Yearly Archives: 2012

The Williams F1 Team scored its first 8 points for the 2012 Formula 1 season, in the last Grand Prix at Sepang, when Bruno Senna crossed the finish line sixth just 8.2s behind Kimi Raikkonen, having started 13th on the grid. Now the team stands 7th in the Constructor standings with 18 points thanks to the team Williams’ first double points finish since 2010.

The Williams F1 team posted an interview with Mark Gillan, Chief Operations Engineer for the team on their website. Here’s the interview with the usual overload of F1 images Riot Engine has been bringing you this season.

Mark, congratulations on Williams’ first double points finish since Korea in 2010. What sort of a boost will this result give to the team?

Getting both cars into the points is a very good result and one that every single person in the team can be proud of, especially given the disappointing 2011 season. The team has been further invigorated by this result to push even harder in what is clearly a very tightly spaced grid, with fierce competition.

Can you sum up the performance of the FW34 around the Shanghai International Circuit?

The car’s performance in Shanghai was good in both single lap and in particular race pace, when tyre management was paramount. This race was an interesting one as the track temperatures changed quite a bit throughout the weekend, which made setting the car up to optimise the tyre performance more difficult.

You started the drivers on different tyre compounds, Bruno on primes and Pastor on options. Why was that?

It was a difficult choice to make but we felt that splitting the strategies, with both cars being beside each other on the grid, was the prudent decision to take.

How marginal was a two-stop strategy, given that Shanghai is a high degradation circuit?

It was marginal, especially given the close nature of the racing, but both the drivers and the car managed the tyres well.

Can you sum up the driving performances of Bruno and Pastor over the weekend?

I am very pleased with both of their performances and they fought very hard during the race against stiff competition to secure ten points in total. Their feedback during the event is also excellent which helps us further develop and optimise the car.

Pastor set the fourth fastest lap of the race – quicker than Webber, Hamilton, Vettel and Rosberg. What can be read into such an impressive lap time?

Pastor was very quick in that section of the race and he felt the car to be very strong with a good balance.

The Bahrain Grand Prix comes next. What sort of challenge is the circuit and what should we expect from the Williams FW34 there?

On the back of a good weekend in China we are aiming to get both cars into the points again this week. Bahrain will be a tough race, not least due to the high ambient temperatures which can necessitate opening the engine cover body-work to the maximum.

The team also got together on the grid to wish team founder Sir Frank Williams a happy 70th birthday!

The other big thing that’s happened to the Williams F1 Team is the entry of Susie Wolff, as a development driver.

Stefano Domenicali, Team Principal:: “There’s no point denying we are disappointed. We had the potential to get a better result than this, but we did not manage it. The lack of top speed, one of the weak points of this F2012, prevented Fernando especially of making the most of a strategy, which at one point, had put him in a situation where he could fight for a place in the top five. Felipe went for a two stopper, counting on others having higher tyre degradation, but this only turned out to be the case for a few cars. It was quite an unusual race, as indeed was qualifying, which still delivered some surprises compared to what was being predicted and I think it is worth analysing the way it went in depth to try and understand how best to tackle the next round. In Bahrain we will again have to be racing on the defensive but that doesn’t mean we will go there in a resigned state of mind. We have seen three different winners in three races, with performance levels of some cars changing very significantly from race to race. At this stage, we must do the maximum on track and exploit every opportunity, but the most important work is that done in Maranello, especially on the aerodynamic development. We need to accelerate the introduction of updates and change gear. This is very long and unpredictable championship, where things can change very quickly. Finally, I’d like to congratulate Nico Rosberg on his first win in Formula 1 and Mercedes for a return to victory after a gap of 57 years.”

Fernando Alonso: “We knew this would be a difficult race and that’s how it turned out. We were always in traffic, without an opportunity to exploit the car’s potential and when you are behind other cars, the tyres get worn much more easily. Choosing to do three stops clearly meant we would be forced to do some overtaking, but with the top speed we had, it turned out to be almost impossible on the main straight, so I had to invent some overtaking moves at other points on the track, where I could make better use of the car. Obviously, this does not leave me very optimistic for Bahrain, on a track where traction and speed are vital, exactly the areas where we are weakest. Once again next week it will be mainly a case of damage limitation. I don’t want to think of the classification because the priority is to improve the performance of the F2012. This does not mean however, that I have lost hope, quite the contrary. Last year, we believed all the way to Spa and there’s no reason not to at the moment, when we are third in the classification, just eight points off the leader. Sure, we definitely need to make a good step forward to make the car quicker. In Spain we will have major updates but so will the others and so it’s not that I’m expecting a miracle of going one second quicker than the others.”

Felipe Massa: “I tried to do my best in a very close fought race. Sure, thirteenth place is not something I can be happy about, but I think that as far as my race was concerned, this was a step forward compared to the first two races of the season. At least I managed to run a normal race and I know I did everything that I could. The decision to make two stops was the right one, given my position, but maybe, in the light of how the race went, it would have been better to stop at different times: however, that’s easy to say now, after the chequered flag. Each and every time I found myself in traffic and paid for the lack of top speed, one of the major problems with our car at the moment. The Sakhir circuit, for the next round of the championship, does not look like being very favourable for us, given how things have gone so far. For me, it is a race where I have always done well, but I’m not under any illusions. As always, we will try and give it our best shot.”

