F1 RACING MAY 2019 85with drivers Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin.
Claire Williams has since admittedthat a plan
should have beenexecutedduringthe good times
to avoid thecurrent hardship.
Thereisan inevitablecycle ofdeclinethatstarts
as soon as a slip inperf orma nce occurs.Tha t’s
because the commercial make-upof the sport
hinders teams without manufacturer backing.
A drop inthe constructors’ standings results
in less prize money, ashortfall of perhaps
$20-30million. The knock-oneffec t fo r
independentteams to redress theloss of income
is to choose drivers whobring cash, but who may
not be thelast word in both speedand technical
feedback– exacerbatingthe decline.
Under thetechnical leadershipofLo we (who
joined fromMercedes in2017),lastseaso n started
poorly and in May Williams parted company
with chief designerEd Wood, and a month later,
head of ae ro Dirkde Beer. Performanceboss
Rob Smedley alsoleft at the end of2018.None of
them were replaced.
Ex-McLaren man DougMcKiernan was hired
as chiefengine er and internal recruitments were
undertaken, butwhen the 2019 FW42 failed to
be built in time forpre-s eason testin g Lowe’s
positionwas untenable. Since then co-found er
Patrick Head hasreturned to Grove to help
teady the ship.
“We have weaknessesin aerodynamics anda
number ofdepartments,”says Williams. “And
that’s not in any way pointing ou r fingers at
various groups because it’sour responsibility
as leadersof ou r businessto ensure they are
structured in the right wayand they have what
they need. It’s nottheirjob, it’s ours. But they
[the weaknesses] have become more apparent
with what happenedthis year in testing.We
perhaps needed to hitrockbottom to work out
what those issues are. But we have aclear action
plan which is i n forc e and will come out over the
next sixmonths.”
A good exampleof how Williamshas lost its
way is best explained bydesc ribing theteam’s
engineeringpractice. It proudly buildsevery
single aspect of thecar that isn’t thepower
unit ora prescribed standardpart , such as the
fuel tank.For example, asmall team of people
work on d esigningand ma nufactur ing the pedal
box. This isn’t an area of thecar t hat offers
any gain in perfo rmance (except perhaps by
incrementalsavi ngs inwe ight) andmost otherteams out-source their pedal boxes, buying the
item outright,rather than paying a team of staff.
This is a smallexample of where efficiencies and
savings can bemade and changes are now afoot to
restructure departments.
“We have always madeeverythingin-house,
jigs, fixtures – everything,” says Williams.“It’sin
our DNA to makeeverythingourselves, regardless
of howmany parts there are. We needto change
that mindset.Wha t pa rts should orshouldn’t
we be making? What are the keyperformance
differentiators? Shouldwe be farming out aspects
to experts?Can wemake costeffici encies as a
result?That’s thebig workthat is going onat
Williams atthe moment and canbe powerful
movingforward. We needto focu s on what we’re
making andwhat we’regoodat ma king and
concentrating our resources onwhat matters–
and that’s performance.”
The abilityto out- source so much of the
car thanksto the ‘listed parts’ collaborations
that have developedbetween teams, such as
Ferrari and Haas, have alsohurt this traditional
engineeringmodel.
“Becausewemakeeverythingin house,thathas
probably costus over the pastcoup le of years,”F1 RACING AUGUST 2019 81Afterafraughtstarttotheseason
Williamsisregrouping.PatrickHead
(top,middle)hasreturnedtotheteam
temporarilytohelpsortthingsout