Williams brings Martini back to F1

You got to feel good for Felipe Massa,  in late 2013 his career looked like it was finished, shuffled out of the competitive drive seats.  Massa claimed he would rather quit than take a non competitive seat so it was curious when he signed with Williams, a team that had fallen off the competitive cliff.  What did he know?

Fast forward to 2014 and Williams has come out of winter testing as a surprise top team and today is confirming the long rumored sponsorship by Martini.  For Felipe the chance at a #1 drive and what is possibly the second most iconic livery in racing after Ferrari red.

Cheers Felipe!

Williams-Martini

We are not entirely sure yet if this is the actual livery, but this "stolen" photo of the 2014 Williams was published today by the Dutch F1today.nl

Williams first to give F1 the finger with the FW36

The Williams FW36 looks normal from the side...

The dreaded "finger nose", long predicted as being the most obvious solution to comply with 2014 nose height regs while maximizing flow to the bottom of the car, here it is.

not crazy about this "virtual" reveal trend this year, but I suppose its a way for the smaller teams to make a bit of a splash ahead if the pack.

Williams Chief Technical Officer Pat Symonds:

"The launch-spec aerodynamic package that you see here was finalised in the first week of December, with an upgrade package for Melbourne’s season-opener signed off in early January.
“F1 is still going to be an aerodynamic formula in 2014,”

“There are some significant changes: the nose is lower than last year and the front wing is narrower, which means the end plates are now more shrouded by the front tyre. The rear wing isn’t as deep as last year and the beam wing below it is no longer permitted, and we’ve also lost the ability to use the exhaust to enhance aero performance.”


“I’m confident that we’ll be closer to the front aerodynamically than we were last year,” says Symonds. “Our ambition for the year ahead is to have a strong 2014 season.”

Well, certainly, without Pastor, there will be less finger noses to make.

Maldonado has accused Williams of sabotage.

Unhappy with the team and out the door next season with at least part of his Venezuelan government oil company sponsorship, Pastor Maldonado today got his ass handed to him by young teammate Valteri Bottas in qualifying

Asked about his poor performance, the Venezuelan has accused  Williams  of sabotaging his car.

"There is someone who's had fun playing with my tire pressures" Maldonado told Italy's RAI TV.

Now, it's a well known practice for every race driver to first blame the car for his or her's own failings but, as my good friend Andres said: Williams is hovering in 9th spot in the championship with just a single point scored this season, why would they bother to sabotage anything and jeopardize any chance of scoring?

What next, Maldonado blame a US government conspiracy agains Venezuela?

Monaco Helmetcam

Because Monaco may suck for passing but it sure is not just left turns!

Varteri Bottas in a Williams FW35.

The Formula

With the 2013 Formula 1 season only weeks away it's maybe a good time to brush up on or,  for some of you perhaps, discover some of the events that led the series to becoming what it is now.

I finally managed to get a hold of Adam Parr's "The Art of War".  Parr was CEO for Williams F1 from 2007 to 2012,  those are the crucial years between the Mclaren spying scandal and the formulation of the next  engine formula in effect in 2014.  In between, FOTA, KERS, phantom budget caps, the Mosley affair, the global recession, Briatore, the new Concorde Agreement, five years in the mother of all shark tanks all laid out in a graphic novel.  It is brilliant and a must read.

The documentary below is from a couple of year earlier,  in the Williams BMW era and explores some of the very same existential questions, the correct formula for the series Parr spent five years arguing.   Cars from the last decade may look ancient but the politics sure sound familiar.

Set aside 50 minutes to have a look, it's a good one.

Gentlemen, Lift your skirts.

Williams FW07C, by Anthony Fosh

If you followed F1 "non news" during the summer break you may have caught an interviews with Adrian Newey where he admitted changes in regulations affected Red Bull performance significantly,  particularly rules against "flexy-wings" and blown exhausts.     Earlier in the year you may have caught Helmut Marko complaining of a conspiracy against Red Bull's dominance.

It's the old story in racing, someone comes up with a better mouse trap, or a better way around it,  and others complain.   Balancing innovation vs competition, cheating vs cleverness is essentially impossible so governing bodies usually just err on the side of money,  big money preferably.

The late 70 and early 80 is hailed as a "golden era" in F1, all Villeneuve Arnoux at Dijon, six wheeled  and fan cars and all  but it was also a time of shockingly lax safety and standards.  It was a time when it seemed, anyone could go F1 racing with a few bucks.  Remember Beppe Gabbiani?  How about Ricardo Londoño?  Chico Serra ring a bell? Brian Henton, Ricardo Zunino, Slim Borgudd?   They were all Formula 1 drivers in 1981.  F1 was a big ball of fail with pre qualifying, constant political fights, driver strikes and mechanical breakdowns.

