Williams: where did it all go wrong?

Knowlesy · 12 Oct 2003, 08:40 (Ref:747953)

Congratulations to Schumacher and Ferrari! Ultimately, they deserved it didn't they?

But it has to be said, Williams faltered at crucial moments.

Monza - they went the wrong way on set-up. Admittedly the tyre issue was de-stabilising, but still....

Indy - Montoya has an awful day and Ralf spins into retirement.

Suzuka - Ralf puts in his entry for "Damon Hill's whacky races" video, Monty breaks down.

What exactly happened to the Williams challenge? They looked a shoe-in for the WCC and Monty was favourite for the drivers. I have to say, this is a missed opportunity because they may not have the car advantage they enjoyed for a part of this year next season.

A bad start and beginning, for me, has cost them dear.

Damon · 12 Oct 2003, 08:42 (Ref:747956)

Why will they not have the car advantage they had? The FW25 wis a pig until Monaco and they stilled turned the season around, next year they'll be well and trully on it, as will Ferrari and McLaren.

**garcon** · 12 Oct 2003, 08:44 (Ref:747957)

Quote:

Originally posted by knowlesy
Suzuka - Ralf puts in his entry for "Damon Hill's whacky races" video...

Quote:

A bad start and beginning, for me, has cost them dear.

I think that's the key - more than their disappointments in the last couple of races.

Knowlesy · 12 Oct 2003, 08:46 (Ref:747962)

Quote:

Originally posted by Damon
Why will they not have the car advantage they had? The FW25 wis a pig until Monaco and they stilled turned the season around, next year they'll be well and trully on it, as will Ferrari and McLaren.

It is unlikely that they will lose their speed. But if Ferrari build another F2002........

Still, Williams and McLaren are just as capable.

Sodemo · 12 Oct 2003, 08:51 (Ref:747967)

Montoya hasn't made a good start in about 5 races, I was looking today to see where the dampness on the track was, and low and behold it seemed the biggest damp patch was in front of Montoya - check out the highlights - when the camera panned over all the cars before the start...

Basically Williams were more a victim of circumstance in Indy, the Michelin wets are hopeless, they ran low downforce in the hope they could pass at Indy, then it started raining and you need high downforce for rain, which is why I believe they had to run on full wets.

Then there was Montoya's hit with Rubens, whichever way you look at it and whoever's side you take, it basically ended his title bid with the ensuing penalty.

Then of course there was the stuck fuel rig at Indy, breakdowns at Austria and Suzuka, so it wasn't one thing that Williams need to fix, its a variety of factors which when combined worked against them.

I certainly hope Montoya can challenge next year with Williams, NOT Mclaren, being a Williams fan since the 80's I would love Montoya to bring it home for them.

next year.

Mr V · 12 Oct 2003, 08:51 (Ref:747968)

Why do JPM's mechanical failures always happen when he is leading the race? The 2 failures he's had this season.....leading at Austria and Japan. (Maybe Rafe has a destruct Monty button on his steering wheel

)

Rafe in the other car is far too inconsistant. He really impressed me in the middle part of the season, but started off slowly and finished off appallingly. 3 podiums to his team mates 9 is hardly the stuff of championships is it, for driver or team.

Gt_R · 12 Oct 2003, 08:59 (Ref:747977)

Hmm...Ralf din't really had an appalling race this weekend.

Friday quals, he outshone JPM.
Sat quals, he got screwed by the rain.
Sun race, from the back row he jumped up 4/5 places up and was running pretty quickly. He was overly ambitious and lost it a couple of times tangling with others, but he's quick and aggressive with his brother especially.

Today isn't that bad, and in fact, this season he had demonstrated his pace that he could actually match his teammate. JPM and Ralf had their own fair share of bad luck.

Well, why i'm speaking up for Ralf? I must be insane...he almost took his brother out of the WDC.

Knowlesy · 12 Oct 2003, 09:04 (Ref:747979)

It's not his pace in question. It's his consistency.

In the past he would start brightly and from the middle to the end would look pretty uninspiring.

This year he started rubbish, was mesmerising in the middle and ended on a Fred Flinstone note.

Damon · 12 Oct 2003, 09:05 (Ref:747980)

Gt_R you know as well as I do that if JPM had run the same race Ralf did today you'd be asking serious questions. He binned it 3 times, all in very silly circumstances, easily as bad as JPM's "unforced errors" during the course of the year.

Mark Webber · 12 Oct 2003, 09:21 (Ref:747996)

they both had a bad year in overview with some highlight's but both are capable of better

Knowlesy · 12 Oct 2003, 09:26 (Ref:748007)

Montoya couldn't have done much better. More podiums than Schuey I think.

Just those little rough patches either side of the middle part of the year. Call them what you will. I personally like to call them the start and end of year.

Damon · 12 Oct 2003, 09:32 (Ref:748018)

Well earlier you called them "the start and the beginning"

.

Knowlesy · 12 Oct 2003, 09:35 (Ref:748022)

I know, I know............

f1manoz · 12 Oct 2003, 09:50 (Ref:748050)

It all started going wrong at Monza when Ferrari just upped the tempo and Williams never recovered. In fact, they were lucky to hold onto 2nd in the WCC and JPM would be very disappointed to finish only 3rd in the WDC.

It’s a shame JPM went out so early today as it would have been interesting to see if he could have kept up the pace the entire way through. While Ralf just had the funniest race I’ve seen in ages. He was in the thick of it – great entertainment!

