Williams will have further, smaller upgrades to follow the “big step” it brought at the Hockenheimring, says chief technical officer Paddy Lowe.
Sergey Sirotkin qualified 12th on the grid, the team’s highest starting position since the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, and Lowe said his team mate could have been up there with him.“We’ve brought a new wing yesterday as you know and the good thing it’s done exactly what we intended both from a measured point of view and from drivers’ comments corresponding to what we hoped to achieve,” said Lowe. “So that’s a good platform to build with further developments.
“Certainly today we were stronger, relatively, than we were in Silverstone. Sergey did a great job: 12th position is flattered by a couple of big fast cars let’s say out of position. But nevertheless he did a great lap in Q1, got himself up there, quicker than a number of cars which we weren’t quicker than before.
“And I think Lance [Stroll] could have done better than he did. The main point was he didn’t get the temperature in his tyres for his second run with all that queue of traffic on an out-lap, couldn’t really prepare the tyres as he would have intended. So he was a good 10 degrees down on target temperatures going into turn one which is where you lose a lot of time.”
The new front wing is part of a package of upgrades the team is introducing over a period of races to address the problems with its FW41 chassis.
“We have got a few things for Hungary, then a few more for Spa,” said Lowe. “This front wing, that was a big step, a big item. We haven’t got such big things for the next few races.”
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2018 F1 season
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Champagne
21st July 2018, 21:05
Now for a driver upgrade
anon
21st July 2018, 22:12
Whilst it’s not uncommon for teams to be using flow-viz paint, when Williams are smothering most of the floor and lower bodywork of the car with flow-viz paint, that points towards them having a fairly fundamental problem with understanding how the floor is working, or rather not working as intended.
When you listen about the issues they have had with internal airflow through the car and with the floor erratically stalling and causing strange shifts in the handling, or with the uncontrolled losses of rear downforce from the rear wing and severe correlation issues, it’s clear that there is something fundamentally wrong with the current car.
It’s easy to blame the drivers though because they make for such convenient hate targets when they are the main public face of the team. Stroll is so easy to write off as a spoilt rich kid, whilst Sirotkin will always be damned for the fact that he isn’t Kubica and, to some extent, I wonder whether being Russian in an environment where Russians are not popular in a lot of nations makes him an easier target too.
It does feel as if, given that the majority of the current fan base are fans who began watching F1 in the 1990s, a lot of fans still seem to think of Williams in that light – creating an expectation of greatness that the team hasn’t lived up to in decades and a belief that the team is just being held back by its drivers, when in reality the team, and a number of those fans as well, are deluding themselves with faded glories rather than acknowledging that those past days will not come back and that Williams is just another run of the mill team.
James Coulee
22nd July 2018, 0:23
That’s true, but at the same time every time Kubica does a practice session, that damaged old driver is faster than them on a car he knows little of while they’ve driven it hundreds of hours. They don’t look good.
anon
22nd July 2018, 7:55
Asides from the fact that is not correct – he was slower than them in Austria, although that was related to set up work he was doing – it is worth noting that Kubica has been making pretty similar complaints to that of Stroll and Sirotkin whenever he has driven the car and he also seems to be as at much of a loss with what to do with that car as Sirotkin and Stroll are.
joe jopling (@jop452)
21st July 2018, 22:34
Stroll has not done his future at Williams any good today…..he is experienced enough to manage his tyres correctly……Will be surprised if he lasts the summer break
dusty (@dusty)
21st July 2018, 23:15
@jop452 You speak like his performance has anything to do with him staying at the team. He paid for his seat and nothing will take it away from him. Williams needs to show signs of improvement ASAP or Stroll will take his money somewhere else.
This is the joke Williams is these days.
ZUKMaN
22nd July 2018, 5:07
And people were telling that Papa Stroll’s money will help develop the car.