Pat Fry, Technical Director:: Definitely an interesting race for the spectators, but very frustrating for us. Traffic was the decisive factor in this race, which was easily predictable, given where our cars were on the grid. We split the strategies, also in light of the fact that with Felipe, we could choose which type of tyre he could start on. Seeing where we came out of the third pit stop with Fernando – alongside Hamilton, I think the choice was the right one, but we will analyse the way the race played out carefully to understand if we could have done anything differently. Clearly today, we paid a very heavy price for the lack of a good top speed on a track like this. The result does not represent the car’s true potential in race configuration but we have to accept it. We lack performance, we know it, but there is no point in beating ourselves up over it: rather we need to concentrate all our efforts on improving car performance. Next week in Bahrain we won’t have any particularly significant updates, so we cannot expect a miracle: we must try and squeeze the maximum out of what we have to work with. I want to finish on a positive note, complimenting the pit stop guys, who once again today did a great job, as the times can testify.”

Kimi Raikkonen
“We tried to run two stops as it looked to be the fastest strategy and up until the last ten laps it was looking good, but we ran out of tyre performance at the end. I was stuck behind Felipe (Massa) for quite a while and couldn’t get past as I wasn’t fast enough in the right parts of the track to make a move. Even if I’d got past I don’t think it would have made the greatest amount of difference to the final result. We had good pace in the race, we tried a different strategy and it didn’t pay off today; it’s as simple as that.”

Romain Grosjean
“It was a very good race, I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately I made a little mistake fighting with Mark (Webber) but overall it was a good performance. The car felt great and the team did an amazing job to give us such a big improvement from Friday, so I’m especially happy for the guys to be able to finish the race and get some good points on the board. To be up there fighting with McLaren and Red Bull is a great feeling and I’m happy to have got my season started properly. We’ve had high hopes since P3 on the grid in Melbourne, and now after a few setbacks it’s time to aim higher. There’s always room to improve and hopefully from here we can aim for the top five and eventually podiums. We’ll take things step by step but I’m feeling confident for the rest of the season ahead.”

Eric Boullier, Team Principal
“It is getting more frustrating for us as we are clearly very close to achieving a very good result. Twelve laps before the end of today’s race we had one car in P2 and one car in P5 with no more pit stops to go. Unfortunately, we were a little bit too aggressive with our strategy. As soon as we understood some cars were doing three stops it was clear there was potential for us to finish on the podium, but we were not expecting the tyre wear to be as high as it was. For Romain the strategy worked; for Kimi it did not. The positives from this weekend are that we continue to show good qualifying and race pace with the E20, and we were capable of fighting for a podium finish with Kimi. Also, it was a very good first full race for Romain. One slow stop and one mistake when fighting with Mark (Webber) for position meaning he ran on the marbles cost him two positions. He recovered very well from this and his pace was very consistent.”

Alan Permane, Director of Trackside Operations
“Ten laps before the end of the race, Kimi’s tyres were nearing the end of their life and unfortunately he got on the marbles when Sebastian (Vettel) passed. That was the end of his race effectively as he lost ten places over the course of a lap. We’ll dissect the data and see if a three stop would have been better for us, but everything before the race suggested a two-stop was the way to go, and this approach benefitted Romain. Without the gamble we took with Kimi we wouldn’t have been running in second position so that was the risk we took. I’m happy for Romain to finish his first race of the season. To go from tenth to sixth – racing with the cars of the calibre he was – showed a measured performance so it looks good for the future. We’ve learn a lot this weekend and hopefully we head to Bahrain with an improved car and better understanding of this year’s tyres.”

Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 Team Support Leader
“Congratulations to Romain on his first points of the season. It was a shame that Kimi could not get a double points finish, but the speed of the package is fundamentally there. Engine-wise we’ve had a trouble free weekend, which is always positive at this type of track where the unit gets a workout over the entire rev range. Driveability through the slow corners was good and the top speed was reasonable, which allowed Romain to defend his position in the closing laps from the Williams and get some decent points for the team today.”

Starting 3rd and 8th from the grid, after an outstanding qualifying performance in the  Chinese Grand Prix, Kobayashi and Perez managed to finish 10th and 11th in the race.  Sauber F1 Team thinks neither of the race strategies really worked out and it didn’t help that both the Sauber C31-Ferraris got stuck in traffic for most of the time.

Kamui Kobayashi
“Of course after what we did in qualifying the race result is disappointing. I’m not really sure what happened at the start, my car just didn’t move, it was a bit strange and I lost positions immediately. Then I was stuck in traffic for most of the time, also we made the second pit stop a bit late and the tyres had gone. Quite often we have recovered in the race from a bad qualifying, but today it was the other way round. So we have proven we can be strong in both qualifying and race, and next time we will put this all together.”

Sergio Perez
“I must say I am very disappointed. I had a very good start, and for the entire first stint it really looked to be going very well for me. But then when I picked up the medium compound tyres I lost a lot of performance from lap 17 onwards. Actually I feel I would have been better off with a three stop strategy, but you never know. The pit stops as such were good, but at both I lost time at the launch because we had a problem with the clutch. However, this is racing and we will do better next time.”

Monisha Kaltenborn, CEO:
“We are obviously disappointed with this result. After our strong qualifying we expected more. However, we were not fast enough, and our strategy didn’t work out – both our drivers got stuck in traffic. For the fans it was a very exciting race with a lot of overtaking right up to the end, which shows how fierce the competition is. Congratulations to Nico Rosberg and Mercedes for a well deserved victory.”

Giampaolo Dall’Ara, Head of Track Engineering:
“This was definitely not the race we were expecting, hence we are disappointed. A number of factors didn’t go the way we wanted. First of all Kamui had a poor start, then his tyres wore out earlier than expected, and he had to pit earlier than planned. He then got stuck in traffic. Initially we had a three stop strategy for both cars, but then we didn’t want Sergio to have the same problem and we reverted him to two stops, which was still a good strategy. But then we lost time at the first pit stop with a clutch problem, this cost him two positions and, as the final point, we expected overtaking to be easier for our cars, which eventually didn’t happen. All these factors led to a disappointing result.”