British GP: Williams Racing No points but positive race


By Andrew Hooper
July 19 2021

The results of the 2021 Britsih GP wouldsee the Williams racing Team drivers George Russell and Nicholas Latifi finish in 12th and 14th in a race that was run under the new format and that was also Red Flagged after a crash on the opoening lap between Verstappen and Hamilton. Again it was a race that promised so much for the Williams Racing Team but again failed to deliver with firstly poor starts hampering both drivers as well as the general lack of pace of the FW43B which was only ever going to allow them at best to finish outside the top ten. Twelfth for George was still a good result showing that the team is making progress but the points they are so keen to secure are just so elusive for the team.

 
 Williams Racing Austrian Grand Prix Race Review
 
Latifi
 

With the completion of the Sprint qualifying event and the subsequent penalty for George Russell the Williams Racing Team would see George and Nicholas Latifi starting the fifty two lap 2021 British Grand Prix from 12th and 17th. On pole was Verstappen followed by Hamilton, Bottas, Leclerc, Norris, Ricciardo, Alonso, Vettel, Ocon and Sainz tenth. After his dramas in the Sprint race Perez would be starting from the pit lane. In regard to the tyres each driver would get a free choice for this race caused by the format change for the weekend. The Williams drivers would go with the medium along with the rest of the field except for Perez who was on the hard.

With the start of the race it would be a fight between Hamilton and Verstappen which would see the pair make contact with Leclerc now leading. It was a major accident for Verstappen as he limped away from his destroyed car. Hamilton would say that he had damage to his car as he joined the field now behind the Safety Car. But the race would be Red Flagged with the barrier to be repaired and to allow Verstappen to get safely out of his car after what was a high speed accident. The Williams drivers were currently 14th and 17th. Replays would show Hamilton making contact with his left front wheel with the right rear of the Red Bull. The cars would return to the pit lane as a result of the Red Flag.

 
Russell
 

After a considerable delay the cars would take to the track behind the Safety Car and would again form up for a second start. Leclerc was now on pole from Hamilton, Bottas, Norris, Ricciardo, Vettel. Alonso, Sainz, Raikkonen and Ocon in tenth. The grid would form and with the second start it would see Leclerc leading from Hamilton and Norris. George and Nicholas were running in 14th and 17th. Vettel would spin dropping to 19th as Bottas was now fourth from Ricciardo. This would see George 13th while it was announced that Hamilton was to take a ten second timed penalty.

Nicholas was now 16th behind Perez as Perez was looking to move forward. Perez would pass George seeing the Williams 14th with eight laps now completed. lap fourteen and the Williams drivers continued to run in 14th and 16th. Leclerc was leading Hamilton by 1.7s followed by Norris. But Leclerc would have a moment with his engine cutting out seeing Hamilton close to the point he had DRS. Lap twenty and the first of the pit stops started seeing Raikkonen, Perez, George and Vettel all pitting. Perez was now on the medium and the other drivers on the hard. George was now in 16th and Nicholas 13th. But the following lap Nicholas would pit also going to the hard tyre. The Williams drivers were now 15th and 16th.

 
Latifi
 

Lap twenty two and Ricciardo would pit taking on the hard and returning in ninth. The next lap and Norris would pit dropping to fifth going to the hard tyre but it was a slow stop. Leclerc was still leading from Hamilton and now Bottas. Sainz was fourth followed by Alonso and Norris. Bottas would pit from third on lap twenty four taking on the hard tyre. He would return in fifth and would pass Alonso for fourth. Alonso would pit seeing him drop to ninth as we also saw Giovinazzi come in returning in 15th ahead of Nicholas. The top three were still on their medium tyres yet to pit. Hamilton would pit on lap twenty nine and would take his penalty and change to the hard tyre returning in fifth. Leclerc was now leading from Sainz and Bottas.

Lap thirty and Sainz would pit changing to the hard seeing him have a slow stop and return in sixth behind Ricciardo. Gasly had also come in taking the hard and returning in 12th. Leclerc would pit taking the hard and returning still in the lead. Bottas was second followed by Norris and Hamilton fourth. Tsunoda would pit on lap thirty two as Hamilton passed Norris for third. Tsunoda was now 13th and like most drivers running on the hard. Lap thirty six and the Williams pair were still 14th and 16th. Perez would pit again from eighth taking on another set of medium tyres returning in 17th. This would see George and Nicholas 13th and 15th.

 
Russell
 

Perez would pass Vettel for 16th with the Aston martin driver been told to retire his car on lap forty two. Perez would pass George for 13th seeing George now 14th and Nicholas 16th. With the closing laps we would see Hamilton close the gap to Leclerc and he would eventually be in a position to pass the Ferrari which he did. Outside the top ten we would see Perez pit again dropping down the order as well as Gasly coming in allowing George to move up the order to be 11th. But on the soft tyres Gasly would be able to move back ahead of the Williams seeing George now 12th while Nicholas was 14th. And this would be where they would finish the race as Hamilton took victory with Leclerc second and Bottas third. Norris was able to finish fourth followed by team-mate Ricciardo, Sainz, Alonso, Stroll, Ocon and Tsunoda tenth.

