Thoughts on Weber's performance at Imola?

But neither Williams looked all that good so I'd say it is more the car. It could be that this track doesn't suit their package, or that they just didn't take as much of a step forward some others did (BAR, McLaren, Ferrari) but have some new developments in the pipeline.

 

Its him, the car and the race strategy.

MW didn't have a great start but atleast he overtook Sato. Later he made a mistake and Sato was able to pass him. He made another mistake and lost 6th place to Villeneuve.

The first part of the Imola GP , Williams were right there with Toyota and Sauber. Second part..They were in the same league as Red Bull. Liuzzi was able to catch Webber at the end...

Race strategy..
Williams strategy has never been great, and ever since Sam Michael took ever, it has only gotten worse.

 

Actually I was asking myself the same question this morning. Some (predominantly Australian) folks on here foresaw great things from him for this year and all I have seen so far is very mediocre.

Having said that, I foresaw great things from Nick as well and haven't really seen them (short of one podium finish). So either both drivers suck and/or the car is POS.

I'm getting the feeling it is both. The drivers were both overhyped and the car is bad. We do know it is not the tires and probably not the engine.

So where do Webber and Nick go from here? Careers over in 2006 or slow declines with Jordan and Minardi? Well, the season is still fresh, so changes are possible, but to answer the specific question for Webber in Imola. He sucked. Two driver errors that's about what Massa did.

 

The car is bad! ... simple as that.

Note that Webber and Alonso are the only 2 drivers to have qualified in the top 5 for every race!

Thus what is happening to Webber in the races ... well unlike Nick he is actually trying to race, and thus because the Williams is not up to the grade his car's performance goes off over the race. I actually believe they do not have enough front end grip ... but that is just my outside thoughts.

Anyway I guess Webber should just putter through the race like Nick is and console himself by getting points ... but Webber is a racing driver and understandably won't do that. Thus by racing like he is doing a few things are happening:
- He is looking bad (race result wise) and not getting the points that his unracy team mate is getting. Thus on a points only comparison NH is better.
- He is actually impressing the knowledgable people .. like Frank as his qualifying performance in Frank's piece of **** car is very impressive, and the fact that he is trying to race the brick will be giving Frank a hard-on. NH type drivers do not survive in a Williams very long as the problem is they can never step up, their whole attitude is just to nurse the thing home.
- He is actually helping the team more than NH (and actually this might be Williams strategy ... ie. NH is getting save face points, while Webber is actually racing the car and thus developing it as a race car). Thus the team is learning far more from Webbers car in a race situation than NH's taxi.

Overall ... I'm not happy that Williams have yet again made a dud. How many in a row now, have we reached double figures?

I guess the moving of Patrick Head and the fact that the players in the team are getting old doesn't help

The most important thing though is that Webber (and NH) keep impressing the team bosses ... and from where I am sitting we have this situation:
- Webber is fast and is a racing driver.
- NH is slow and likes to nurse his car rather than push the boundaries, etc.

Now I have always had some respect for NH, but he has never set my world on fire and looked like a racer to me, and to be fair to NH ... I'm thinking this is team tactic stuff we are watching.

Pete

 

Pete,
I could be wrong..
Heidfeld overtook Webber just seconds before MS got in front of Button. NH isn't a wimp, he can fight.

Williams race strategy was crap..Both Trulli and Webber made their first pit stop on lap 22. What were they thinking..If he had stayed on the track for 2 more laps, he would have been infront of Trulli. Maybe Toyota and Williams had the same race stategy. Oh well...
Before Trulli's 2nd pit stop, JV was right behind him. Trulli went on lap 45 and Villeneuve on lap 46. Jacques came back 6th and Trulli 7th. It paid off.

 

NH is a much better racer than Webber. Nick has achieved the best result for Williams so far this season. He managed to get 3rd place in Malaysia.

In fact with only 4 races into the season completed, Nick has put an end to Webber mania. Fact of the matter is that Webber is not championship material. I would not be surprized if Webber actually never wins a F1 race in his entire career!

Nick is a better performer and a better racer than Webber. It would have been better for BMW Williams to have Pizzonia drive the race car and make Webber the test driver.

