Williams chief technical officer Paddy Lowe says he feels secure in his position after deputy team principal Claire Williams warned she is prepared to take “hard decisions” following their dire start to 2018.
An internal review is underway at the team, which has only scored points in one of the 10 races so far this year. It is struggling with fundamental aerodynamic problems with its FW41 chassis.
“In order to effect change you need to make changes and you need to make some hard decisions,” said Williams ahead of last week’s British Grand Prix.“We’re going through that process at the moment but it’s not a case of rushing into it. Sometimes when you rush in you can make decisions you don’t want to make and end up regretting those decisions.
“We’re undertaking a full evaluation of our internal structures and processes at the moment,” Williams added.
Lowe joined the team from Mercedes at the beginning of last season to head up its technical department. When asked by RaceFans about Williams’ comments, he said he feels secure in his position.
“I will carry on working as hard as I can with full commitment,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of problems to solve. You don’t see it but there is great progress being made behind the scenes. The trouble in Formula 1 is the races come quickly. When you’ve got problems to solve you can never fix them quickly enough.”
“We made a lot of changes already,” he added. “There are great changes already in place and underway. It’s about people, it’s how they work together, it’s about the processes you use. It’s a wide-ranging subject.”
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Jay Menon (@jaymenon10)
15th July 2018, 12:17
Famous last words perhaps?
Williams seem to have gone backwards under Paddy’s stewardship. Is it fair to consider the possibility that Paddy’s influence at Mercedes was perhaps overstated? Note that at Mercedes, Paddy walked into a very strong technical structure that was set up by Ross Brawn.
Neil Dockray
15th July 2018, 15:47
I do not have any axe to grind re: Paddy Lowe but one of the things that got me when effectively he replaced Ross Brawn at Mercedes was that he said ‘Ross has taken things as far as he is capable of but I can take them to the next level’. Now I am not a Ross Brawn fan but this irritated me & I understand that Paddy extracted a high price for his recruitment by Williams, possibly including a significant shareholding? (is this why he is not concerned about his future?). As a committed Williams fan from the early days I would say ‘it is time to deliver Paddy’ there are no easy rides in F1 without massive financial resources as per another great team with a dog of a car – McLaren.
Garns (@)
15th July 2018, 16:45
Neil- I never heard that comment but that’s arrogant if Paddy thinks he is better than Ross Brawn! Not many are.
I think Paddy Lowe is a very talented individual but maybe better as a part of a team rather than head of engineering? Williams cant keep going like this, I hope they improve very soon.
kpcart
16th July 2018, 13:54
Why are so many people obsessed with Ross Brawn. He was lucky to be in ferrari’s winning era like Lowe was in Mercedes. Brawn also lucked into a championship in 09 by purchasing a team. Is it because he is English? One man does not design and make a race winning car, brawn certainly never did. To me, Brawn is more a poletician, or business CEO. I remember when Montoya passed Schumacher in a fair move, where Schumacher spun, Brawn said the overtake was not a classy move, he came across as a terrible sport. Alas o his interviews and politicking when Michelin were forced to change tyres for the last 3 races of 2003, and his disgusting non sporting way off going about it, lobbying the Fia, who had deemed the tyres legal for about 2 seasons. Brawn is not as great as many race fans are led to believe. I think it is a British media thing. I don’t like him having a say now with the new owners of f1, I can’t seeing a crusty old conservative making formula one better, it’s people like him that have made it worse.
Garns (@)
17th July 2018, 15:53
Well Sir Jack Brabham did design and race his car, to a WDC as well.
Was he lucky to be in Ferrari winning era or did he help create it? I think the latter. He also was great at Brawn with the double diffusor, so you don’t seem to like him but surely give him a little credit.
But each to their own, we are certainly all entitled to our own opinions.
ColdFly (@)
15th July 2018, 12:32
Situations and comments like this always makes me wonder who are the real non driving Stars and who are the Strugglers.
Star Team principals: Vasseur, Horner, Arrivabene (?)
Struggling (Dep.) Team Principals: Williams, Brown
Star Technical Directors: Newey (still?)
Struggling Technical Directors: Lowe
Sush meerkat
15th July 2018, 16:21
Paddy Lowe was quoted as saying;
Phylyp (@phylyp)
15th July 2018, 16:41
LOL
Jere (@jerejj)
15th July 2018, 17:38
@Sush meerkat That’s a good one, LOL.
Sush meerkat
15th July 2018, 18:27
Thank you
I actually have vision of the future where drivers like Ericsson and Stroll saying they improved because they scored 260 times more points in 2035 than they did this year.
Remember I called it
Sam
15th July 2018, 17:49
Williams needs more diversity.
France won the World Cup thanks to diversity and Mercedes won many championships in a dominant fashion due to Lewis. Only diversity can lead Williams back to success.
There are several millions of migrants in the UK now, many of them who are highly educated in engineering sciences. No offense to Paddy, but it’s time to retire these old white men and fill up the ranks with diverse young talent who are not afraid to shake up the system. Something the team dearly needs after all these years of failures…
ColdFly (@)
15th July 2018, 19:07
Next you’ll ask for a woman to run the team ;s
geargrinder
15th July 2018, 23:15
Saying Mercedes has diversity because they have a black driver is kind of silly. And it is a slam against Lewis, implying he is just making up the numbers.
Lewis earned his position, and so should the engineers, no matter what background they come from.
PMccarthy_is_a_legend (@pmccarthy_is_a_legend)
15th July 2018, 21:08
Paddy has done a very bad job at Williams. The Team has declined significantly under his stewardship. Specifically this year’s car has shown some serious fundamental aerodynamic flaws. He is the technical director and thus in charge of making sure the fundamentals are covered. That clearly hasn’t been the case in the past two years.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
16th July 2018, 0:02
You can’t fix something until you have some idea on how it’s supposed to work! The better your understanding on how something should work the better, cheaper, and quicker your resolution is likely to be. To me, the two people I’d put the most faith in resolving an aerodynamics problem are your team’s aerodynamics expert and their chief designer. Surely those two people are the ones who you’d expect to know more about how the car’s supposed to behave at high speed than anyone else in the team. Even if their design was flawed, they’re still the experts on the behaviour of the car at high speed. So they’re the ones with the most skill in the area in which the FW41 is failing. However, these two were sacked.
So others with less skill will now have the responsibility of trying to fix this car and design next year’s car so it doesn’t perpetuate the mistakes that plague the FW41. Unfortunately, without know what the mistakes are that are detrimental to the car’s performance then one can’t be sure which elements of this year’s car should be carried forward and which ones shouldn’t. I suspect the time taken to resolve this problem will be longer, more expensive, and be less certain to be effective than if Williams had retained the staff they’ve let go.
GeeMac (@geemac)
16th July 2018, 9:42
Has everyone forgotten he is a shareholder? Of course he isn’t worried about his position…
Lancer033 (@lancer033)
16th July 2018, 18:15
so was Ron Dennis and McLaren. I seriously doubt he has a majority share. You can be fired and still maintain your ownership.
I think he’s not worried because 1 year isn’t really enough time too see the effects of changes and every team has a few bad cars in their history.