F1 2021

[Rare White Ape]

Jacques Villeneuve was a great champion and his title is well deserved. He beat Schumacher and Ferrari while they were on the ascendancy. Plus he's one of the few guys who constantly tried to go flat from La Source to Les Combes back when that was still a very hard thing to do in an F1 car, so he gets the mad dog stamp of approval in my books. Plus he won the Indy 500. Come on.

Frank Williams was a sportsman first and an engineer second, while Patrick Head was an engineer first and a sportsman second. Both had amazing business nous. Perfect combination to run a team. They out-Ron Dennis'd Ron Dennis in the early 90s, and it took Dennis poaching Adrian Newey to turn the tide, when McLaren could no longer rely on the immense horsepower and reliability of both the turbo and atmo Honda engines of that era.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Pretty much agree with your observation. I was an admirer of JV as well back then... starting with indycars... However, reality is that as 'great' as JV was, JB kicked his butt. JB was just stuck in lousy cars for a long long time... once he had a great car, championship was his to win.

I'd also give a lot of credit to Adrian Newey for the successes of Williams, McLaren and Red Bull. He is the Michael Schumacher or Lewis Hamilton of engineers. I have a feeling Newey is a very loyal person. Treat him well, he'll stick with you forever. Had Frank treated him well, surely he'll still be with the team today... and Williams wouldn't be this slow today... IMHO.

[Crazed_Insanity]

You'd have to look in the wayback machine. Most of what we saw with the independents (Jordan and then Mallya and Sauber and Williams) was predicted by our own Dudley back in the mid -oughts. It's basically a byproduct of the inflation brought on by the corporatization of F1, where Ford and BMW and Honda and Toyota failed to reign in Ferrari, Mercedes succeeded.

But it all came at the expense of F1 no longer being viable for garagistas like Williams.

Don't remember what Dudley said... btw, whatever happened to him?

Corporatization definitely hurts the sport, but Ford, BMW, Honda and Toyota have proven that money won't always get you what you want. Key is building the right team. Frank thought so highly of his garage but failed at building his team I think.

Naturally McLaren had a similar fall from grace, but it's a bigger 'corporation' and so was able to recover better than Williams...

I guess we'll just need to wait for the next young Newey to join teams such as Williams, Sauber, or Haas to help push them up the order higher? Or are they destined to stayed down at the bottom without corporate backing?

[FaultyMario]

Naturally McLaren had a similar fall from grace, but it's a bigger 'corporation' and so was able to recover better than Williams...

I don't know about bigger, they certainly followed different paths, in McL's case it was because they gave Gordon Murray the leeway to go ahead with his pet project, and that in turn paved the way for their road car division.

As for Williams, they may have had to sell the GP team and forfeit the brand's intangible assets, but Frank did set up his children for life, Williams Advanced Engineering is a pretty good R&D firm. I read a few years ago that staff from the aerodynamics department was working on more efficient wind turbine blades with like one of the big manufacturers, GE, perhaps.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Oh really? Didn't know that. Yeah, it's probably a good idea to put their engineers to good use to create different income streams. I do hope the Williams name can live on.

Anyway, in retrospect, I don't think 'corporate' backing is the key for success. The person who's truly awesome at building teams was Ross Brawn. Too bad Honda wasn't patient enough and consequently allowed Mercedes to reap all the benefits. I think this is probably true in any business. If you can assemble a great team, it'll be hard to lose.

[FaultyMario]

i don't know about great engineering teams.

F1 really is a big black box. Like Bernie made it.

For example, some of the Bridgestone staff stayed within Ferrari while others went to work for the Pirelli operation. And with all the legalities binding who-knows-what it's hard to say what Brawn was able to transfer to Mercedes from what the Honda people developed at Brackley and at Super Aguri.

People do move around the teams, but it's hard to tell how much of their know how goes with them.

[FaultyMario]

Jacques Villeneuve was a great champion and his title is well deserved.

Perfect combination to run a team. They out-Ron Dennis'd Ron Dennis in the early 90s, and it took

JFV was in a state of grace in 97, probably peaking in Portugal. But he was at a great level since his Forsythe years. He did have some great moments at BAR, as well, but the car was shit, because his long time associate, Craig Pollock, was a shitty team boss. He also associated with other shit people throughout the years, from the entertainment and financial businesses, and people formerly associated with him have painted him as a shitty person.

So yes, JV has suffered from guilt by association.

Except that the guy is guilty of looking like douchebag, hanging out with douchebags and being called out for being a douchebag.

Now that you mention it, Yes, Williams was the original McLaren, but with less Ron.

[FaultyMario]

By the looks of it, Jeddah is two straight sections joint together by hairpins.

Although, one of the hairpins (T13) looks fun. Blind-ish, uphill and cambered.

[FaultyMario]

Asphalt is new, but it has been cleaned of the fine dust that ruined Turkey 2020. I think they're going to have to re-surface it after the GP, it looks way too soft for the ripples that F1 braking subjects its tracks to.

[JoeW]

Looks like a Mercedes win to me.