Williams chief technical officer Paddy Lowe admitted their poor performance at Singapore came as a shock after their double points finish at Monza.
Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin qualified on the back row of the grid for this weekend’s race, over 1.3 seconds slower than the next-slowest car. Lowe admitted their fall from grace had taken them by surprise.“We had a pretty encouraging race in Monza with pretty respectable pace as you saw we were actually racing on Sunday with the cars around us,” he said. “So it’s a bit of a shock to come here and be so off the pace. Quite a bit of daylight between us and the cars ahead.”
Lowe believes the characteristics of the Singapore track are exacerbating the deficiencies of the FW41.
“It’s something specific around this track that we need to understand and see why that’s particularly affected. I’m sure there’ll be some good learning from that.
“My suspicion is this circuit is a very extreme circuit in many respects, probably got the highest absolute grip of the year with the softest tyre. So anything that is wrong with the car will get amplified around here and I think that’s what we’ve seen today. The good news is that’s valuable information to work with.”
The team should be closer to the pace in the race, Lowe added. “Our long run pace yesterday was more respectable. I think we can hopefully compete, albeit starting from the back, with some of the cars that are ahead of us.
“And you know what the races here is, probably one of the highest attrition of the season with the length of it and the conditions and the duty on the driver. We will absolutely not give up at this stage and see what we can do with it.”
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Jere (@jerejj)
15th September 2018, 21:12
Indeed a shock although the whole season has been more or less like that so far. I never expected a team like Williams to slump as much as they have this season especially considering only three years ago they finished 3rd in the Constructors’ standings.
F1 in Figures (@f1infigures)
15th September 2018, 21:23
This shouldn’t come as a surprise I think. They have a poor driver line-up and a poor chassis, that’s what counts here.
Adam (@rocketpanda)
15th September 2018, 21:26
With how bad their car is, and how underwhelming their drivers are, I think Monza was more the shock than this.
Steven Robertson (@emu55)
15th September 2018, 21:56
I’m still undecided if it’s the car that’s bad or the drivers are unable to utilise it’s performance.
Esploratore (@esploratore)
16th September 2018, 0:15
Both I think, as bad as they are they can’t really be more than 7 tenths worse than the drivers that drive the cars close to williams, can they? 1,3 sec or so definitely means the car is at least as big a problem as the drivers, it’s also quite expected for me, their chassis is bad, engine good = monza good performance.
TFLB (@tflb)
15th September 2018, 22:02
Minority opinion probably but I do think the Williams drivers have done a decent job this season with a car that their own team has described as ‘evil’. Especially Sirotkin who has been very much thrown in at the deep end. The fact they’re almost always so close together I’d say indicates there isn’t much more pace in the car.
DaveW (@dmw)
16th September 2018, 1:54
I agree that even stroll is not as bad as people say.
Tango (@tango)
15th September 2018, 22:58
Well it’s a difficult race with a lot more turns where one could get things wrong…
Forza Maldonado (@forzamaldonado)
15th September 2018, 23:31
There is absolutely no way Williams should be shocked. They have the worst chassis and aero packages on the grid, at one of the three major chassis tracks on the calendar. Paddy Lowe is either saying what he was told to say or he’s just blind.
DaveW (@dmw)
16th September 2018, 1:50
Basically, the car shines where engine and brakes are the primary factors, but it’s its garbage where you need things actually built by Williams F1. I’m really disappointed that Lowe can’t pry them off the back of the grid. If he just gave them a 2016 Mercedes clone next year it might be an improvement in fortunes. They seem lost on the lost on the engineering side.
socksolid (@socksolid)
16th September 2018, 5:12
““It’s something specific around this track that we need to understand and see why that’s particularly affected.”
The issue is probably the corners of the track.
Bradley Tarlton
16th September 2018, 8:52
You should be a commentator. It would have been the perfect response.
OOliver
16th September 2018, 5:26
When you car lacks poise round corners it slows you down and it adds up over successive corners. If perhaps you lose .1 sec over a slow corner and perhaps .18 over a chicane, multiply that by the number of corners and chicanes and add everything up, and before you know it, you’re already over 3 seconds slower before you make allowance for subtle errors and non optimal lines a wandering car forces you through.
bukester (@bukester)
16th September 2018, 5:28
Claire should be sacked (as much as i admire her).
Mark (@inkpen99)
16th September 2018, 8:47
Williams and MacLaren both missing the cantankerous old b’ds that moulded the teams into World champions. Thus they languish as the mighty fallen. A tragedy, really.
OOliver
16th September 2018, 9:58
Mclaren was self induced.
Williams haven’t really recovered from their breakup with BMW.
Andy
16th September 2018, 10:07
Williams fan for over 25 years and… OMG… the season is nearly over, they should be already well on their way with next year’s car and they are still clueless about what is going wrong with the current car. I despair.
BlackJackFan
16th September 2018, 17:29
“The good news is that’s valuable information to work with.”
There is NO good news here…! Stop pulling the wool over your own eyes, Paddy…