Nitrodaze
12th July 2015, 11:18
It is clear that Williams should have done something different, take some risk and aim for winning the British GP once their 2 cars got ahead of the Mercedes. Keeping it safe and going about the race on the basis of running their own race without taking into consideration what the oppositions were doing, did not deliver the minimum result of 3rd and 4th, which they obviously expected. Not taking risks delivered 4th and 5th instead.
So what really was wrong with the Williams race at the British GP?
1. They were too sensitive to Massa's feelings and not taking the Constructors championship into consideration is one view. The net result of this was a 3 points gain on Ferrari where over 10 points was possible. Most post race analyst have concluded that Bottas should have been released to see if he could build a bigger gap to the Mercedes of Hamilton. One of the things that occurred to me was that Bottas appeared faster because of the benefit of DRS which may have given the false illusion of him being faster. It may well have turned out that swapping the drivers would have ended up with the same scenario with Massa hound the backend of Bottas's car. The problem with this argument is that we would never know unless they actually tried it and they certainly would not be blamed for trying something. Especially if they swapped them back to pacify Massa once this fact has been proved.
2. They were not keeping a good eye on what Mercedes and Ferrari were doing and reacting quickly enough is another view.
How quickly Vettel was progressing up the field after changing to inters should have been a good indication to bring one of their drivers in for inters. They should have at least asked one of their drivers to come in when Hamilton comes in to see if leapfrogging Rosberg was possible.
3. The setup of the car was not perfect even in the dry and worst in the wet.
Chances were that Vettel would have passed the twitching Williams cars anyway regardless of what they did. But we would never really know if that would have happened if Williams had stayed with the Mercs to the end of the race.
4. The Williams pitwall is clearly lacking the burning desire to win. Hence they pass up golden opportunities to do something sensational even with their handicap of budget and pace. You have to look back at Mclaren picking up wins and frequenting the podium in a similar position to Williams in 2011-2012. Mclaren had the 3rd fastest car behing Ferrari and Redbull but were able to take the fight to the forerunners when the opportunity presented itself. This point is about a winning mentality not budget.
I am sure you would have your own views against or for, let us hear it.
So what really was wrong with the Williams race at the British GP?
1. They were too sensitive to Massa's feelings and not taking the Constructors championship into consideration is one view. The net result of this was a 3 points gain on Ferrari where over 10 points was possible. Most post race analyst have concluded that Bottas should have been released to see if he could build a bigger gap to the Mercedes of Hamilton. One of the things that occurred to me was that Bottas appeared faster because of the benefit of DRS which may have given the false illusion of him being faster. It may well have turned out that swapping the drivers would have ended up with the same scenario with Massa hound the backend of Bottas's car. The problem with this argument is that we would never know unless they actually tried it and they certainly would not be blamed for trying something. Especially if they swapped them back to pacify Massa once this fact has been proved.
2. They were not keeping a good eye on what Mercedes and Ferrari were doing and reacting quickly enough is another view.
How quickly Vettel was progressing up the field after changing to inters should have been a good indication to bring one of their drivers in for inters. They should have at least asked one of their drivers to come in when Hamilton comes in to see if leapfrogging Rosberg was possible.
3. The setup of the car was not perfect even in the dry and worst in the wet.
Chances were that Vettel would have passed the twitching Williams cars anyway regardless of what they did. But we would never really know if that would have happened if Williams had stayed with the Mercs to the end of the race.
4. The Williams pitwall is clearly lacking the burning desire to win. Hence they pass up golden opportunities to do something sensational even with their handicap of budget and pace. You have to look back at Mclaren picking up wins and frequenting the podium in a similar position to Williams in 2011-2012. Mclaren had the 3rd fastest car behing Ferrari and Redbull but were able to take the fight to the forerunners when the opportunity presented itself. This point is about a winning mentality not budget.
I am sure you would have your own views against or for, let us hear it.