Australian GP: Frustrating race for Williams Racing

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023:04:05:04:08:28 by Andrew Hooper.

Robson on Albon's crash:

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Unfortunately, touching the kerb at high speed in Turn 5 led to a small snap and a spike in tyre temperature, which led him to lose the car at the next corner.

It seems to me that tire temperature is playing too large a role in F1 these days. In particular, that level of sensitivity to temperature seems dangerous.

No one else crashed doing that! Total BS smoke screen!!

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Stu69
No one else crashed doing that! Total BS smoke screen!!

I'm sorry, I don't understand. What is the alleged smokescreen hiding? Is Albon/Williams covering up a mechanical failure by blaming Albon going off on an error he made going wide in the previous corner, or covering up an Albon error in the actual corner in which he went off by blaming it on an error in the previous corner? And what would be the rationale for doing either?

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an.jo

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Stu69
No one else crashed doing that! Total BS smoke screen!!

I'm sorry, I don't understand. What is the alleged smokescreen hiding? Is Albon/Williams covering up a mechanical failure by blaming Albon going off on an error he made going wide in the previous corner, or covering up an Albon error in the actual corner in which he went off by blaming it on an error in the previous corner? And what would be the rationale for doing either?

To me, those comments from Robson reminds me of Rob-Speak.
Lengthy and useless description for a simple word : Alex f-ed it up.

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Mehryar

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an.jo

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Stu69
No one else crashed doing that! Total BS smoke screen!!

I'm sorry, I don't understand. What is the alleged smokescreen hiding? Is Albon/Williams covering up a mechanical failure by blaming Albon going off on an error he made going wide in the previous corner, or covering up an Albon error in the actual corner in which he went off by blaming it on an error in the previous corner? And what would be the rationale for doing either?

To me, those comments from Robson reminds me of Rob-Speak.
Lengthy and useless description for a simple word : Alex f-ed it up.

👍

Alex screwed up

He had a car heavy with full tanks and engine at maximum power , he should been a bit more cautious.

We have a quick car but with less downforce than the rest of the grid .

Bottom line we need to more careful and cleaner lines with the extra weight of the fuel in the first 3rd of a race.

Logan no idea what happened to him this weekend was Latifi esk.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023:04:03:09:10:47 by GPL.

Either Alex is capable of extracting 110% from the car leaving his mere mortal partner looking slow or Logan is slow. He seems to be settling into the no2 not so good role already.

If he hasn’t picked up his pace soon we should bin him and replace with Latifi and £30million or someone else. I was going to say Hulk but look what happened there when he was available! You couldn’t write it!

Give this kid a break.
Most rookies make mistakes in first half of the season specially when they are in a such tight midfield pack with a car which is not the best of them yet, unless they are another George or Charles or... and we don't expect that for our current form.

So far, you can say overally he's been unlucky too.He missed Q2 in bahrain & Jeddah in a terrible way.Then goes on on to miss Fp2 on a hard track like Albert Park.
Yet there have been some positivities to take
He was on it all Bahrain weekend.His pace in Jeddah was ok too.
Having one or two bad weekends like Australia is ok imo.

To put things into perspective, williams in 2010 had clearly the 5th fastest car, a long way clear of many of its rivals. Nico Hulkenberg was on 1pt after 9 races.

I think you remember it wrong, crusty. In 2010 Williams didn't have "clearly the 5th fastest car". We were clearly behind Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull, Mercedes and Renault and IMO, also behind Force India, especially in the first part of the season. Sutil outscored Barrichello 23-7 in the first 8 races.
So 7th fastest in the best case in that time period. And actually Sauber and Toro Rosso were not far behind, sometimes ahead. It was a very depressing period actually, after a promising 2009.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023:04:03:15:32:16 by Anderis.

Alex.

“It’s obviously disappointing,” he said. “Firstly it’s my mistake and apologies to the team. It’s one of those things that clearly looking at the results today and seeing where everyone is at, there was a good chance for points.

“We need to score points when we can, especially when there are opportunities to score points.

“There are a few cars out of place, out of sequence. That’s when we need to do well. Everything was looking up until my mistake. So I’m very angry with myself.”

