Williams F1

he isn’t anything special but the family money should keep Williams afloat and I hope Williams gets their act straight over the next few years , it would be nice to see them at least somewhat competitive.

 

Hey, the 2020 Williams chassis passed the crash tests, this year is already better than last!

 

Based on 2019 the Williams cars shouldn't even be allowed on the grid. Their cars are nothing but a hazard to the other drivers. Losing them would mean the spectators wouldn't have to endure that sight of two cars that aren't even racing.

 

they qualified within the 7% rule, so they were on the grid

 

But yeah, last year was terrible! Watching them fight each other at the back of the pack in Austin...well, for the drivers it's got to be frustrating, but they're still in F1.

 

Who wants a field of 18 cars? 20 is already missing four to six.

 

Give them some slack. The car can't get worse, Russell is delivering and Latifi brings money and I doubt he'll be slower than an old and rusty Kubica.

 

I’m with you on this one.

I have a soft spot for the team and hope they get back to fighting in the mid field. Realistically nobody else is going to challenge the top three teams!!!

I’ve got a lot of time for Russell, he is leaps and bounds better than the spoilt brat Stroll ever was or will be. At least he behaves with integrity and doesn’t throw his team under the bus.

it will take them some time to get there and I bet they will be putting more effort into 21 than 20 due to the rule change and the opportunity to get ahead do to speak! So I’m not expecting much from 20, but hopefully they will close the gap!!!

 

I'm guessing you didn't watch F1 in the past. There have been many 'glory days', mostly based on when you first got into F1. For me it was 79-94. That time is loved by many for the variety of cars, teams and quality of racing. The second half of the grid was often outside the current 107% rule. Many people, myself included, love to root for the underdog. Teams like Zakspeed, Osela, Rial, Spirit, AGS etc. were some of my favorite teams to root for.

 

Lots more diversity in those days, more technical freedom, different concepts allowed, etc ...
I miss that era too.

 

... and Ayrton Senna virtually winning a rainy Monaco GP with a Toleman-Hart

 

My underdog team was always Leyton House

 

Ha!

'60-'79.

Then it became staple commercial.

 

Some say Stephan Bellof was catching him, and "could" have won.
But he got killed in sportscars, and became a footnote in F1, whilst Senna became famous.

 

Getting back to Williams I believe that it is pretty amazing that they are achieving what they do with the financial resources at their disposal. Yes it is not good enough to get them off of the back row but from a pace perspective they are not miles off either. Modern F1 is so much more competitive down the field than it ever was and to call them an embarrassment is not correct.

In the late 80's-early 90's it was not uncommon for the top two cars to be 2 seconds clear of the rest of the field. Prior to the 107% rule you would find cars that were 10 seconds or more off the pace. I remember at Hockenheim once the Life F1 cars were 100kph slower down the straight to the McLaren and some 300+ hp down on power. Nowadays the whole field is some 2 seconds apart and, given the much greater complexities of a modern F1 car, it is a small miracle that Williams is as close as it is.

Regardless we do live in the present and it would be nice to see Williams bounce back. My personal opinion is the Claire Williams is regrettably just not up to the job and has been given plenty of time to show her potential. 2020 will be much of the same with potential optimism if they can keep the doors open to 2021. As for Latifi I think he will be a disappointment and blown away by Russell. He has way too many seasons in GP2/F2 , has never been stellar leading up to F1, and has even more cash at his disposal than Stroll so there are no excuses there. My prediction is that Latifi (despite his money) will have a short and not to memorable F1 career much like Palmer had.

 

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I was there.

 

Bellof was indeed catching Senna. Bellof would have been the Schumacher of F1 before there was a MS.

 

Agreed. But then, and back to the thread title...remember the emergence of Williams in 1978 -1979? Frank was always considered as some kind of an w.nker, until he got everything sorted out, with Patrick Head and the FW06 in 1978, then the FW07 in 1979. Remember the second half of 1979, when the FW07, with Alan Jones at the wheel, obliterated the opposition? Considering what this same team gives us to see now...what a shame.

Rgds

 

Yes: agreed, he WAS catching Senna, no question about that. BUT: as for its potential...the potential was there indeed, but it's open to speculation; he would have needed to be in the right team at the right time...and it wasn't; so, who knows?

Rgds

 

You could have said the same for Senna when he was pedaling the overweight Toleman "General Belgrano".
Senna really started to shine when he joined Lotus one of the top team then.

Had Bellof been able to move up the ranks, some said he had talent and could have gone much further, just like Senna did.

 

Williams started to do well as a team once they got strong financial backing from Arabian sponsors (Abdilad ?), enabling them to build a winning car.
The recipe is always the same: you need lots of money to succeed in F1.
Money buys your top engineers, wind tunnel time, complex simulation programmes, plenty of testing (in those days), the best technicians, etc ...

 

Talent was there, no question about it. But...
Seems to me that, out of the blue: it was Derek Bell (??) who told the people at Porsche to "calm him down, otherwise a nasty accident will happen..." They didn't, and it did.
And Bellof was good at Monaco '84, no question about it, but nevertheless he wasn't given a better opportunity for 1985 than to drive for Tyrrell...why is that so, it's open to speculation.

That's all I know. The rest: what height he could have reached, etc... is only speculation

Rgds

 

If I remember rightly, Bellof made its mark in F2 winning a few races with Maurer, a small constructor sponsored by a soft frink company.
He had already ambition to move to F1, but hardly any team would have recruited an unknown German driver then.
So he signed a contract with the Porsche factory, which partly allowed him to buy a seat at Tyrrell.
Bellof won the World Sportscar Championship with Porsche, but felt restricted by the terms of his contract, to move up in F1.
He resigned from Porsche System, signed for Walter Brun's private team in endurance (running Porsche) that was giving him more freedom to do GPs.
The Tyrrell was hardly a winning car, but at least it was a foot up the ladder as they say.
Out of the factory team, Bellof was now racing against the works team, often bettering the factory drivers who must have felt the humiliation perhaps.
The accident that took his life at Spa has to be seen in that contest.
Jacky Ickx driving a factory Porsche 962 was ahead of Stephan Bellof on a private Porsche 962 who was catching him.
Ickx was more experienced, but Bellof faster and more daring; there was intense rivalry between the 2 teams.
Ickx took his racing line, and Bellof tried to squeeze by. The 2 cars touched as they approched Eau Rouge, and left the road.
Bellof's car hit the tyre wall head on and probably died immediatly, whilst Ickx just spun out without much damage.
Ickx said later than he never saw Bellof coming so fast, or he would have left him room.
Others said Bellof tried an impossible move there.

 

Some say that Bellof had an offer from Ferrari. Who knows...

That's life: deserving has nothing to do with it.