It was also the last gasp of the struggle for F1's soul,  would the future be about innovation from sheds in the British countryside or mega money effort from big manufacturers, Renault, Fiat, BMW?     Ironically it was one of those same "Garagistes" who eventually had the stones to kick everyone in line with the promise (and delivery) of big,  no wait, enormous money.

Even more ironically, F1 in the 21st century is mostly big manufacturers paying the same people in those ex-sheds in the British countryside to build the cars for them.

If you have 45 minutes to spare today, have a look at this BBC documentary from 1981.  Highlight of the show has to be Williams trying out their FW07 without any suspension in effort to "skirt" the regulations.

(thanks to Alex Cogan!)

My, what big probes you have.

(Rubens Barrichello, Williams FW 32, Pirelli test Abu Dhabi by Frederic le Floch/DPPI)

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Williams catches a Viral

You may have come across this purported "amateur spy video" of the 2010 Williams-FW32. The description on YouTube reads:

"Spy shots of Williams new race car for 2010 we got on camera at silvastone. There was a TV crew there and we joined in and no-one noticed until the end and we had to leggit. Have a look! "

Obviously the work of the Williams PR team but a nice try anyway. Beats pretending to sign 31 year old Maria de Villota like Campos has....





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Car Wars 1979

The 1979 formula 1 season, it was a time when there was much freedom for designers to come up with radically different solutions but it was also deemed the year when any driver in the right car could win the championship and Formula 1 had become "boring". The "machine over man" era was said to have begun. In reality, that was always the case, unless you are Nuvolari defeating Silver Arrows in an ancient Alfa, you can't win with inferior equipment.

Interesting tidbits in this old film, Hunt strikes a familiar note arguing Formula 1 had gotten boring and how people tune in with the hope of witnessing an exciting race, more then the expectation to. Yet when people quote the "good old days of F1 they invariably point to the 1979 duel between Villeneuve and Arnoux at the French GP. Today many claim F1 is boring, yet we had three incredibly close seasons in a row.

Did you notice just how shabby F1 was back then? I mean a Mclaren with chipped mirror housings? Drivers with stone pitted helmets? Even the GoodYear stencil on the tires looks sloppy and forget about safety in the pits, the cars or along the track. Ecclestone, Dennis and Mosley changed all that in the 80's.

Part 2 and 3 are after the jump.

You remember Toto, don't you?

When I heard Toto Wolff bought into Frank Williams and Patrick Head's team I thought, where have I heard that name before....

Oh yeah, remember THIS VIDEO?




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BMW: 10 years in Formula 1

I'm curious to hear what you think of this video. I'll save my comments for the... comments section.





More BMW on Axis

Win a chance to drive a Williams F1 car!

I really want an Axis reader to win this! This is one fantastic online competition from Philips and Williams F1:

The Prize, a couple of days at the Philips Driving Academy driving Caterhams, Palmers and Formula Jaguars.

If you cut it then you get to drive five laps in a Williams F1 car. Let's see you make fun of Kazuki Nakajima after that! (did I mention this would be in November...in the UK?)

Enter the competition and read all the details HERE

And here is the rest of it.

Brawn, Williams and Toyota Diffusers are legal.

Stewards in Melbourne rejected protests by Red Bull BMW Ferrari and Renault. Teams will probably have to copy the Brawn, Toyota , Williams diffuser solution. If pre-season testing times stand up, this is a huge advantage for the first "away" races part of the season.




And here is the rest of it.

Formula Chaos

One week before the 2009 season start in Melbourne and Formula 1 is in turmoil. If you have not followed the pre season dramatics let me try and summarize for you:

On track:

No doubt you have heard about Brawn GP's miraculous testing times by now. Bernie Ecclestone himself tipped Button for as a possible world championship contender (poor Rubens...).

While the Brawn is obviously a good car, it must be remembered that this is testing and there are no obligations for cars to pass tech inspection. Further scrutiny of slow corner exit acceleration hints the Brawn could be running below fighting weight. Barring vastly superior mechanical grip, the 5 to 6 mph differential observed cannot be explained otherwise, especially as the Brawn is not getting any help from a KERS system.

The buzzword in this 2009 pre-season has been "diffusers" and there have been accusations, starting with Flavio Briatore, but in the last week also Ferrari's Stefano Domenicali, that some teams have interpreted regulations a bit too loosely.

The teams in question are Brawn, Williams and Toyota. Just yesterday the FIA technical delegate Charlie Whiting told Auto Motor und Sport that while no official complaint have been made to date, the diffusers in question were designed exploiting a gray area in the regulations.