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Anderis
I think you remember it wrong, crusty. In 2010 Williams didn't have "clearly the 5th fastest car"

You're right, I forgot about Renault. The point is though, in rubens hands it was regularly in or threatening Q3 and regularly running in the lower points, but nico looked like dead weight, a long way off, no hope of scoring, apart from one race in the first half of the year. 2010 was comparable as, if not more competitive than this year, rubens got manholed badly when on for a great result in monaco, but I don't remember anyone getting really angry with nico or comparing him with nakajima who, lets face it was miles better than latifi ever was.

Sargeant has shown genuine dry weather speed. The usual rookie pass mark is if he can genuinely outperform the experienced guy on dry speed over a full race weekend a handfull of times, and to time those weekends well so he gets a couple of good results. That usually buys them a second season. Hulkenberg barely held his end up that season scoring nothing like rubens, but at least half the forum wanted him, not rubens to stay at the end of the year after putting in the occasional very impressive drive. Turns out they were probably right.

Funny, I don't remember it being that depressing. Perhaps I'm remembering more how it ended, or more likely still smarting from 2011 which made 2010 look like a walk in the park!

There is no point this season comparing Logan with Latifi he won't know a lot of circuits he learning it's really next season yes Alex was at fault for the crash he's admitted that the car so far is better than expected yes it's disappointing not to score points the last 2 races

100% Williams
WILL SUPPORT WILLIAMS AS LONG AS We HAVE A TEAM To Support

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GPL
Alex.
“It’s obviously disappointing,” he said. “Firstly it’s my mistake and apologies to the team. It’s one of those things that clearly looking at the results today and seeing where everyone is at, there was a good chance for points.

“We need to score points when we can, especially when there are opportunities to score points.

“There are a few cars out of place, out of sequence. That’s when we need to do well. Everything was looking up until my mistake. So I’m very angry with myself.”

Also,

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Reflecting on what happened, with Williams having been very strong throughout the second sector all weekend, Albon says that the indications point to the rear tyres having got too hot.

“I’ve had a look at the data and it was a bit of a strange one,” he said. “I went through the corner slower than I did on the lap before, it's just I went through the previous corner quicker.

“So I went through Turn 5 a little bit quicker and used a little bit more exit kerb. I think it spiked the tyre temps a little bit on the left-hand side.

“So then I went into Turn 6 with a hotter rear left tyre, and that was it. I mean, they're the margins we are driving with.”] (Albon F1 Australian GP crash triggered by tyre temperature spike)

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crusty_bread

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Anderis
I think you remember it wrong, crusty. In 2010 Williams didn't have "clearly the 5th fastest car"

You're right, I forgot about Renault. The point is though, in rubens hands it was regularly in or threatening Q3 and regularly running in the lower points, but nico looked like dead weight, a long way off, no hope of scoring, apart from one race in the first half of the year. 2010 was comparable as, if not more competitive than this year, rubens got manholed badly when on for a great result in monaco, but I don't remember anyone getting really angry with nico or comparing him with nakajima who, lets face it was miles better than latifi ever was.

I think you're misremembering things a bit again.

Hulkenberg was very inconsinstent in early 2010 but to say that he looked like dead weight, a long way off, no hope of scoring is an exaggeration.

He was already half a second faster than Rubens in his 3rd F1 weekend (both quali and race), which was excellent. He's had a fair share of bad luck. In Spain, he was going to score a point but he's got damage in his car. In Valencia he was on course to score a point but got a car failure. In Monaco, he qualified 11th but got a clutch problem and had to start from the back. In Australia he got taken out on lap 1 without being able to show anything. In Canada, he was running well inside top10 initially but then damaged his car fighting with Sutil.
On some occasions he was way behind Rubens but on many others he was doing a fine job. Not quite as good as I had hoped before the season but a point scoring contender on most weekends, just a few small mistakes and some bad luck kept him with 1 point for a while.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023:04:03:21:19:57 by Anderis.

Albon should start with hard compound for 45 lap and pit for medium. idiot!

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Anderis
I think you're misremembering things a bit again.

I don't think so, I think we just drew different conclusions from the same information.

In Bahrain he was 0.5 off rubens in qualifying. Rubens went forwards in the race to score a solid points result, Hulkenberg went backwards and finished 14th

In Australia he qualified 0.7 off rubens who again scored a solid points result. Let's be honest nico would not have achieved anything. His retirement saved williams some fuel and tyres.

