Williams are one of Formula One’s underdog teams. They don’t have the financial backing of a luxury car brand, or a global soft-drink behemoth, and despite this they’ve carved out a place for themselves as one of the elite teams in an unforgiving sporting environment.
Yet in recent times, when success in Formula One demands perfection, they’ve delivered everything but.
They closed off the 2014 season well and jumped Ferrari for third place in the championship with a line-up featuring an ex-Ferrari driver and another earmarked for greatness, but for all their firepower in the car the positives have been few and far between.
With a reliable, Mercedes-powered car, and an enviable line-up, the only variables remaining are administration and race strategy.
When you’re more than halfway through a season and there have been more blunders than podiums, everyone involved should be looking for answers.
No team in Formula One has been less aggressive in defending against an undercut in the pitlane than Williams, and their lack of confidence and focus has poisoned the well. When they do find themselves in a race-winning position, as they appeared to be in at the British Grand Prix, they second-guess themselves and flip-flop the instructions to their drivers until any potential advantage is nullified.
Over the summer break, negotiations with Ferrari reportedly saw the team asking $10 million for the services of Valtteri Bottas, only to have the deal firmly rebuked when it was announced that Kimi Raikkonen had signed on with Scudeira for another season.
Williams was shown to value finances over talent, and damaged the relationship with the star driver.
“For sure it doesn’t do any good to my and the team’s relationship,” said Bottas ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix. Not a terrific mindset for a man being asked to him lift the team in the constructors’ standings for the next 18 months.
Then we come to the absurd scene during the race last weekend when they slapped four tyres on one of their cars that could be described at best as being only vaguely similar, leaving poor old Bottas stranded in the midfield with no hope of advancing.
“There will be an investigation into the processes in place to understand what happened fully, and to put in place a procedure to stop this happening again,” offered Williams performance chief Rob Smedley.
This investigative approach needs to be taken to the entire Williams operation; from the tyres to the strategy calls to the damned teabags.
The sight of a Lotus driver standing on the podium this weekend should shame the Williams team.
In the last few months Lotus have unflinchingly backed themselves, and their success is largely because they have nothing left to lose. They unveiled a new front wing in Belgium, their first substantial development for the season, and are withholding payments from their creditors in hopes of a Renault buy-out.
Neither their car, nor their drivers, hold a candle to those in the Williams’ garage, and yet weekend last they made their opposition look stupid.
Another team on the rise this season is Ferrari. When asked if he stayed at Ferrari too long, Fernando Alonso answered, “Probably, yes. The car was not competitive at all and things were getting more and more sad.”
How can that be?
What Ferrari needed was a reboot and a distilled vision, things that were never going to happen with Fernando in the team. Does that mean Williams need to get rid of their drivers? Not necessarily, but as far as the team goes they desperately need to start afresh and return to the drawing board.
And then they need to replace the drawing board.
Think of it like Hollywood rebooting a franchise. Would Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy have had any of the impact and gravitas if George Clooney stayed on as the caped crusader?
Finally, the question I’ve been asking myself this week is… Who is Williams’ hero?
Rodney Gordon
Expert
Yep, and rather than admit there's an issue within the team that requires some deap soul-searching they insist it's another issue that can be easily recitified, meanwhile they are dying a death by a thousand cuts.
Cody - Portland Timbros
Guest
Rod, Williams certainly need to rethink their driver position policy during grands prix. The part I think is ludicrous is that they are investigating to ensure stuff like that doesn't happen again. With respect to the Bottas tire confusion, what is there to investigate? Some dude grabbed the wrong freaking tire! Why would they even put one set next to the other to begin with? Did he not see all the other tires going out or "missing" from the rack when grabbing his?
Rodney Gordon
Expert
There's some great points here, especially about Williams getting some mongrel back in them. It makes me think of what Arrivabene has done at Ferrari, swanning around with his unshaven, slicked back hair telling people in a gruff voice to get back to work only to break into a cheesy smile and punch the engineers in the arm. Perhaps sometimes in the pursuit of excellence people undervalue the importance of comradery.
goodfella
Guest
The Renault powered cars showed some impressive raw pace over the whole race meet. They were still down in top end speed but not by as much as I think people have grown used to. Mercedes power units won't remain at the top of the tree forever - no engine manufacturer does. Like everything it has its cycles. With all their open slating of Renault (to some degree justified) over the course of this season in particular, Red Bull have proven themselves to have short memories - after all, Renault powered them to 4 constructor's championships in a row. But no doubt Red Bull's reading of history credits all of that success to the brilliance of Adrian Newey. I will have a quiet chuckle to myself if Red Bull do hook up with Mercedes power units just in time to see the performance dominance of that engine begin to wane. The obvious downside to that scenario is Ricciardo will suffer for it. As for Williams, I hope they rediscover some of their mongrel, and tactical nous, which has seen them punch well above their weight in the past. I'm not sure they'll ever capture the glory days of the early 80s and mid 90s, but it's imperative for the health of F1 that Williams remains at the pointy end of proceedings. I'm not overly sold on the likes of Rob Smedley and Clare Williams to get the best out of the talent and resources at their disposal. I've wondered more than once, what would the likes of a Ross Brawn be able to extract from the likes of Bottas in a Mercedes powered car.
Rodney Gordon
Expert
It's worth noting that for this season Lotus switched to Mercedes engines meaning only Red Bull and Toro Rosso run the Renault engines, but the comparison between the performance of Lotus and Red Bull is interesting, especially as Ricciardo commented that if he hadn't broken down he could have taken the fight to Grosjean. Just another missed opportunity for RB i guess....
Simoc
Guest
Good article. Also if Grosjean is so fast with a Renault engine, where were Red Bull. To busy complaining?