3953 replies to this topic

[One]

Caterham changed almost every single thing the last year. For a small team like them it is a huge tasks. Could imagine a stone did not fly yet. as of Gillan, I see him more as commander at the front line, rather than some one sitting facing tunnel and doing his job. MC and JS does that work. Track side operation and feed back to the design team, deciding directions that is where Williams is going to suffer. I certainly do not understand the reason as to why Gillan has to leave... or Williams has to purge him.
If it is Toto who took him out then Williams GP is not in a good condition. If it is Gillan who decided not to deal with Toto then well,... no comment...

[Anderis]

If that's the case, then Williams is indeed f$#@ed, especially if the Caterham guy is joining them, judging how incredibly poor the Malaysian team have developed compared to Marussia.

PS: Caterham have more money, more resources(Marussia used only CFD untill short ago), more engineers, lot's of Red Bull technology(gearbox, Renault engine,KERS....) and still weren't that considerably faster than Marussia

Are you aware that this Caterham guy was a Sporting Manager at Renault during their championship years? Yeah, he must be incredibly poor indeed.

Anyway. After doing some research I concluded he is not the one who can be replacement for Gillan. He was always responsible for different kind of things. And Joe Saward thinks Nielsen will rather go to Mercedes.

If it is Toto who took him out then Williams GP is not in a good condition. If it is Gillan who decided not to deal with Toto then well,... no comment...

I don't understand why do people need to involve Toto's input in all possible discussion about Williams. I don't think he is responsible for Gillan's move. F1 engineers are changing teams frequently and teams often lose valuable engineers without their fault. I think people are overreacting the fact that Toto has promoted a driver who's career is managed by him to a race driver at Williams. It's not really that big deal, was happening earlier in F1 (Alonso and Briatore are very good example) and Bottas is deserving his chance on merit just like Alonso was 10 years ago.
Oh, and I forgot about Susie. Yeah, the fact that she does some PR work for the team without even turning a wheel of their current F1 car must really hurt them.
All I read about Williams in the last few weeks is that Wolff is at fault some and there. This is becoming an assumption. If something at Williams goes not as people expect, it has to be Toto's fault. It has grown to the absurd.

Edited by Anderis, 19 December 2012 - 23:42.

[One]

I don't understand why do people need to involve Toto's input in all possible discussion about Williams.

I am not particularly blaming Toto for this. On the contrary someone who is growing his way up in the outfit like Williams can do a lot more than elsewhere just because the team believes in the next promised direction. ...

I can agree with Bottas. I am looking forward what he can do.

Sad about Senna. He worked very hard in the second half of the season.

Still the biggest question is why Gillan left the outfit where he seemingly find great place. He got his ambition so we can see news coming from elsewhere, perhaps, for example at Ferrari?

[Mr Plug]

Toto is neither a main shareholder in the team nor investor who brings substantial amount of money. ...... How would be that possible they are all so powerless against him and Toto does whatever he wants in such a important thing as a driver choice?

Before the launch on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, Toto Wolff - through various holding companies - controlled (ie "owned") about 16% of Wiliams's shares. That made him the third largest shareholder after Sir Frank and Patrick Head. Probably, with Mr Head's retirement and his sale of shares, that ratio has changed somewhat, but it would be fair to assume that unless someone has made a "raid" upon the publicly issued shares (actually only a relatively small proportion of the total, remember) Toto Wolff is a very substantial shareholder, and will remain so for some time. People do tend to listen to what major shareholders have to say, and as in the case of Wolff, to take notice of their areas of expertise.