[Team] Williams: Do they have a spare tub?

[Moneyseeker]

Initial thoughts trackside from some Autosport bods is that the car is a little basic in places, with potential in others, but will need quite a bit of development to progress them up the field.



Including shakedown, they are 3.5 days and 100's of laps behind the rest of the field and probably more as the first half day they were only doing a few 'slow' laps to check the car.


Never mind, Claire has moved on to talking about 2020 already...!

[VIVA GT]

I suppose that as the old adage says, there's no point in crying over spilt milk. The delay has happened, and no amount of re-thinking and talking about it will do the impossible of re-finding this lost testing time. The important things are to move on with testing, and more importantly make sure that this type of delay NEVER happens again.
As to the Autosport bods declaring that the car looks 'basic', surely that's what the first tested car should be? Set a base line first, then start to introduce modifications and see what differences these make. It's no good testing a car with a load of random & supposed improvements bolted onto it, when it proves to be dreadfully slow, they won't know which bits are right & which are wrong. I appreciate that they now have less opportunity to do their iterative testing now, but nor doing so could lead them up yet another blind alley and make the team appear even more silly...

[billy bleach]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

I suppose that as the old adage says, there's no point in crying over spilt milk. The delay has happened, and no amount of re-thinking and talking about it will do the impossible of re-finding this lost testing time. The important things are to move on with testing, and more importantly make sure that this type of delay NEVER happens again.
As to the Autosport bods declaring that the car looks 'basic', surely that's what the first tested car should be? Set a base line first, then start to introduce modifications and see what differences these make. It's no good testing a car with a load of random & supposed improvements bolted onto it, when it proves to be dreadfully slow, they won't know which bits are right & which are wrong. I appreciate that they now have less opportunity to do their iterative testing now, but nor doing so could lead them up yet another blind alley and make the team appear even more silly...

"Even more silly" is that possible?

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by billy bleach

"Even more silly" is that possible?

Sadly I do believe it is, I just hope that it doesn't happen...

[E.B]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

Sadly I do believe it is, I just hope that it doesn't happen...

Hopefully we dont end up having to call the team Silly'ems

[P38 in workshop]

Its a long time since there was a competitive Williams.The people in the workshops make the parts as designed and work just as hard to make slow parts as they would to make fast parts.The question needs to be asked-is it the concept they are working to that has a flaw or is the information leading them in that direction not accurate?Possibly even more urgent is what can they do to remedy the situation.We had all the statements about understanding the processes and improving the engineering decisions and methods.The timing sheets tell the story and it may not have a happy ending.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by P38 in workshop

The question needs to be asked-is it the concept they are working to that has a flaw or is the information leading them in that direction not accurate?Possibly even more urgent is what can they do to remedy the situation.

I somewhat try to tackle this question in the 2019 launch/testing thread. Especially the question of adjusting your mindset when you realize your ideas don't work.

A more practical answer is that the reason we see the flow-viz (show actual flow) and aero rakes (measure actual pressures) is that they are trying to compare reality to CFD and tunnel based predictions. Does it match and if not, what is it actually doing?

Richard

[bella]

another thing to remember is that some of the other teams will have been testing on a rig and in the dyno for weeks now. we don’t know exactly how much of that kind of work williams have missed out on either. so potentially it could be a lot worse than it looks...

[ScotsBrutesFan]

I think their biggest issue is not having a driver who has a reference as to what a decent F1 car should feel like. Sure They have rattled around a bit in older pre-Hybrid cars in Robert's case and George has done a few Fridays in last years effort.

But realistically as good a drivers as they may be....is that enough to progress a car that is already late to the show?

[S griffin]

It’s still an improvement, with all due respect to Lanve and Sergey, on last season’s driver lineup

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by S griffin

It’s still an improvement, with all due respect to Lanve and Sergey, on last season’s driver lineup

Laverne & Shirley?

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by P38 in workshop

Its a long time since there was a competitive Williams.The people in the workshops make the parts as designed and work just as hard to make slow parts as they would to make fast parts.The question needs to be asked-is it the concept they are working to that has a flaw or is the information leading them in that direction not accurate?

The 2018 Williams -- a radical new higher downforce concept -- definitely had aerodynamic flaws, with respect to inconsistent and unpredictable downforce through a corner. The peak numbers in the wind tunnel were probably very impressive (else why would they have signed off on it?), but when the front wheels were actually turned like in a real corner it seems like all the flow structures went wrong (same problem for McLaren in 2018).

The 2017 and earlier Williams were not too bad by comparison.

Williams seem to have tried to "fix" the 2018 car for the 2019, rather than go back to the 2017 as the baseline. The question is: will this work?

[Famously, Honda tried to improved their dismal "all-new" 2007 car in 2008, and it was still dismal in 2008. Honda may have been better off going back to their competent 2006 car and using that as the base for the 2008 car.]

