FW38 development outweighs super star driver
By Andrew Hooper
February 10 2016
For Williams Technical Director Pat Symonds the development of the Williams FW38 far outweighs the desire to secure the services of a super start driver. Even though the Williams team secured 3rd place in the Constructors Championship for the last two years the team still does not have one of the bigger budgets in F1. As such they have to always be looking for ways to best use their funding and for Symonds this lies in the development of the car.
| FW38 development outweighs super star driver |
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With the start of the opening test session for the 2016 Formula One season drawing closer Williams Technical Director Pat Symonds spoke to Autosport.com as to where the teams priorities lay in terms of the development of the FW38 compared to have the services of a top level driver, such as Alonso. For Symonds it is very much the case that the Williams team will continue to place the development of the car over that of having a superstar driver. The last two years has seen Williams finish 3rd in the Constructors championship even with a budget that is below that of many of their rivals. Symonds believes
that the teams budget must be focused on areas where the team knows that it
has work to do rather than spending a large part of their budget on securing
a driver. "They are such
team players and they push each other really hard because they are actually
very similar in performance. |
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Quote:crusty_bread
That would require approximately 2.5 Martini sponsorship deals- alone. There's a lot of fizz to Williams' Martini deal, but not enough splash for that I'm afraid.
If there were to be a trade up, I guess all sponsors would have to chip in. Or canvassed on their willingness to chip in prior to an offer. But even passing the hat round wouldn't come up with a figure for Hamilton . . . reputed to be 90m.
I'm not sure how we were going to pay Raikonnen, if hired. There was some talk about shares.
The conversation is slightly theoretical, because it is only Alonso who might be loose in 2017. Unless you consider Rosberg and Button superstars. And Kimi is now a falling star.
Alonso couldn't make last year's McLaren go any faster. McLaren is spending a lot more on development, as is honda, than they're spending on drivers. Why should Williams be any different? Our budget is a lot tighter. Paying for a AAA driver at this moment is out of the question.
If someone is fed up of going with a snail and wants a potentally wining car in his hands, welcome but not at his market price
Smart stance
Quote:j-s
Symonds speaks like a true Williams man. We have two solid (if unspectacular) drivers who get enough points to more than justify their salaries. I don't see a problem with that.
If Massa goes off the boil this year, I wonder if we might take Button after all in 2017. I'm sure it will be Stoffel in his seat at McLaren. . . Ron wouldn't let Stoffel go to Renault.
Also, the 'Top Gear' presenter jobs have gone, the girlfriend has disappeared and he'll be scratching around for something to do.
I don't see him staying in F1 beyond this year, sadly, however I would love to see him bookend his career with Williams. Who knows.
In my opinion we should focus ourselves on drivers of the elite talent. Bottas was good, but has proven to be a fair and decent driver. Not (yet) the killer that we all anticipated for.
I get it that we do not want to spend our money on ridiculous salaries for a star driver. But at least we should be able to focus ourselves on the real talents. And Im sorry if I offend some of you, but Lynn is just another Bottas. Not a raw diamond that will evolve in real talent. Neither do I see this in Stroll.
As far as I know, Leclerc is the next big thing. He will debut in free practices in 2016 at Haas Im sure of that. We could have picked him up, but instead we went out on Lynn.
I don't get the talent scouts at Williams. I really don't. Stroll I understand; hard and cold cash. But Lynn or even Sutil? No. I do not understand this.
Williams has proven themselves that they give talent a chance. Rosberg, Hulk, Maldonado and Bottas. All in a solid row as drivers that debuted at our team since 2006. That is something that you can throw in: "You may choose for Ferrari or Red Bull, but should you join us, you will debut at our team (a solid front runner) and will be one of our two drivers instead of being loaned out to a satellite team (which are most likely backmarkers), being number 4 in the pecking order and being let go if you don't deliver."
Quote:AlanJones
Williams has proven themselves that they give talent a chance. Rosberg, Hulk, Maldonado and Bottas.
I suspect they were more about money. Hulk didn't get much of a chance, Pastor got lots of second chances he didn't deserve, Wurz and Senna got a second chance too. Rosberg wasn't solid while at Williams.
However, we may be reading too much into what Pat says, and he is hardly likely to rubbish the drivers. The guys are apolitical, team players and so on but I think SFW would rather have a racer. He criticised Hulk for being too cautious.
Far better to spend the $20m on car development, technology and engineers. Certainly for a team like Williams. Once the car is within a tenth or two of Mercedes then maybe an Alonso or Vettel would find the last fraction but right now Williams isn't a title challenger.In reality Nasr is going to be within a couple tenths of Bottas and comes with $24m backing, so you may as well have him in the car instead of Massa.
...unless, of course, that superstar came with a bag of cash to cover their salary (Alonso/Santander).