But really, a poor start to the season where things only picked up at Monaco cost them dear. If only they’d been on the pace from Australia… but that is in the thousands of ‘What if?’ files.

Shoe-maker · 12 Oct 2003, 10:19 (Ref:748079)

Montoya had two costly spins at Melbourne and Montreal. Those races were winnable. The team seemed knocked for six after Michael's Monza victory and I think they realised that it was a missed opportunity.

**Peter Mallett** · 12 Oct 2003, 10:41 (Ref:748106)

Quote:

Originally posted by Damon
Gt_R you know as well as I do that if JPM had run the same race Ralf did today you'd be asking serious questions. He binned it 3 times, all in very silly circumstances, easily as bad as JPM's "unforced errors" during the course of the year.

Agreed. But as you saythey are two peas in a pod.

Don't think you can blame Ralf for the third time though. He was doing what he needed to do and Mickey just reacted too late to the changed line taken by Da Matta. I'd suggest that no driver could avoid a spin in those circs.

And did anybody notice the very agressive chop by big Schuey on little bro?

Nope niether Williams shone today for various reasons although JPM's opening stint was impressive to say the least. Was it a gearbox problem?

jetsetter · 12 Oct 2003, 10:41 (Ref:748107)

Where Williams went wrong was the stupid mistakes both drivers made at crucial times giving away valuable points, i won't even try to guess what was going through Ralf's head this afternoon.

**Adam43** · 12 Oct 2003, 11:15 (Ref:748143)

Just looking at today. A total disaster from the start of the weekend.
Montoya hardly got any running due to problems, although got the luck on Saturday. He transferred that into a good start and a great manoeuvre into Spoon, however it was all over after that.
Ralf, well he was unlucky on Saturday, but then decided to entertain us all rather too much. Shocker.

Damon · 12 Oct 2003, 12:36 (Ref:748247)

Quote:

Originally posted by Peter Mallett
Don't think you can blame Ralf for the third time though. He was doing what he needed to do and Mickey just reacted too late to the changed line taken by Da Matta. I'd suggest that no driver could avoid a spin in those circs.

I'd agree with you on the final point. I was also pleasently suprised to Ralf duking it out with his brother for real again.

Mr V · 12 Oct 2003, 13:47 (Ref:748327)

Quote:

Originally posted by Peter Mallett

And did anybody notice the very agressive chop by big Schuey on little bro?

Very aggressive defending, but ultimatly, fair i suppose.

Quote:

Originally posted by Peter Mallett

Nope niether Williams shone today for various reasons although JPM's opening stint was impressive to say the least. Was it a gearbox problem?

Hydraulics failure, very impressive until the failure from JPM, took lots of guts to overtake into Spoon curve.

GP Racer · 12 Oct 2003, 17:00 (Ref:748513)

I think that JPM is still not quite ready to be WDC. A terrible mistake by punting Rubens off the track at Indy, really cost him and Williams the championship. It was to early in the race to try such a desperate move, there was plenty of time left to set up a better one.

Also you got to give it to the Ferrari team. Williams really pushed them hard, and as great teams always do, they responded and picked up there game a notch. Great stuff!

Super Tourer · 12 Oct 2003, 17:16 (Ref:748525)

Mixture of the car coming good late in the season, coupled with driver errors at seemingly crucial moments.

Poor Sir FW must have been doing his pieces watching that on TV, quite what Ralf was doing in the race was anyone's guess. The incident with Da Matta and big bro was unfortunate though, as has been said before Michael jinked in front of him, so Ralf did well to avoid him.

Can you imagine if Ralf had taken him out and Rubens pulled up on the last lap, leaving Kimi to win. I'm a dreamer....!

BootsOntheSide · 12 Oct 2003, 21:58 (Ref:748797)

Williams were comfortably reject of the race.

Ralf's recent form, since Hockenheim, has been abysmal, to put it mildly. He was unlucky in qualifying, but tehre's no excuse for displays like that. Kimi in Canada, Alonso at Monza, Montoya at Silverstone and Trulli in Japan made the best of bad situations, Ralf didn't. And when you put in a worse race than Trulli, in a better car, something's badly wrong.

Other than Monza, he made a serious mistake every time. The guys who consuder him to be consistant are starting to be right....

Not sure what you can say about Montoya, but the guy has no luck. he looked schintilating today and could've put in the drive of the season.

Williams' main problem was the start of the season, where the car was off the pace. Montoya's bad luck and occasional lapses early season cost them the most, as they meant that the title was still up for grabs come Monza. Ralf may've scored poitns oftne early on, btu tehy weren't big points.

The psot-mortem at Grove should centre on the early part of the season. Perhaps the 2002 car, ideally modified, would've been a better choice pre-Monaco, especially looking at McLaren's early reasults.

TeddyG · 12 Oct 2003, 22:52 (Ref:748851)

They went wrong hiring that Hot-head Montoya who makes silly mistakes and non-racer Ralf (who is so out of experience overtaking for position- he takes himself off when he does try!)

Hey Frank you do know Villeneuve is available for next season right??? I heard Ralfie threw a TV out of a window after the race. Perhaps he just got the news! JV to Williams 2004!!!

vatuloa · 12 Oct 2003, 23:00 (Ref:748858)

Apart from a fast car which Williams have they also need Stability and Teamwork. With all the rumours about Ralf and Juan and all the reported comments from them you can see how a weekend like Suzuka can happen.

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