty if he is not the weak link.

Obviously Sam took those guys. If you rate Tomlinson and Wood, then Sam Michael has implemented his mandate well.

So what is the point?



I listen to the voice by weston, of beingaggressive and tricky. Very interestingif he/she is an insider.

Er, this is where the problem lies. This years car is, as Sam Michael said, a "clean sheet" design. It would be illogical to throw one set of conservative designs out for another, wouldn't it?

And last time they went radical, it was the beginning of the end, the Walrus-nosed FW26.

I wondered that too, considering the FW31 was a good basis to work from. Maybe the comment was taken out of context, not sure

I don't think he's bad either... Williams' cars are always very solid, and whether that's down to there not being enough staff to then take what are usually good designs further down the development line, or just a bit of a brain drain at Williams I don't know...

I'd like to think it's the former, that they are working at the limits of their powers, and if they could get more people with that creative spark, they'd be able to work on it and get the car moving back up the grid. In that case you have to applaud Michael for getting so much out of a small group, but then you also look at Force India and the leaps and bounds they have taken recently with a smaller R&D and Design team, and think why can't Williams do the same, or at least try and compete in the market and get the people that make the difference.

I am going to defend Sam Michael here as well. When he stepped into the TD role, he did so from the Chief Operations Engineer position, ie organising and controlling all race operations. No-one back filled this position until 2007 when Rod Nelson joined from Renault. Which also clarifies the earlier post that quoted Mark Webber during the 2006 season saying that Sam was working long hours, I recall from that interview that he was actually sleeping in his office!!
During 2007-2009 I believe that Rod Nelson was in charge of Race operations including final strategy calls, which Patrick Head openly admitted that they between themselves entirely cocked up the China 2009 race (I think this was the wet race that started behind safety car but not for as long as they thought it would). So on to 2010 are we back to Sam Michael running both TD and Race Op's I think probably because for certain the I have seen no-one new seems to have been appointed from outside the team, internally I would have thought that Tony Ross (Ruebens engineer) would have been the obvious choice for promotion.

So I agree, with the resources available I don't think that Sam is someone we should look to remove from the Team, who would replace him and would they produce any better results given the budget. Bear in mind we have two fairly highly rated engineers in lower teams still struggling in Mike Gascoigne and Geoff Willis.

Gascoigne is 'about' to make his way up yet once more.


In F1 only one thing counts so...

Given that his last job but one was with a team that was said to have the largest budget and Mike's great know how, they still didn't win a race. There is so much more to F1 than just budget and the right personnel, but a mix that works with the team!!!

Giascoigne had that mega idea to have two engineering teams in one team working on simultaneously competing and producing effectively two cars at a time. that should have halved the budget into two, meaning per car was the half or less than Ferrari. Good ambition and logic, but the money Toyota had was not enough for Gascoigne's ambition.

Now it is clear what Toyota never made it under him.

But why Toyota never won after Gascoigne left under pascal vasselon is a question tome. I do think that thet did not have two teams...

Couldnt find it in english but this article puts some light in how difficult and slower Williams car is.

http://tazio.uol.com.br/f-1/textos/17923/

Nico is saying is amazed by Rubens capacity to lap "only" 0,8s slower than the top cars in some laps. "the car is really hard, he can come up with some laptimes that makes me think: 'How did he just did that?'".

Sounds like Rubens is doing some magic to keep that car so close to Renault and Force India. Hope they can make it better for Barcelona

oook.. in another point of view... who cares.. hhahhahah

Rubens still has it... We've got to better the equipment and see what happens. I'm looking forward to the start of the European season.

We are not expecting to see a big update on the car at Barca. Although we will have an update for Monaco, it is such a one-off that it won't give us an indication of progress. We will have another update for Turkey and that will give us a better idea if we have a handle on the problems with the FW32 that Rubens identified.

Another reason to tape the Spanish snooze-fest and watch it later then.

Am I right in thinking the FW32 has one of the shortest wheelbases in the entire field? With Mercedes lengthening their wheelbase I wonder if Williams are thinking of doing something similar?

I was wondering the same thing. We have not really seen a big update on the car since the third test when both Rubens and Sam said that problems had been identified that would not be quick fixes. It has now been the thick end of three months since that statement. I am expecting something quite radical from the team. A longer wheelbase would require new crash tests to be carried out. Another thought that I had was a lowering of the engine. When we switched to the Toyota engine I seem to remember comments being made about how low the COG was for the engine. It may be that the Cosworth is sitting too high in the car. A switch to a pull-rod rear suspension would allow the engine to be lowered.

Wheelbase is a very good call though.

The FW32 has average wheelbase, and not known to have weight distribution issues. Mercedes is lengthening for better weight distribution.

We do not know the nature of the problems Rubens identified. The only safe conclusion is that with the length of time it has taken for a solution to be engineered that it will be something quite fundamental to the design of the car. They will have had time to build a new car by the time we see it in Turkey

CoG related improvement can be another issue, which needs quite a bit of chassis improvements. Within it, the positioning of Fuel tank can be rearranged, if they are doing the chassis re-homologation via crush tests etc, the there is no reason not to take F-Duct into the development line.

If all of these are true, it is like a building a new car. Williams used to do the B version in season, and if they are taking this course, it should be because the engineers think that the B car will deliver significant step forwards which is otherwise inconceivable by upgrading the 32.

We will see if Sam and co must be facing prob or not. In anycase this can only happen if the whole direction including Rubens got committed with the idea, so they ar eon the sam boat. On my front, I am getting excited already. Can't wait to see Williams car beating Mclaren once again.

They screwed in Bahrain last year with fastest car.