Williams FW41

The British squad has gone aggressive with a 2018 design that features notable ideas that were seen on the Formula 1 field-leading Mercedes and Ferrari cars in 2017. Will this approach help Williams rise up the grid?

Williams has taken a very aggressive approach towards its car, which has a completely different aerodynamic philosophy. With Paddy Lowe joining from Mercedes and Dirk de Beer from Ferrari early last year, it’s easy to see an influence from the approach that Ferrari took in 2017 and the car also incorporates some ideas from Mercedes.

I would classify the philosophy change as one of ‘downforce solves all problems’. That includes getting the tyres to work and last longer, so it’s time to forget the very aero-efficient recent Williams cars and concentrate on downforce.

All in all, it looks a major step forward from last year’s Williams challenger. When you put together a package of ideas from other cars it’s always difficult to get the best from them, so Williams will need to hope that its two relatively inexperienced drivers – Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin – will be able to keep their cool during testing.

FRONT WING

This is the normal multi-element package with a very short-chord leading main plane. All of this is to control the front-wing airflowseparation problems when the wing gets close to the ground at speed.

Under the nose, Williams has incorporated the Mercedes snowplough (or duck bill) that tidies up the airflow as it comes around the sides of the nose to help the bargeboards. By the look of the exit duct on the top of the nose, Williams has also incorporated an ‘S’ duct with its inlet on the underside of the nose. This helps to pull greater mass airflow through the centre section of the nose and wing-mounting pillar area, feeding more flow to the bargeboards.

FRONT SUSPENSION

The front suspension is reasonably conventional, with a top and bottom wishbone and inboard suspension units operated by pushrods. But, in the interests of aerodynamics, the suspension geometry has been compromised by having the inboard wishbone pick-ups mounted very high on the chassis. This may lead to a compromised tyre-contact patch under braking and at low speed.

Behind the front wheels is where it gets a bit more interesting, with the Ferrari-style short sidepods allowing much more space for the bargeboard package. This requires a different approach to the side-impact structures, so structurally the chassis will be fairly different.

HALO

The halo integrates quite well, but on a modern-day Formula 1 car it looks a bit retro. It looks like it should have been around when F1 cars were using spaceframe chassis! But if it saves a life it will have done its job.

The engine-cover fin is reduced in area, as per the regulations, but I think we all knew it wouldn’t take long before a T-wing of some sort made an appearance and here it is. It’s smaller, lower and not as ugly as last year’s example, so we should be thankful.

As you can imagine, with the airflow coming around the engine cover and over the tops of the sidepods, the flow is not very uniform and this T-wing is there to optimise the direction of that airflow to the undersurface of the rear wing.

SIDEPODS/BARGEBOARDS

The actual bargeboard package appears to be a combination of what Ferrari and Mercedes ran last year. The lower parts are more Mercedes, and the upper and outer components are more Ferrari.

The delta fin coming from the chassis to the upper part of the outer bargeboard will be there to control the wake coming off the trailing edge of the front wing. Again, all these components are there to pull as much mass airflow from under the front of the raised chassis as possible to improve the performance of the front wing and the underfloor.

The sidepods themselves are very curvaceous and look like they wrap all the internal components very tightly. I would imagine that extra cooling exits may appear when we get to circuits where temperatures are an issue. It’s very easy to compromise the cooling package, especially when pre-season testing is carried out at a fairly cool location in early-year Barcelona.

The sidepod undercut and raised inlet area again are very aggressive. This allows more airflow through to the upper surface of the diffuser and the lower surface of the rear wing, and reduces the car’s overall cross section, which in turn reduces the overall drag.

DIFFUSER

The diffuser is the maximum height and width allowed in the regulations, with a gurney flap along the upper trailing edge. The outer vertical double turning vanes are there to turn the airflow as much as possible to connect it to the low-pressure area behind the rear tyres. If you can get the rear of the car all working as one, then the increase in underfloor downforce is significant.

The multitude of turning vanes in the diffuser are there to help turn that airflow outward, but also to control the areas of diffuser stall when the car gets near the ground. Managing this inevitable aerodynamic stall and making sure the airflow reattaches as the rear rideheight increases is critical, otherwise the driver will lack confidence when they brake.