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With the start of the 2021
Formula One season around a week away the Williams Racing Team following on
from their positive three day test at Bahrain has seen a fair degree of
commentary regarding the team and its future not only in 2021 but beyond.
For Williams Racing this season will mark the first season with new owners
Dorilton Capital in charge and with new management in the most notable being
new CEO Jost Capito. Backing him up will be Simon Roberts, now firmly placed
in his role of Team Principal.
After a 2020 season that saw the Williams team fail to secure any points
finishing last in the Constructors championship, coming into 2021 the team
is working hard to ensure that they achieve a far better result. This is
inline with the new owners shot term goal of returning the team to
competitiveness, but beyond that Capito isn't able or willing to out a time
frame on how long he feels it will take before the team has a major reversal
in their championship position. Will this take one year two years or several
is something that he is unable to answer.
But Capito has previously made it very clear that the new owners are
committed to a lengthy investment in the company.
In a recent interview with RacingNews365.com Capito commented ion this by
saying: "They [Dorilton] expect the team to be more competitive. They gave
me the freedom to develop these objectives for the management team and
that's what I'm processing.
"It still has to be defined because first you have the overall objectives,
then the long term, the medium and the short term objectives. I will measure
my results on how we achieve the objectives once they are set and whether we
achieve them on time. That is my feedback on being successful or not.
"I have too much experience to make a timeline. You can always be wrong when
it comes to a timeline."
Another area of discussion has to be that of drivers. Williams Racing have
had a history of taking on pay drivers with the most recent being Nicholas
Latifi. In the same interview Capito explained that the team needs to
achieve results to attract drivers outside the pay category. Also there is
the very real prospect that the team will lose George Russell in the very
near future.
Capito spoke of the driver situation: "Depends on where the team is. I
wouldn't call George a pay driver, not at all, so we have a very good
driver. When we see where Nicholas is he's not that far away, he's not a bad
driver.
"He's a really good driver, he's really good in the simulator and he is an
asset for the team. I would say that in terms of our drivers, we have a good
setup. If the team becomes more competitive and achieves better results, you
get more drivers that want to drive for the team. Its like a self-fulfilling
prophecy.
"It isn't just the racing results that matter, it's the brand itself."
As for the situation with George Russell Capito could not speak with any
certainty as to whether he will be at Williams beyond the end of 2021 as
there is every likelihood that Russell, out of contact at the end of the
year, will receive offers from other teams leading up to the end of the 2021
season including a possible offer from Mercedes.
Capito was interviewed by Motorsport-Total.com and had this to say in regard
to Russell: "If a driver gets an offer from Mercedes in the current
situation, there are very few alternatives."
"George is an exceptional talent, there's no doubt about that. He has been
in Mercedes' youth development programme for a very long time and they
recognised that very early on."
Even if Mercedes don't offer Russell a contract it looks like he will most
likely be leaving after three years at Williams.
Capito added: "Whether you can keep him or not also depends very much on
what offers he has. And also how we work with him now and how he sees the
development of the car for 2022," Capito said ahead of next season.
As for the short term goal of returning to competitiveness the recent
Bahrain pre-season test showed some promise but in subsequent interviews
with Russell he spoke of how with the design philosophy of the FW43B and its
sensitivity with windy conditions was going to make 2021 very much a year of
having the potential to be competitive at some races and not at others.
Russell spoke of the issues at the Bahrain test by saying: "[It] has been
positive, in a way, to analyse, but equally I think you’ll see our
performance as a bit of a yo-yo this season, unfortunately quite often in
the hands of the wind. The positives are that when the wind is in a
favourable direction, the car is very fast.
"When we do go to a track where the winds are lower, a track where there’s
maybe a bit more high speed, ee talk about yaw angles, and the yaw angles
[on the FW43B] get very high at low speed – especially when there’s a lot of
wind. The positive is there is a very fast race car in there, but it’s kind
of out of our hands whether we can excel.
"And I trust that when we go to a track for everything to be calmer, a
little bit more enclosed, that’s where we can excel and I think maybe Imola
could be a good one for us,” Russell said.
"Had the wind been neutral for this test, our lap times would have been much
faster. It is fingers crossed that we can cure it. But as we’ve alluded to,
before, a lot of teams will be going quite early to the 2022 car, we will
still be developing it."
"But something such as the wind sensitivity is almost a philosophy change.
And we’re too late into the development to change the philosophy. So as I
said, these days brought up the worst of the car. But there has been
positives, because when it was in, when there were corners that were normal,
our car was actually very competitive."
So for Williams Racing the season ahead and those beyond are going to be a
time of uncertainty with issues relating to the competiveness of their cars
and following on from that where they will end up on the driver front. The
next 12 months and beyond will be an interesting time as we wait to see the
answer to the question as to where does Williams Racing go to now. |