Will there be a protest similar to Mclaren's protest of Ferrari's sprung floor? A good possibility, especially as limited testing makes successfully coming up with a copy more complicated.

Other assorted tidbits and rumors:

Mclaren's troubles are in part due to a structural problem with their diffuser which flexed enough to disturb the airflow. They tried a different extractor design but if we see a MP4-24/b soon we'll know this was more than conjecture.

Red Bull is sandbagging.

Off Track:

Briatore may like it but I have read not one single positive comment about the last minute scoring change the FIA dictated this past week amongst fans. Stunning, especially as this change was purportedly the result of a fan poll.
While last year Hamilton was crowned champion with one less win than Massa, with the new system you might have a champion scoring less points than second place. You might also have the season decided very early in the season. Quite a difference coming from two seasons decided in the last few laps. A simple increase in the points awarded to first place would have worked so much better.

The mandated two tier budgets from 2010 on, unlimited but with technical restrictions or 30 million pounds ($42M) with technical innovations allowed, is very much about money but also about a power struggle between the FIA and the constructor's association, FOTA.
FOTA had, amazingly, managed a very united front in its brief existence, the FIA's newfound love for the little guy aims squarely at driving a wedge in the group. It's fairly complicated and appropriately Machiavellian, if you want to delve into it more I highly recommend you read Chris Sylt about F1's commercial rights and then GrandPrix.com's "The danger of getting what you want"

Teams will of course pick the option with allowing technical innovation, and the budget cap? Well there is an obvious solution already used by Red Bull: you run two teams.

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Formula 1 2009: Axis pre-season executive summary.

I've resisted writing about F1 lately, mainly because historically there is very little to learn from off season testing. This year however there is the added component of sweeping rule changes which for the first time in years will provide a wide variety of technical solutions to the sport. So, as a service to our faithful readers, I put together this extended executive summary for you...



Because engine development has been , stupidly in my opinion, stifled, most of development has gone into aerodynamics and packaging and that KERS unknown, shoved down the teams throats. In any case, engineers do love a challenge so let's take a quick look.

Roughly speaking in 2009 you will see car divided between Anteaters (Ferrari, Mclaren, Toyota, RedBull) and Fatnoses (Renault, BMW, Williams). These are two different philosophies in dealing with the 2009 requirement of a standard center section of the front wing. The BMW, Williams and Renault solutions seeks to use the wide nosecone as to speed up airflow under it and create downforce for less drag. The pointy nose solution instead is aimed at passing the largest volume of air possible to other element of the car. It is worth noting that all reports say that slick tires require more of the car's weight and center of pressure to be moved forward. Front wings are now allowed driver adjustable elements so expect even more fiddling with knobs on onboard shots.



While in the past airflow from the front wing was directed mainly inside the front wheels, this year there is an emphasis on directing flow outside or over the front tires. Here again we see different solutions: Renault has wide endplates to direct air over the tire, most other cars work to push the air around the side. Mclaren goes a step further than other teams with its intricate wheel fairings designed to clean up this airflow even more.






The rear of the cars this year is all about small and tight. The rear diffuser has been mandated to be further back and lower. Here designers (Williams, Toyota, RB) have exploited gray areas of the runes by molding the mandatory rear crash structure into extractor channels. Pushing against the rules is of course what it's all about, Ferrari for example used apparently legal mounting pillars as turning vanes. Clever.









Of all the cars designed this year, one stands out as the most innovative in a "back to the future" sort of way, the Red Bull RB5. The RB5 is all about skin tight and a high nose. Adrian Newey has always had a thing about tight packaging and high noses since the Leighton House March days (a car drivers barely fit in) and one has to wonder if Mark Webber might not have had his feet surgically altered to fit in the tiny nosecone. I cannot imagine he will be a happy man this year and not just becasue he has Vettel to contend with.

Unlike the rest of the field, the RB5 uses a pullrod rear which puts shocks lower in the car and lowers the center of gravity (I wonder if they are much harder to access though). The front steering arm is moved lower, again lower CG and cleaner flow.

In the rear Newey completely does away with the central mounting of the rear wing which is instead connected by the side panels to the diffuser (a solution shared with Toyota). Simple, clean, strong enough? Certainly in pre season testing the Red Bull has looked fast.

Very little is actually know about KERS development and details, most are using batteries but Williams was rumored to be using an inertial system. we'll see what it all means. It certainly is odd to see F1 mechanics approaching cars like power utility workers.

F1 being F1 the off season was not free of drama, Drivers are up in arms over increased licensing fees. Max Mosley agreed to discuss the matter but only if drivers disclose their salaries... F1 might end up in court again.

