F1 2019 (spoilers obviously)

Speculation about Paddy Lowes future at Williams. But if they sack him, where else would they get a world championship winning technical director from? I love Williams having seen Mansell at Silverstone in 1992, and really want them to do well, but presumably they are only going to be running car at testing?

Vettel is already 2 seconds faster than the fastest day one time from last year’s first test.

There was snow on the ground at the first day of testing last year, conditions can make a big difference to the lap times.

you do wonder how much longer Claire Williams will keep her job.

Not a fantastic start for Williams 🙁

I watched that documentary too and have more respect for Claire but there is no doubt the team is not performing and are falling behind more and more every year. I don’t know enough of what’s happening so don’t know if its just a money thing or lack of technical leadership or lack of overall leadership that is the issue. Either way I think something needs to change to turn them around.

Sad to see Mac and Williams doing so badly in recent times. They must have some of the best track records of any teams in F1. Hopefully they can both turn things around soon and start challenging for wins again.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ferrari-new-rules-cars-slower/4339041/

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ferrari-new-rules-cars-slower/4339041/

So 1.5 seconds slower at the start of the development programme – when the first of their 2019 models hit the windtunnel. That was ages ago. They will have recovered most if not all of that by now. Come the first race of the year the cars will not be 1.5 seconds slower than at the same point last year. Any that are may as well pack up and go home.

It’s hear say so take it with a large spoonful of salt but…

I’ve spoken with three Williams personnel (two are trackside, one is factory based) and here are the facts about missing T1:

Parts were ‘released’ too late to be manufactured on-time and that’s the only reason we’re missing T1 D1. The missing parts are composite so they are possibly suspension or bodywork related but I wasn’t told exactly…and didn’t ask. When she/he said the parts were not ‘released’, they mean the part was not approved and sent out as a full scale model which is then taken to the composite laminators or machining group for manufacture.
Overall morale in the team is “low af”. “We’re being worked like dogs, treated like shit, and HR is a **** joke”
“We’re often wondering who’s in charge around here”

Williams insider – "missing testing is purely from waiting too long to release parts…and" from formula1

Funnily enough, there’s a chap in my village who has some connection with Williams – he’s friends with the son of a former Williams driver. He told me that apparently the car was still unbuilt (at least it was a fortnight ago)…I dismissed this as exaggeration, but it would seem that he’s right.

To put the rumours into context I have a friend who had worked at Mercedes HPE in Brixworth. Just before the first tests of the hybrid era his contacts told him that they’d barely managed to get a single pu running on the dyno, let alone a couple of team’s worth in their cars. We all know how that worked out.

I can see that happening, but nonetheless it seems unlikely they’d miss a days shakedown and a days testing if they were anywhere near ready?

Make that two days of testing they’re missing…

They don’t make it easy to be a fan. The fw36 was a good car, then since then they’ve just gone backwards every year. 😣

Oops, Albon parks it in the gravel 4 corners into his F1 career. That’s got to be a record, surely?

Nice to see McLaren putting some decent laps and times in. On one of the slower compound tyres too.

Yes, I’m wondering what the chances are of Alonso changing his mind on retirement if the Mac turns out to be remotely decent.

We have an F1 rookie in a McLaren with today’s fourth fasted laptime and third in the lap count standings. The time was set on second hardest (C2) tyres, Giovinazzi’s third place time was set on the second softest (C4) tyres. Hmmm…

Obviously a seasoned F1 watcher pays little heed to testing, but I’m allowed a little hope.

Same here – Merc and Red Bull are still the new boys to me! McLaren where my childhood team.

Also hoping Williams have found a massive loop-hole in the regs and do a ‘Brawn’! 🙂

Norris is second fastest on the softer tyre!

#ItsOnlyTesting 😉

Looks like Williams will get the car to Barcelona tomorrow morning but it’ll be a good result if they do more than a couple of installation laps in the afternoon.

I wander if Merc are sandbagging.

Of course, last year Merc weren’t terribly quick in testing but won both titles. That’s why reading too much into testing is a fool’s errand…but c’mon McLaren!

Deliberating over test times is the most exciting part of the season – it’s be rude not to!

Williams have made it to Barcelona, then & are beavering away to get a car out on track this afternoon! Fingers crossed.

Excellent! It would be great to see McLaren mixing it up near the front.

I really do hope things improve for Williams, sad to see them where they are.

So the Williams is ready to drive. How many laps until it implodes? I say twenty two.

2

Quite excited by the Williams as they seem to have gone for the most extreme upwash front wing, against the “straight through” front wings of Ferrari, alfa, torro rosso etc, but with a massive outwash vane on the top element, paired with a cut out in the endplate.

