Nicholas Latifi, Williams, Circuit de Catalunya, 2020

Williams “frustrated” by Mercedes power unit problems

2020 F1 season

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Williams deputy team principal Claire Williams admitted she feels “frustrated” how much running the team has lost due to problems outside of its control.

[f1tv2020testa]The team changed to its third different Mercedes power unit it four days yesterday. “We’ve had some engine problems which has been a little frustrating,” she said in response to a question from RaceFans.

“We’re on our third engine issue now, which has obviously cost us quite a lot of track time, which is unfortunate. I suppose it’s what can happen in testing and I suppose at least it’s not our issue that something’s gone wrong with the car.

“Apart from that, it’s gone well. We’re covering the run programme as far as we can with the limited mileage that we’ve got. So I would be happier if we had several miles under our belt I suppose.”

A problem was discovered with the MGU-H on the team’s power unit last Thursday. Mercedes are still looking into the cause of their Friday stoppage. Yesterday an oil system fault brought Nicholas Latifi’s morning run to an early end.

Williams said the team has lost much less time due to other problems. “There was a sensor issue on Friday morning that obviously was our issue,” she said. “That put us off the track for probably half an hour or something like that.”

The team missed out on more than two days of running in pre-season test last year after failing to complete its car in time. Williams said the loss of running this year meant they were running behind with their test programme ahead of the start of the season.

“I think everyone’s probably a little frustrated because we’ve obviously got, as every team will when you’ve only got six days running, a very full programme to get through. And when you lose the number of kilometres that we’ve lost, it is frustrating because it just means you can’t prepare as best as you would like to do ahead of going to Melbourne and you have to sacrifice certain parts of your program in favour of others and obviously we wanted to do the full program.

“But it is what it is and we’ve just got to get on with it and hope that we don’t have any further issues in the next two days and we can get as many laps in with George [Russell] and Nicholas on Thursday and Friday as possible, set us up in the best possible way for Melbourne.”

At the end of yesterday’s running Williams had put 2,001 kilometres on its FW43, the least of any team besides Haas.

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16 comments on “Williams “frustrated” by Mercedes power unit problems”

  1. How typical of such a massive concern – Williams is clearly getting only scraps since they’re trying to remain a legitimate constructor. Not interesting at all for Mercedes from monetary perspective.

    1. Wait… you think that because Williams are remaining independent, and not giving Merc as much non monetary value, that Merc are providing their engines at cost??? Surely they are either a legitimate constructor, and a massive profit for Merc, or they are not a legitimate constructor and no profit but give benefit in other, more dubious ways?

      1. I think Mercedes is very interesting to keep their name so those engines are the same as their own. But that is testing for to discover what can fault the engine…

        It can be the cooling as Williams have their radiators higher then the other teams.

      2. petebaldwin (@)
        27th February 2020, 9:15

        I think he’s referring to Williams only buying engines Mercedes rather than last year’s car but I don’t believe Mercedes are giving them inferior equipment. It’s either bad luck or something to do with how everything is packaged in the Williams.

        1. @petebaldwin It would make sense for Mercedes to give customers more aggressively tuned engines for pre-testing. Then the customer finds the limit of the engine, while the Mercedes team has low risk of problems.

  2. During the racing season PU allocation to teams is supposed to be random.
    I wonder if this is also the case during testing. Or can Mercedes give the weaker units to others or maybe test some more experimental stuff through them?

    1. @coldfly There are no rules. Season regs don’t apply at this point – the teams and suppliers can run anything. It only starts applying during Qualifying in Melbourne.

      1. thank you, @optimaximal.
        Let’s not hope Merc PU is using Williams as an easy testbed.

  3. Suspicious.

  4. I was very surprised to hear Claire Williams make this admission,

    “..One of the biggest differences too is the build quality that has changed dramatically from this time last year and that has been really great to see bringing in a car that is in really great shape that comes out of the box at a very high standard which we should be proud of at Williams…”

    How can a former top F1 team drop the ball as badly as Williams. I think it’s an indication of the poor relationships that have been created over the years of constant cycling of employees at the factory. Who wants to work for a company where the owners are at war with each other?

    1. I guess the writers on this blog were surprised too and then removed it.

      Still why does it need to be a sign of a war between oweners? She said they have put fixes in place to improve their process. One of those would most likely be better QA throughout. Resulting in a better quality product now.

  5. One of the major problem with last year´s car was cooling, and it would not surprise me the least if that´s the case now too. Remember that they were about to launch the car by using renders on-line, which usually is a sign that a team is late with their car. They did however not do the online render thingy (to my knowledge) and we got to see the car on a “filming day” instead, if my memory serves me well. But they where certainly was in a rush to finish the car and hence that, there could be a cooling problem among others. And besides that, most teams find things during testing that they need to sort out before the season starts.

    1. Suffering Williams Fan
      27th February 2020, 18:53

      I think last season they had too much cooling, not too little.

  6. Lol, there´s almost always spelling, grammar or wording disaster(s) in my post´s/reply´s. We, (well at least I do) need an Edit button Keith. :)

  7. Sounds like a William’s specific installation problem.

    1. My thinking too.
      The Mercedes engine and gearbox has gone through all kinds of stress analysis during design and manufacture.
      The Mercedes engine and Williams gearbox combination hasn’t gone through as much detailed design and testing.
      And then we have the Williams specific cooling installation.
      A lot that can go wrong

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