Years ago Formula 1 abandoned tobacco and embraced less controversial sponsors, banks.... no need to say more.

The most positive aspect of the current climate is the increases cohesiveness of the constructors association (FOTA) led by Luca di Montezemolo. Again we are in "Back to the Future" territory with the teams using tactics pioneered by Ecclestone and Mosely in the 70's against them. If you are interested in the subject further, I would direct you to this well written piece on Grand Prix.com.

This will be the first year with three Sebastiens in Formula 1, Vettel, Bourdais and Buemi. Apparently Red Bull only allows people named Sebastien to drive as Sebastien Loeb's off season test showed.

Finally, you'll hear a lot about the prospect of a new all-American team on the horizon, you know, with Danica Patrick and Scott Speed. We called it first and everyone, apparently, believed us. Go figure.

Melbourne in about a month, let's see if Kimi Raikkonen will show up.

Top Picture by Fuzzleduck

Winter testing video: Algarve, January 20th

Nasty weather in Portugal but we do catch our first glimpse of many of the 2009 cars in action or at least, in motion. 

The Red Bull at the beginning is clearly an interim car but after it we see the 2009 Mclaren, Renault, Toyota and Williams cars making their way around the Algarve track.





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2009 Renault r29 and Williams FW31 presentations

In the apparent race among Formula 1 teams for the best new entry presentation miser, Williams is the clear leader so far. Not only did they seemingly not employ a professional photographer who left a hand truck in the background but they did not even bother to fly in their main drivers to the presentation leaving only tester Nico Hulkenberg to do photo duty. Perhaps Nico Rosberg was busy with Williams' other product launch... The FW31 is apparently the only car so far to employ a "Flywheel" style KERS rather than electrical motors and batteries.

Also at the Portimaio circuit in Portugal today was Renault who unveiled their R29. Perhaps the homeliest of the 2009 cars revealed so far, it has as its main characteristic a bulbous nose cone and what is so far the only leftover "shark fin" engine cover. The new paint job completely devoid of blue will certainly get some flack from fans.

BMW will show their contender tomorrow and Red Bull an February 5th. the dates for the remaining two teams Force India and Toro Rosso have not yet been made know.

More pictures after the jump

A Star named Senna

While on the subject of Senna and Prost, here is a documentary I had not seen before. Very nice interviews, in true Axis of Oversteer style, in at least three languages!
Fascinating the comments about concentration and the zen like state of mind Senna was able to achieve especially during qualifying.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did but take your time, it's almost one hour long.





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Williams F1 unveil 2009 FW-4WD, Nico Rosberg not amused.

Williams F1 have take delivery of their 2009 FW-4WD equipped with the latest (ESA) Electronic Slope Alert, warning of unsafe slopes. This is expected to give Williams F1 a supreme advantage during unexpected off track excursions.

A miffed Nico Rosberg, reached for comment in Montecarlo had no comment.

Williams FW-4WD specifications




British ride-on lawnmower manufacturer, Countax Ltd., launched a new Williams Formula One Team model at this years’ Chelsea Flower Show.

The new Williams FW-4WD is equipped with a 16hp twin cylinder engine, and with 4WD capability, this new mower has been designed to cut and collect grass on slopes up to 30°, and in marshy areas of the garden where greater traction is required.

The four wheel drive ‘4TRAC’ technology has been developed by Countax specifically for its ride-on lawnmowers, with a unique ability to increase and decrease the turning speed of the front wheels to eliminate scuffing. 4TRAC offers ultimate scuff-free slope performance for the perfect lawn. A unique Countax built in safety feature, the Electronic Slope Alert, sounds an alarm to warn the operator before reaching an incline too great for safe mowing.

The Williams FW-4WD sports the latest team colours, and is fitted with a 107cm/42” cutter deck as standard, however alternative cutter decks are available including 97cm/38” mulching deck, and for really tough areas, the 92cm/36” high grass mulching deck will tame any paddock, scrubland or high grass area. Dense weeds, nettles and brambles can all be mulched into small particles, and large areas can be cleared very quickly

All Countax tractors feature the unique Operating Management System, with microprocessor control, which keeps the operator fully informed with a dashboard display of functions including indication of 4WD engaged, and correct RPM for optimum performance. The Williams FW-4WD has the added benefit of electric deck lift, allowing the operator to adjust the cutting height with the touch of a button.

The new Williams FW-4WD ride on mower comes with complimentary cover and security wheel clamp, and is available from all Countax dealers, SRP £5245 inc Vat, 107cm/42” cutter deck and powered grass collector.