Just hope that they’ve got a solution that works on their car, and not one that has been tried and rejected by the other teams.

I’m also hoping that the incomplete aero package is the reason they’re about 5seconds off the day 1 best times…

It’s notable how (apparently) reliable everything’s been so far. A couple of gremlins here and there, but that’s what testing is for – certainly nothing like the McHonda woes of a few years back. Of course we don’t know whether one of the teams has been doing a full engine and gearbox change every night.

Hopefully Williams was all about systems checks today, the sort of work most teams do on their “filming days”.

Reliability?…

Horner denies reports of vibration problems with Honda power unit

I’ve also heard the Mercedes engine is very powerful, but fragile. Not meeting targets for how long it needs to last.

I’ve also heard the Mercedes engine is very powerful, but fragile.

they managed 174 laps today

The fact that the car is built is nothing short of miraculous, I suspect that most of the team have pulled all-nighters for days.

Today seemed to be a series of installation laps, the onus is going to be on making sure that nothing is loose and that they won’t lose yet more track time to silly stuff (the sort of things that befell McLaren last year). I did see a clip of Russell catching a slide mid-corner (I forget which), it seemed an odd place for the car to let go.

I won’t read much into today’s Williams laptimes given the above, but the same source who told me that the car wouldn’t be ready also said that the team was WAY behind with the schedule of planned upgrades – the car is pretty much a placeholder until meaningful aero updates appear at around race sixteen. Yep, I was incredulous too, I’m not entirely convinced but the guy was bang on about the strife within the team and the late car. We’ll see what happens.

*idle speculation*
It seems plausible to me that Williams’ had already started on the 2019 car early in 2018 but the sacking of Dirk De Beer at the end of May last year meant that the team were forced to restart development with a clean sheet of paper. During early Sept 2017, McLaren ditched Honda and had to design the MCL33 around the Renault engine at the very last minute – we saw some fundamental problems during testing last year. Williams have also had to understand why the FW41 was a dud and to try to avoid those conceptual mistakes in the new car.

So to summarise, this year could well be a write-off. I hope that I’m proved wrong.

Love the detail on the Renault rear wing…

El ala posterior del Renault RS19. Aprovechan los cortes de la platina lateral para empujar el flujo hacai arriba. pic.twitter.com/A6hLEhy0GA

— Albert Fabrega (@AlbertFabrega) February 19, 2019

they managed 174 laps today

…not quite 7 race weekends though!

I did say apparently reliable – impressive lap counts for most pu’s so far – but we don’t know what goes on in the garages or how much they can push the performance.

Close

Sheeeetttt!!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/formula1/47174887?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=5c6e93178534010677b84033%26Oh%20Lewis…%262019-02-21T12%3A01%3A28.756Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:ccb82b53-2fb3-4de6-8c54-81836321f83f&pinned_post_asset_id=5c6e93178534010677b84033&pinned_post_type=share

So that’s it for the first test. What do we think we know?

Ferrari looking strong, but they have a habit of doing that at the start of the season

Merc looking slow but they never crank up the ponies in testing

Redbull surprisingly trouble free on the track, and pace is competitive with the midfield at least

Sauber Romeo doing a better job with ferrari gear than Haas

Mclaren waay better than last year, in the midfield mix

Williams still struggling to pull together a complete car, and off the pace

Renault and torro rossi flattering to deceive

Haas hiding in plain sight

Racing point seemingly a step behind the midfield, or just taking a leaf from the Mercedes playbook?

Any more?

What do we think we know?

Not very much, really.
Ferrari seem fast, likely to be in top two over the year.

Merc have a new engine. At this stage they won’t have tried qualifying mode so they will obviously have a lot of pace left to show, but so will Ferrari too. Likely to be in top two over the year.

Red Bull, Renault, and McLaren seem to have decent basic cars and the resources to keep developing through the year, so they should fill out positions three to five. No idea how the Honda and Renault engines will compare in qualifying mode and reliability wise, so bit of a lottery really. Renault have a very strong driver pairing, two drivers who reliably collect points. Not clear if Max has the psychological stability to keep his shit together for a whole season.

Williams seem certain to finish last. The others a bit of a lottery, but probably Torro Rosso 9th because of the Honda engine.

Merc don’t look slow, there were sizeable lift-offs seen in the last sector

The new McLarens on fire!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/47336403

Any predictions for the next 4 days then?

Williams to find some pace?  Merc to unload the sandbags and set a time?  Honda to finally go pop?

At least they’ve all stayed on the black stuff for the first 5 mins today.