Webber is nothing but hype and Nick is putting an end to the hype!

 

You are right Webber made a large mistake which allowed NH through ...

I judge a racers speed on qualifying and fastest laps. Yes NH has finished better but that is because he has waited for others to crap out ... or as with his team mate for his car to degrade enough that he has caught up.

I do have to say that Webber absolutely sncks when it comes to starts.

But I say again there is more to racing than simple points getting.

Yes .. always is. They do not seem to be able to think during a race like the other teams.

Pete

 

Ofcourse if Webber keeps this up ... I will have to admit that he sncks, but I'm a believer so far.

I do think he made a mistake going to Williams though ... should have clawed his way back into the Renault team (used to test for Benetton).

Pete

 

I thought I read on formula1.com that the revs were turned down so he could finish the race....which leads to a crucial point, how many teams are having to do this to make the engine finish the 2 race rule ?

I think even Alonso had his revs down and resorted to racecraft to make it home ahead of the Schu.

I think I'd prefer to have the engine blow than have to settle for a lower place

 

There is qualifying performance and race LONG performance. Williams seem okay (with Webber anyway) in qualifying but they cannot maintain a decent race pace.

This is similar to Ferraris in say 97/98 ... MS would peform miracles to qualify well and then slip back during the race/or crash.

Pete

 

Sorry Pete, But I think Webber has lucked his way in. When racing in Aus F Holden he was often beaten by guys still here that are still struggling for a glory ride....

Webber started a "relationship" with a well connected promoter... of the female persuasion..... And good on him, but he ain't there in F1 for his racecraft.

Qualifying is only part of the job. They don't give trophies or points for pole or fastest lap.. (although I think they should, as it would remove some of the sandbagging and BS.)

So, sorry, but Webber qualifies ok, and races his way to the back...

In a race where someone else starts 13th and comes 2nd by a whisker, a performance of starting 4th and coming nowhere, and being passed by your no.2 driver at the flag, is a sackable offence when it was due to SO MANY mistakes.

Kick him out now before the damage is irrepairable.

 

I have to agree with this ... and as I have said before, this is his only chance, so step up now or get out ... and please do not do a Fisi, and hang around moaning that you just need a good car, etc.

I'm hoping he has got it ... but Imola was not good.
Pete
BTW: The best person I've ever seen in a Formula Brabham was Murphy ... and now he is wasting his time in the V8 Supercars. It pisses me off that Holden helped Lowndes go to Europe with a single seater drive ... when I've watched Murphy piss all over him in a single seater.

Thus I believe Murphy to be a > single seater driver than he is a touring car driver, and visa versa for Lowndes.

 

You shouldn't be "hoping he has got it". By the time you get to F1, you MUST have it already, and have been proven to have it.

I really hope he continues to under perform... because if he fluked a decent race he would drag out the inevitable.

His best lap was also half a second slower than his no.2's

Webber OUT. Button IN, put Davison in the BAR and enjoy the race......

I agree about Murph. He drove a 360C for us at a rides day, and really is a true talent. I love his attitude too. Tell it like it is.

 

Our TV commentator noticed that the Williams is very unstable over a bumpy track. It pitches a lot. The Ferrari for example looked very stable in the same shots.
Maybe Webber can drive around this in a single qualifying lap but for a race distance the balance in the Williams looked poor.

 

His team mate kicked his ar5e in the same car.

Speed is speed, if it can do a lap time it can do it.

It's up to the team to make it drivable/reliable enough to keep doing it.

How will they know if he doesnt get close to his qual times in a race??

Frank and Patrick are probably having a little chat right now.........

 

Not to pour salt into a wound, but I also start to wonder about Webber's ability as a test and development driver: All the years in the Jag, that car never went anywhere (I hate to admit, that the same can be said about my idol Irvine, but that's another story). We can blame that on Jag's management, but we all know what happened to that exact same team one race later after winter testing with DC when it was christened RBR.

As much as I like Nick, I doubt he has what it takes to develop the car. Whatever he drove in never went anywhere really. So it is down to Webber to develop the Williams, which is probably a POS. Can he do it?

