The Williams greatest-hits package
There is now influence from Mercedes and Ferrari, but for F1’s ‘small big’ team even standing still in 2018 could be regarded as a success
Since catapulting up to third in the constructors’ championship in 2014 with the help of a switch to Mercedes propulsion, it has been a case of diminishing returns for Williams. Third – with 80% of the points of the previous season – in ’15; fifth in ’16; fifth in ’17 with fewer points… the pattern is clear. Formula 1 car launches are always steeped in optimism. But to predict even a levelling off of the Williams decline, let alone a revival based on something more tangible, there must be cogent reason to expect the trend to reverse. With a budgetary chasm to F1’s big beasts, and reason to expect Mclaren and Renault will take strides forward this year, Williams faces a tough task this year even to stand still.
But this trajectory could change with a car that is, in many ways, a fusion of the best of Mercedes and Ferrari conceptually.
This is the first Williams designed and produced entirely under the technical leadership of former Mercedes and
Mclaren man Paddy Lowe. That’s significant, even if the days when a grand prix car could entirely reflect one individual’s vision have long passed.
“I’m very pleased with what we’ve been able to do with this car,” says Lowe. “It’s the first step I hope on the road to moving ourselves further up the grid and the result of strong collaboration across the different departments to put together some big steps that we’ve made – some of which are visible, some of which aren’t.”
While the first of the 2018 cars to be revealed – the Haas VF-18 – offered no surprises, the new Williams is more attention-grabbing, and is likely to be even more so when the full aerodynamic complexity is revealed in the testing spec.
“We have the benefit of bringing a number of people together who have come from other teams to add to the existing team, which already had some strong players,” Lowe says. “When we put that all together, we were able to make some progress I would describe as more of a step change than evolution. A good example, which is visible, is the aerodynamic design and the philosophy behind that. What you see is a result of strong collaboration between the different groups within engineering. Aerodynamics can be seen as an aerodynamic problem, but it’s delivered through a contribution from all across the company, and not just from the aerodynamics department.”
Which is where Lowe comes in. His predecessor at
Williams, Pat Symonds, described the chief technical officer as the conductor of the orchestra – and that’s exactly what Lowe is. And when it comes to getting the different groups within the company working together, that’s precisely where he should have a big impact.
It does appear that the dials have been moved a little to emphasise aero performance, a metaphor that oversimplifies but does encapsulate the need to ensure the objectives are set correctly to exploit the areas where performance can be delivered. In recent years, Williams has lagged behind F1’s big teams in terms of aerodynamic complexity. Downforce, delivered consistently, produces lap time, and can help with areas such as tyre use where Williams has also struggled at times in the V6-hybrid era.
Crucially, this is another area of change. Lowe mentioned that Williams had recruited from rival teams, and Dirk de
Beer’s arrival as head of aero is significant. Previously at
Ferrari, de Beer was one of the largely unsung heroes of the Enstone Lotus team’s race-winning exploits of 2012-13, and he has played a key role in improving collaboration between departments as well as impacting aero.
“There is increased complexity,” says Lowe. “You may not see it now, but the 2017 regulations permitted far more opportunity in the bargeboard area and we’ve seen a lot of growth of complexity in that space, and that continues this year, certainly on our car. Dirk started in March last year, the same as me, and has made a very big difference to that department, giving the right kind of focus and leadership to take them forward. A lot of what we’ve achieved on the car is down to what Dirk has brought within aerodynamics.”
But while the aero detail, which around the sidepods shows some of the conceptual thinking that was at play at Ferrari, is eye-catching, inevitably the halo is the first thing you spot. There has been plenty of grumbling on the impact this has on the car design, more in structural terms than in the inevitable impact on aero. But as Lowe points out, it’s also an area that gives some teams the opportunity to do it better than others.
“That’s been a fairly significant project to deliver, principally around the structural requirements,” he says. “It has to carry some fairly significant loads and that’s required some very hard work within the structures groups. The opportunity for differentiation would be around the mounting requirements, the loads it has to take that I mentioned. There is a small aerodynamic impact, which we can mitigate to some extent with some small shrouds, but even so it’s not going to be a big factor from team to team. The biggest opportunity is how much weight do you have to spend that you didn’t spend in the past?”
It’s clear even to the untrained eye that Williams has achieved the step change Lowe has described, although only time will tell whether that translates into performance. And there are some key problems that needed to be addressed for a team that has
been on the slide. Lowe cites improving consistency, performing well across a range of circuits, as critical.
A Formula 1 car is a virtuous circle, with strengths in each area multiplying that of others. That’s why saying that the focus is on aerodynamics is an oversimplification given, as Lowe stresses, aero is not only about aero. But with last year’s change in regulations, it’s clear that downforce has become yet more significant. And while Lowe doesn’t get into whether Williams has perhaps not focused enough on this area in previous years, this appears to be the logical interpretation of what he does say.
“Aerodynamics has certainly increased in its relative effect on your competitiveness – and by intention,” says Lowe.
“The regulations were designed for the first time to increase downforce rather than decrease it, and that’s changed the performance balance between aerodynamics and other factors like tyres and engines and brakes and so on. I can’t comment on things that went before, I can only comment on the decisions we’ve made as a technical team to move ourselves to a better place, and we’ll have to see how effective those are. We think we’re going in the right direction.”
Williams is in the middle of an infamously uneven playing field, and its days as one of the big-spending giants are behind it. It’s competing against a midfield pack that includes Force India, which has a similar budget but smaller facilities, and pioneered the striking up of technical partnerships with other teams to receive components such as gearboxes.
This is a direction Williams has eschewed, and continues to do so. Williams is a small big team, whereas Force India is a big small team – and the swapping of those two words makes all the difference. Lowe is quick to point to the historic success of Williams. This approach could either prove to be wise long-term planning, or a hubristic refusal to bow to the realities of a changing landscape.
“It would be a relatively easy decision to abandon a number of areas of the car that could be purchased as permitted from other manufacturers, but that puts us into a different context and maybe not one that is correct for the long-term ambitions of the team,” says Lowe. “If you look at 2017, it would appear that Force India had a better philosophy: concentrate on fewer things and do them better. But we’re here to change that and take ourselves forward. We can concentrate on the right things but still leave ourselves positioned as a full constructor. That gives us the basis to mount championship campaigns in the future.”
Whenever a new car is launched, the obvious question is ‘what are the targets?’ Few teams can set rigid targets in terms of results, certainly not those in Williams’s position, so Lowe has a clear idea of what he wants to see from the team over the coming year.
“I’d like to be performing, at least in lap time, an awful lot closer to the front,” says Lowe. “We were between two and two and a half seconds off the front last year, and that’s not where
we want to be. I’d like that gap to be considerably closed down. If there are others in that space and we don’t make up position championship-wise, that will be what it is, but we want to make progress towards the front from a lap time point of view.
“I’d also like to see us exploit that car strongly and get the points that it’s capable of delivering with its performance. So that will be great teamwork, good work from the drivers, good consistency and reliability to score the points that we can. We can do a much better job of that than we did in 2017.”
Whatever happens, things have changed at Williams technically. The stopwatch will decide whether it’s for the better. And given how congested the midfield could be, and the question marks over the driver line-up (see right), a few tenths here or there could make a huge difference to where it stands in the pecking order.