[billy bleach]

Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks

The 2018 Williams -- a radical new higher downforce concept -- definitely had aerodynamic flaws, with respect to inconsistent and unpredictable downforce through a corner. The peak numbers in the wind tunnel were probably very impressive (else why would they have signed off on it?), but when the front wheels were actually turned like in a real corner it seems like all the flow structures went wrong (same problem for McLaren in 2018).

The 2017 and earlier Williams were not too bad by comparison.

Williams seem to have tried to "fix" the 2018 car for the 2019, rather than go back to the 2017 as the baseline. The question is: will this work?

[Famously, Honda tried to improved their dismal "all-new" 2007 car in 2008, and it was still dismal in 2008. Honda may have been better off going back to their competent 2006 car and using that as the base for the 2008 car.]

Paddy Lowe go back to the Symonds car? Cant imagine an ego doing that....

[Moneyseeker]

Gary Anderson had often said how easy it can be to repeat the mistakes of a bad car into the next one.

Often this can be the unintended consequences of being wedded to a certain route with the car that you believe just needs engineering out, but can actually be so fundamental it is not possible and the design team is consumed by the fear of a new concept in case it is no good.

Sent from my Moto C Plus using Tapatalk

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Moneyseeker

Gary Anderson had often said how easy it can be to repeat the mistakes of a bad car into the next one.

Often this can be the unintended consequences of being wedded to a certain route with the car that you believe just needs engineering out, but can actually be so fundamental it is not possible and the design team is consumed by the fear of a new concept in case it is no good.

Sent from my Moto C Plus using Tapatalk

Was it Jim Clark?

"Lotus 40, Lotus 30 with 10 more mistakes."

[P38 in workshop]

Anybody else remember the episode of "Yes Minister" when Sir Humphrey advised that you should never believe any rumours until they have been officially denied? https://www.pitpass.com/63990/Lowe-d...re-at-Williams

[Moneyseeker]

Originally Posted by P38 in workshop

Anybody else remember the episode of "Yes Minister" when Sir Humphrey advised that you should never believe any rumours until they have been officially denied? https://www.pitpass.com/63990/Lowe-d...re-at-Williams

Unless there is a big increase in performance, I think he will be lucky to last the season. Frank and Claire are understandably fixated by the 'name over the door' as shown in the recent Williams documentary, but that doesn't mean you need to run the team yourself. We will see how this year plays out but maybe Claire needs to move upstairs to the boardroom and they bring in a Horner or Vasseur type to professionaly run the team and re-build the team.


Claire is taking focus on 2020 already, but you need to arrest the slide quickly, there are no Caterhams or Manors to hide behind now, all the teams are good and well funded. If you are seen as a team in decline you lose good people and find it hard to hire new people as they don't want to be associated with poor performance and the slog of tyring to get a once great team back to the front.


All of this is on PL's watch and if he isn't 'really' concerned over his future then the hard facts from 2018 and currently are, that he should be, surely?


If PH was still there, PL would have been down the road last November with his opinion of him still ringing in his ears!


Ultimately Williams is listed company now, so much more accountable you can't just bat off bad performance with 'we will do better next year or maybe the year after that'.

[Moneyseeker]

Reading PL's summary of today it seems they couldn't do any meaningfull running in the afternoon due to lack of spare parts! Leaving RK to tool around on slow laps and calling in the pits regularly for pitstop practice...Shocking!

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[S griffin]

Paddy Lowe really needs to back up his words if he is to retain any credibility

[wnut]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Paddy Lowe really needs to back up his words if he is to retain any credibility

I understood that Lowe did not want to run the Williams gearbox, but wanted to use the Merc package, would seem he is trying to change things with his hands tied behind his back.

Still, if it doesn't all turn around I am sure it will be Paddy's fault as he tries to avoid the door hitting him on the ass on the way out.

[bella]

that’s his job, isn’t it? taking the fall for managing a shambles? i mean that literally rather than casually. if a head of department can’t look at his people, figure out the issues and change things then that’s on his head. if his predecessor hired a bunch of clowns then he has to work the hr paths to get them out and get new people in.

and from management perspective they’re either empowering him to change things or they aren’t. if they aren’t, and if i was him, i’d have legged it long ago when it became apparent.

[billy bleach]

Originally Posted by bella

that’s his job, isn’t it? taking the fall for managing a shambles? i mean that literally rather than casually. if a head of department can’t look at his people, figure out the issues and change things then that’s on his head. if his predecessor hired a bunch of clowns then he has to work the hr paths to get them out and get new people in.

and from management perspective they’re either empowering him to change things or they aren’t. if they aren’t, and if i was him, i’d have legged it long ago when it became apparent.

Those “clownes” did a pretty good job until he arrived....

[bella]

it’s a non-specific “clowns”. see use of the word “if” though i think some would argue they’d not been doing that great a job versus say, force india prior to his arrival though

[coppice]

Originally Posted by wnut

Was it Jim Clark?

"Lotus 40, Lotus 30 with 10 more mistakes."

I think the story is that Richie Ginther was responsible for that quote

- but I am sure Clark agreed with him ...

[S griffin]

Kubica is saying he is only 20% ready for the first race. Not what the team need at this time