Say what you want about last year's driver duo, but they managed to get that car to victory by the end of the season. It'll be interesting to follow this season and see whether Webber will achieve the same. Come to think of it: I start to wonder, how good a test/development driver Ralf is: He was in that Williams and as soon as he transferred to Toyota, that car starts to pick up some speed.

As many said before: This is a crucial year for both of those drivers.

 

I agree on the first two points. Webber has never handled a decent F1 car in his life and must be struggling to improve it further.

As for last year's car improvement remember they had Marc Gene pounding 14000 km or some ridiculous number like that. This year he moved to Ferrari and Williams lost an important asset. Pizzonia doesnt have that wealth of testing experience behind him.

But on a big picture standpoint ... how much does a driver really contribute to a car's development?

Drivers like Schumi and Coulthard have years of experience and make copious notes on suspension settings, etc which they can use to improve the car. Schumi is known for his metronomic laps that give the test team an excellent base to judge if changes have improved the car or not. As for the other drivers, either they lack enough seat time (drivers from Jordan, Minardi,...) or maybe they are reflex drivers and not really interested in testing to get a tenth of improvement on the circuit (Montoya, Raikkonen).

All in all I believe experienced drivers can help fine-tune the car and eke out tenths of second improvement per lap but to get a second or more improvement per lap it has to come from the R&D site at the wind-tunnel, tyre manufacturer, engine manufacturer... The drivers cant bringabout this much improvement.

A case in point may be Red Bull which improved a huge amount under David's finetuning but has reached a plateau since. They will only improve if they get better parts.

 

Mark Webber is regarded as one the most if not the most technically minded drivers out there. He is regarded by people that really MATTER to the sport (Other drivers, Team owners, Ex Champions etrc...), and i tend to think they know what they are talking about more than us here.

He is a straight shooter, a exceptionally good racer, and a nice bloke to boot.

Give him the better FW car without the aero problems, and you will have a serious contender. Pity that aint the case now re: Aero problems, but hoperfully, they will be ironed out.

FWIW, this post is extremely biased. Duh?

 

I've got the salt shaker out now Tifosi ... Jaguar went heaps further with Webber testing and developing than they ever did with Irvine. Jaguar were by far the fastest Cosworth powered car ...

Now we all got excited regarding DC performance at Australia ... that was a fluke, due probably to weird qualifying. Also as the car was designed atleast 6 months earlier ... they would have been designing to WEBBER's input NOT DC, thus who should get the credit???

Pete

 

And the other two were Minardi and Jordan. Your point was?

 

My point was that when Irvine was with Jaguar, they were battling with Jordan. Now either Jordan went backwards (possible?) or Jaguar improved because they were almost up with the Saubers with Webber there.

The fact also is that Webber was the only Jaguar pilot to qualify the thing well, yes Irvine got a lucky result at Monaco and got there most single race points but that does not make him the fastest Jaguar pilot (although I do credit anybody who can keep their F1 car off the walls at Monaco).

Thus I agree with the first sentence ... Mark must deliver, but I do not agree with the second sentence. Jaguar with Mark was improving very slowly and I think the performance of the Red Bull cars proves that they were on the right track. I hope it continues ... the more quality cars the better!

I believe that Mark got the Williams drive based on his work at Jaguar and thus as Mike360 said ... the team bosses, etc. see something that us amatures may not necessarily see. I see a fighter and a racer ... but I also have witnessed somebody that has yet to have a consistently fast race pace. This needs to happen ... but remember Hakinen, a brilliant qualifier that hardly ever made if through the first corner. In fact he used to out qualify Senna in the same car (when qualifying meant something) ... but he used to frighten me with his race starts and first few laps. Most of the time he crashed ... it took Ron Dennis about 3 years to make him a real racing driver. Mark won't get this chance ... as I'm sure MH and Ron were some how involved D, use your imagination ... I have and that is the only thing I can come up with for him keeping MH on in his early years ... j/k).

Pete

 

EXACTLY!!

Webber is a test driver. That is all he is good at. Webber is not a racer he is a tester.