Malaysia, a very strong performance, but the weekend was rain affected, so whilst it spoke of nicos talent and bought him a lot of goodwill, we couldn't rely on wet weather just to get a result.

China was less competitive for williams but 0.8 off rubens in qualifying? Jeez

Spain, he qualified 13th with rubens having issues. Rubens went from 18th to 9th, much faster as ever than nico and totally eclipsed him. Dead weight is perhaps a bit harsh in this example but in the context of giving willliams fans some hope they might eventually beat force India, he was. It wasn't a strong effort.

Monaco, williams should have scored big. To qualify outside the top 10 feels like dead weight to me. Not impressed.

Turkey, not competitive once again.

Canada, matching rubens for pace, fair, rubens snookered at the start, nico running in the points, but come on now, it wasn't a tangle, he drove into the back of the force India under braking wiping off his front wing and eliminating himself from points contention so from a championship fight pov, it amounted to the same thing. Useless.

After this race I could see signs of potential as his dry speed was decent in Canada and I was reluctant to judge him prematurly but I must admit my patience was wearing very thin. I don't recall however feeling the need to defend him on here. It's evident he was being cut a lot more slack than Sargeant has been given. This is the point. Do you think Sargeant has been less impressive so far?

Valencia, this marked the beginning of a change in my opinion of his performance. Genuinely good in qualifying and the race and without messing up. He was finally contributing in the dry and comparing favourably to rubens. I draw a line between the races before as a watershed. Whether we agree over dead weight is moot. In the sense that he may have scored points on occasion, OK, no, in the sense that he was generally uncompetitive and his lack of performance was holding williams back in their fight with force India, most definitely yes. Overall it was a very underwhelming start to his season and he was letting williams down badly. But I dont think anyone here, myself included actually lost faith with him, a key consideration, and I'm just hoping Sargeant is afforded the same patience.

On a slightly different topic, nico had by the end of the 2010 merited a second year in f1 but it was his lack of consistent form later in the year which posed too great a risk to williams in their hopes for a good constructors position the following year. Being forced to choose between rubens or nico to be team leader vs a rookie, it put a premium on leadership so it was rubens who understandably got the nod. As it turned out williams were so uncompetitive in 2011, consistency and team leadership was irrelevant and had willams known this, it would have made sense to endure this and grow with a more motivated younger guy, but understandably they were betting on continuing to be genuine points contenders and wanted to be able to maximise consistently those opportunities whilst at the same time providing maldonado with exposure to a world class operator. I guess with Nico vs Maldonado they were envisioning a scenario similar to what happened in 2012 where strong results might go begging regularly.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2023:04:04:08:59:41 by crusty_bread.

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an.jo
Robson on Albon's crash:

Quote:

Unfortunately, touching the kerb at high speed in Turn 5 led to a small snap and a spike in tyre temperature, which led him to lose the car at the next corner.

It seems to me that tire temperature is playing too large a role in F1 these days. In particular, that level of sensitivity to temperature seems dangerous.

Further to this, Norris: "Terrible" Pirelli tyres not up to F1 standards.

I have for a long time being frustrated by the tyres that Pirelli bring to F1 and pretty much F3 & F2. This whole issue of the tyres having such a small operating window requiring drivers to do things like run very slowly to bring the tyre in just for me seem crazy.

Why can't they make a tyre that just drivers can push on right from lap one.

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Andrew Hooper
I have for a long time being frustrated by the tyres that Pirelli bring to F1 and pretty much F3 & F2. This whole issue of the tyres having such a small operating window requiring drivers to do things like run very slowly to bring the tyre in just for me seem crazy.
Why can't they make a tyre that just drivers can push on right from lap one.

Simple answer Andrew it is the requirement of the FIA when we had bullet prove tyres by Bridgestone everybody was up in arms as the tyres could last the whole race so the FIA wanted tyres that didn't last/fall of a cliff to spice things up but and give teams/divers who can manage the tyres a chance and also supposed to aid over taking

100% Williams
WILL SUPPORT WILLIAMS AS LONG AS We HAVE A TEAM To Support

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Andrew Hooper

Why can't they make a tyre that just drivers can push on right from lap one.

Manipulates the excitement factor and suckers all the Netflix fans!

OK.
Maybe Alex did not screw up afterall but an oversight by Williams on energy regen settings.