Comments on: Williams looking at bigger picture

By: Jon

Jon — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 04:57:16 +0000

Sorry James, Sir Frank is neither the oldest Quadriplegic nor the oldest to live… I think in respect to the others you should make this right on your blog! I have been a fan of the team for twenty years and running so this comment is an injustice to the man at the top of the company. It makes F1 look like it lives in a certain bubble that most think it does… BUT I am trying to keep the faith…

By: Med

Med — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:21:18 +0000

Fingers crossed, now that the spend to win era seems to be coming to an end, they could just get back up there; 98 and 99 were pretty much write offs since they lost their works engines and Adrian Newey and were waiting for BMW, but they were respectable. Well, ish – at, or near the front of the rest behind McLaren and Ferrari.

2000, first year with BMW the same.

2001 – better performance, but car too fragile.

2002 – best of the rest, but unless your name was Ferrari there was no point showing up to the races

2003 – slow start to the season, but ended up the fastest car on the grid – came close to winning both titles

2004 – took the fastest car and turned it into a dog with a walrus face

2005 – not sure; I missed that season

2006 onwards, they start pretty quick but fall back through the season; perhaps now they should be on level peggings with dev spending, they might be able to keep up there.

It just seems they’ve been there or thereabouts, just lacking that last little bit of oompf to go for it – they seem to have found more of it this year, so perhaps now the costs are coming down and they have development/set-up experience in Rubens coming over, they could improve over the coming seasons.

It’d be a crying shame for them to go the way of Tyrell

By: Mr G

Mr G — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:02:43 +0000

In today F1 the involvement of an outsider can be seen in 2 ways.
First, the outsider will want something back from his investment
Second, the outsider is only the facade of someone else.
I have been following F1 for more than 20 years and that FW and PH never made a wrong move when it was time to expand or to diversify their interests.
We need to understand that both of them were born to built cars and components, not to sell cars or to have an ego trip on the grid, ie Ferrari, Mercedes, Toyota and Flavio Briatore.
Williams was born to assemble performance cars and F1 is the pinnacle of the motor sport.
In recent years, because they are a medium size private company, they couldn’t afford unlimited budgets such as BAR, Mc Laren, Ferrari, Renault, answering to Elliot, and therefore they couldn’t challenge for titles and pole positions.
But they are a sound company, the core business was and is racing but in recent years, about 10-15, they have develop their research team and therefore they appeal to a number of car related investors.
The company has a solid foundation and it is priced at the right level and they have potential with their research team behind them and don’t forget that the main team has been with the company for few years, no loss of data there!!!!
I believe that, if Audi is behind Toto Wolff, the Germans will be at the forefront of F1 in 5 years time.
I hope my dear Ferrari will be able to compete against German precision.

By: Matt W

Matt W — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:58:15 +0000

Despite Williams having a reputation for ditching world champions in the 90s, it really has been too long since they were a genuine force.

I really hope Frank and Patrick can bring them back to the front. Frank’s story alone is incredible.

By: Med

Med — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:49:58 +0000

James has previously alluded to the tie up with Cosworth leading to something more; perhaps they know something we don’t when it comes to Renault, after all, they cancelled their Toyota contract before it was announced they were pulling out, or perhaps they’re just not too confident they’ll be around for much longer.

Audi could perhaps be interested in teaming up with Williams as a way to look into KERS, which Williams are now developing for commercial use – Williams’ last win was in 2004, which is slightly less than 12 years ago.

By: Segedunum

Segedunum — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:14:58 +0000

Look what happened if he had have sold. BMW would have flushed it down the toilet and they would have folded.

By: Jeff in Ohio, USA

Jeff in Ohio, USA — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:12:06 +0000

Count me as another long-time Williams fan. I fervently hope the Cosworth engine is not an embarrassment in 2010.

I was lucky to meet (however briefly) Sir Frank and Patrick Head at the first USGP at Indianapolis in 2000. Security was almost non-existent on Thursday afternoon. My brother and I, along with a couple of dozen other fans, were able to wander the infield at will, even walking on the back straight of the F1 circuit. We eventually ended up at the gate where team members exited the paddock to reach their rental cars. There we met and acquired autographs from a score of F1 drivers and other luminaries. It was a great day!

By: S2K

S2K — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:29:50 +0000

I think he did good not to sell then. For the sport at least. It will be one of the saddest day in Formula 1 when there will be no Williams cars on the grid. Old Papa Frank is just one of the last few remaining Mohicans in F1, a true racer.

By: Ariel

Ariel — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:24:20 +0000

I’m afraid he just wasn’t in the mood. Otherwise, he uses wheelchair gloves just for fashion, and this pic captures a miracle floating paralyzed arm:
http://www.formula1.com/photos/597×478/sutton/2007/d07esp1590.jpg

And ee was using wheelchair gloves this year, for the FOTA meeting at Flavio’s boat in Montecarlo.

If you look on Google, you’ll find lots of pictures where Frank Williams is shown using his arms to move his wheelchair.

By: Rudy Pyatt

Rudy Pyatt — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:04:33 +0000

A very interesting move, and good on Sir Frank and (should be?) Sir Patrick. They certainly deserve to get some profit out of all their work. It’s a very, very shrewd move for other reasons, not least the possible tie-up with Audi. But there are even greater implications to that.

With the new smaller displacement engine proposals, there is congruence here. So much so, that I wonder whether or not there’s FIA coordination in the background. F2 uses turbo 4-cylinders, Audis in fact. More, Audi, Fiat, Volkswagen and several others are heavily involved in the new Indycar formula – interestingly enough, due to take effect about the same time as the new F1. And that’s going to be a turbo formula. See the last paragraph of this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IndyCar_Series

Note the cost containment elements of the Indycar proposals; the continued use of fuel grade ethanol, already in use and putting Indycar ahead of F1 in terms of “right here, right now” “green” credentials; and the use of an equivalency formula to match injected V6 engines against turbocharged fours. (FYI, the NHRA has long matched supercharged against fuel injected non-supercharged racers in it’s Top Alcohol class).

What I’m sensing here is a move toward the “World Formula” model that the CSI mooted for 1970, in that case an unsupercharged 4 litre limit for F1, USAC and sportscars. The proposal failed, ironically enough, because US racing at the time offered more technology, speed and money than F1 (not my opinion, but that of Denis Jenkinson; Motorsport reprinted his column on this a few years back and it stuck in my mind) and the Americans voted against it. Economic, marketing and environmental issues being what they are, it looks like it’ll happen this time.

Williams has just taken a big, subtle step to get ahead of that game.