Comments on: Williams announces Cosworth deal, driver news to follow

By: Werewolf

Werewolf — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:36:47 +0000

Back from hols!

I remember being disappointed when Williams dropped Cosworth for Toyota. Although the Cosworth was not the most reliable engine, its potential seemed considerable and I thought Williams had made an error in not helping to develop that.

Preferred partner status should be beneficial to that of mere customer, so assuming that is what Williams has signed up to, the Cosworth deal makes sense, especially over Toyota who, with the best will in the world, have consistently under performed per dollar.

By: Carl M

Carl M — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:17:47 +0000

hopefully this time they will have the necessary power otherwise they will be going backwards after an alright season.

By: Robin Capper

Robin Capper — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:02:34 +0000

So Toyota are pulling out…

By: Cliff

Cliff — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:10:46 +0000

Stephen, as James says, the KERS Flywheel has been in development for a number of years. Crucilaly for Williams an number of Bus and Commercial Vehicle Manufacturers have expressed an interest in the concept. The technology may also be transferable to trains. My understanding is that no-one has dismissed Williams ideas. If Williams makes their KERS Flywheel work, busses and similar vehicles will use this technology, because of the reduced emmisions and it keeps the ‘Geen Lobby’ happy. With Governments trying to get us out of our cars and on to public transport, Frank may have got the jump on the others this time.

By: Ross Dixon

Ross Dixon — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 07:52:50 +0000

That sounds very interesting. I would be interested to hear if teams had looked into that. I think its a shame about KERS. All they would have to do to make it worthwhile is make it unlimited. If someone can make their system more efficient at transfering energy into stored power then they should get a good advantage. At the moment Mclaren’s system may be able to store enough energy per lap to be used at 100bhp for 10 seconds but under the rules they can only use 80bhp for 7. So instead of trying to make the system even more efficient and powerful (which could then be used for more fuel savings in road cars) they are just trying to take weight out of their system. I can’t wait for smaller engines but with much bigger KERS gains in a few years. Then we will be back to technological developments in engine technology again, something F1 has missed over the last few years.

By: James Allen

James Allen — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 04:20:14 +0000

They have a very aggressive car design for next year but the delay in deciding the engine is going to cost them soon. They really want to run Mercedes, but the rules do not allow it at present and none of the Mercedes teams are dropping out.

By: Darren

Darren — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:50:51 +0000

im a big big fan of frank, other than Lotus this is the team that mean more, fiat and the other multi billion $ companys come and go but frank is the man,

good luck for next year frank,

By: Martin

Martin — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:51:28 +0000

Frank’s reading of the driver market is interesting, although I could be reading too much into it. I guess we can ignore Sutil at Force India as it isn’t doesn’t have the Mercedes investment that Brawn and McLaren have, although the McLaren B-team factor makes it a 40 per cent Mercedes B-team.

There has been speculation on this site as to where Heidfeld will end up. Compared to Rosberg, Heidfeld has the advantage in having had a highly regarded team mate in Kubica. Rosberg hasn’t had to deal with a team mate beating him since his first season, so there is there is an area of doubt in how he needs to be be managed if he has a quicker team mate, which is not unlikely if it is Hamilton or Button.

Where Kovalainen ends up is another unknown. I think he might end up as the senior driver at one of the new teams.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:49:29 +0000

If Williams-F1 do make this change to technology focused F1+other thats great. Clearly taking the lead from McLaren, it can only help them, even if it takes a while.

That said, I think flywheel technology is bogus – too many gyroscopic effects to be useful, quite apart from it being a kinetic energy bomb should it fail.

So far we’ve only seen two KERs solutions:
1) KERS:battery
2) KERS:flywheel

That surprises me. Why haven’t we seen
KERS:compressed air?

You’re probably thinking “what the $%&^”. Well the reason I mention it is that both battery and flywheel options carry around a chunk of deadweight (battery, flywheel) and the flywheel, as it stores more energy, increases its unfortunate gyroscopic effect on the car (this may turn out to be a good thing, depending on how its integrated into the car, but for now I’m assuming it will be a bad thing).

There is a “green” car that was announced some time ago that runs on compressed air. It could travel quite some distance on one “charge” of compressed air and of course it didn’t have the downside of a heavy raft of batteries for the electric car equivalent.

So if you had a KERS that compressed air, you could compress quite a lot of air, not increase the car weight too much (compressing more air into a given volume will increase weight) and you should be able to release it in a sufficient manner to add more power.

Plus, once discharged, the compressed air KERS weighs its minimum amount.

So, James, has compressed air been discussed by anyone and discarded? Or they didn’t even get around to considering it.

By: F1 Kitteh

F1 Kitteh — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:02:54 +0000

It looks like Sir Frank’s foresight will ensure that Williams will thrive for years to come, couldn’t be happier for them! They have turned the corner with the end of manufacturer era and the resource capping should in theory be beneficial for the ‘smaller’ teams ? Hopefully they will come up with a winner next year to show all the kiddies who thinks he is just a whiny old man that objects to everything for the sake of it.