I get bored with these scare stories. Every year it’s the same. Move along, nothing to see here.
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Yep same thing every year with Silverstone…meh…
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Bye Bye…
Pirelli are expecting very low degradation on the 17 tyres: how long do you suppose it wil be til drivers are moaning about them being too predictable and being a hinderance to racing? Bonus prize for guessing the 4xWDC who’ll be the first to moan ?
Good read here: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/127665/alonso-f1-peaked-in-the-2000s
I’m not one for knocking the current format, but Fred is hitting the nail IMHO about the 80’s - and, for my money the 90’s too. Looking back over the season reviews, some of the gaps between teams (and teammates) were gargantuan compared to these days. Pleasing that there is a current dirver out there who remembers more than his last decent race.
Q for Frank -and Ian - did you ever have the impression that were any of the drivers in your teams were remotely interested in the history of the sport, and for that matter, who were the most technically interested in what you guys did ?
edit: how does one get the hyperlink to appear in a box like the not-quite-as-luddite-as-I Oz manages to do??
Like this you mean?
Yes, like that
One Way - From the page where the document is click on the name in the toolbar to highlight it
then control C it - Then open a reply tab and control V into the box
Often just posting the URL on separate line will do the job
That time I used the upload icon on the toolbar to do it
Blimey, it’s all kicking off now! Fred Vasseur’s been fired. By mutual consent, obvs.
And look what I did, mom
I don’t remember talking to a driver about history Craig.
We always concentrated on how to go quicker or doing race homework!
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My experience has been similar.
Fair enough, chaps:
I thought perhaps they’d have asked you what it was like to work with Ascari, Fangio et al, , how steep was the Brooklands banking and all that good stuff 
More seriously, I’ve always been surprised (though I probably shouldn’t) about many drivers’ apparent indifference to knowing what has gone before: how could they learn from so and so, how did others approach a weekend in a way they could learn from, and so on.
I have taught many a driver how to approach a weekend! Some were in real need of some personal discipline.
The funniest was Rupert Keegan. Until he had found a girl he showed no interest in the car at all, didn’t show up for pre-briefing at all and legged it as soon as he got out of the car!
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Having caught up with a few people over Christmas I found out that further changes had occurred at Williams. When Pat Symonds left Williams, so did 8 others, all of whom were mid level to senior people.
So Claire Williams has been true to her word of acting when performance started to tail off, which is a very different approach to the days when Patrick Head and Frank Williams had Sam Michael as technical director.
As a historical note, Sam Michael started as TD in 2004 and effectively led Williams from being a team that could finish 2nd in 2003 to a team that finished 9th in 2011 (and for quite a few years finished around 8th before that). As has been explained on the Wam by Frank in an F1 thread in the past, Sam Michael was very hard working, but did not know the right thing to do. Having talked with people who were there during that time, they made the same comments and added that Patrick and Frank would pretty much only talk to Sam, so they got a distorted view of what the real issues were.
It will be interesting to see what happens next at Williams F1 as those roles or similar roles will need to be filled. If they wait until Paddy arrives, then it will be too late for 2017 and will be a bit late to really affect 2018 that much. So this does not look good for Williams, other than the fact that they have recognized that their technical leadership had to change as they clearly did not know how to make a fast car (comments on the Wam thread of the time explained why Williams did so well in 2014 and would not in the future).
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Thanks Frank and Ian
Frank: follow up: who was the most intelligent driver you worked with, with regard to applying themselves to the task?
Ian: interesting info - were the departures in any way related to Symonds leaving / Williams’’ malaise, or just ‘usual’ turnover ??
I understand that all departures were due to the poor performance in 2016.
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Nelson Piquet applied himself very thoroughly but liked to hide it and had a very laid back approach to the press. He had an amazing feel and understanding of the (simple then) car. I remember him coming in and saying the crown wheel and pinion were broken. A quick rotation of the wheels with the car on the jack seemed OK but we stripped the 'box because he had obviously felt something. There was a deep crack in one of the pinion teeth, but it hadn’t broken off and destroyed the gearbox. Few drivers of my experience catch things like this in time and you can learn so much more than getting back the usual heap of shrapnel.
He worked very hard on developing the car, nothing was too much trouble and without him the Active Suspension would have taken much longer. He had the old fashioned approach of preparing well then winning comfortably at the slowest pace possible so as not to risk breaking the car. That is why he was so pissed of by Mansell. Nige put no effort into getting the car quick but then raced hard using mainly settings Nelson had optimised, Nelson thought Mansell should support rather than race him, not in Nigel’s character I’m afraid. Up to Nelson’s head hitting the wall when he crashed in practice at Imola (almost exactly where Senna died) he could beat Nigel but after that he found it more difficult, so more frustrating.
To put it in perspective Nelson liked to pull out a pitstop’s advantage then hold it being gentle with the car. At Brands in 1986 because Mansell was pushing him he lapped the whole field twice except Mansell (just behind) and Prost in P3 who he was within sight of being lapped for the second time when the race ended. He hated that.
Later flat out until the last pitstop became standard strategy.
Michael Schumacher was clever and thorough but mainly astonishingly ruthless and selfish.
Reutemann was probably the most sensitive and natural driver I worked with but he was superstitious not intelligent, and I only worked with him at tests I ran Jones at the races.
Martin Brundle is a very clever bloke I didn’t work with him for long though.
Prost did 2 massively impressive tests with Ligier, but that was not enough to get know him well enough to form a strong opinion.
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Ironically some of the people that left will be the people that could have turned the team round. Leaving others who are much better at playing politics and want to keep on doing what they have always done. This went out of date in the early 2000s.
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Confirmed, Bottas to Mercedes, Massa back at Williams.