Again it was a race that promised so much for the Williams Racing Team but again failed to deliver with firstly poor starts hampering both drivers as well as the general lack of pace of the FW43B which really was only ever going to allow them at best to finish outside the top ten. Twelfth for George was still a good result showing that the team is making progress but the points they are so keen to secure are just so elusive for the team.

 

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British GP: Williams Racing No points but positive race
Discussion started by Williams F1 , 19/07/2021 09:58
Williams F1
19/07/2021 09:58
What do you think? You can have your say by posting below.
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Stu69
19/07/2021 11:58
Personally I really aren’t bothered by the points at this stage. Williams seem to be making race by race progress. Understanding the car better I believe George said! That for me is good enough.

The points will follow at some time.

If they keep investing and aren’t compromising next years car we really could be in an excellent position for the start of 22.

This is a million miles away from where we have been in the recent past.

Anderis
19/07/2021 12:21
I'm bothered by our inability to score points.
First, Alfa Romeo is definetely within our reach when it comes to WCC and it would be nice to earn some more $$$ for 8th place in WCC instead of 9th. + beating 2 teams is always better for morale and PR than beating 1.
Second, Williams really don't deserve to be on such a long pointless streak with all the progress they've made recently. It's so ironic we scored a point in 2019 with that@#$%&of a car but can't do it in 2021 with a much better car. It would certainly help with negotiations with potential sponsors, new staff and drivers if we can prove we can score some points.
There's little point in improving pace if it doesn't translate to on track results, especially that we have completely new rules for 2022 and any performance improvements with this car won't carry into 2022.

It's frustrating that we can't put together a point scoring performance. It doesn't help that we're the only team above Haas who only ever has one driver in the mix.

I don't know what's with this weird tendency with Williams to not get the results the car deserves. It happened in 2009 (no podiums), 2011 (poor car overall but good pace in Australia and Monaco barely yielded any points), 2012 (only 8th in WCC with such a good car), 2014 (no race wins) etc. Even 2020 we were able to beat Haas a lot of the times but they scored points on 2 occasions and we didn't even once. Russell had 3 mechanical DNFs in his entire career and 2 of those were races where it looked like he was going to score points- what are the odds?

ihme
19/07/2021 13:38
Will will begin scoring points when we replace our current drivers.

It's pretty obvious what we're lacking when we have the car to score a point or two right now isnt it?

One is slow in quali and slow-ish in the race (a Palmer 2.0) and the other one is super quick over one lap but when he has to be anywhere else on the track than the perfect quali line he has no idea what to do or where to place his car.

Gunk
19/07/2021 14:14
Quote:
Anderis
I
It doesn't help that we're the only team above Haas who only ever has one driver in the mix.

I do think this is a huge issue . . . and it really has been going on forever . . . well, since Naka basically. A brief respite offered only by Massa/Bottas.

It can't be any more fun to sponsor a one-car team than it is to be a supporter. And it has made even less sense in years when we produced the odd good car.

This is finally an opportunity to dump all the overheads of in-house facilities which contribute nothing to competitiveness, only employment for no hopers.

Anderis
19/07/2021 16:08
Quote:
Gunk
Quote:
Anderis
I
It doesn't help that we're the only team above Haas who only ever has one driver in the mix.

I do think this is a huge issue . . . and it really has been going on forever . . . well, since Naka basically. A brief respite offered only by Massa/Bottas.

It can't be any more fun to sponsor a one-car team than it is to be a supporter. And it has made even less sense in years when we produced the odd good car.
Since Wurz actually. Rosberg beat him 10-0 in Q3 appearances in 2007. And Wurz' points tally only looked respectable because he had a lot of luck compared to Nico. Pace-wise he was nowhere most of the time. Nakajima was probably a slight improvement TBH.

It @#$%& me off so much that if something goes wrong with one car, the other is never up there to pick up the pieces and it goes on for much of the last 15 years.

Gunk
19/07/2021 19:19
Quote:
Anderis
Since Wurz actually. . .

Oh yes, forgot about him . . . well, almost totally invisible fading into overdue retirement . . .

rumble strip
19/07/2021 21:05
So we are all hung up on getting this single point which is worth so much in TV rights money?

On Sunday, Red Bull pitted Perez on lap 49, gave him new rubber and sent him to get the fastest lap, which he did, taking one point off Lewis and maybe helping Max at the end of the season. Sergio's lap time was 1.28.67.

If we had stopped George on lap 50, given him the best remaining rubber and sent him out to do his one lap special, I think we can all agree Russell would have caned it round on lap 52 of 52.

On Friday night in qualifying for the Sprint, George took 8th with a time of 1.26.9. That's 1.7 seconds faster than Perez's fastest lap. Obviously you will have a kilo or two extra of fuel on board, but the cars were locked in parc ferme at the end of Friday and let back out only in controlled circumstances so they were largely unadjusted for the race. So if we had given it a go, it could well have given us a point which poodling round in 12th doesn't.

And I know that someone will say "you have to be in the top ten to get the fastest lap point". But I believe that rule has been waived this year - because Sergio came in from 10th, got the new rubber and finished in 16th - but with fastest lap. Look at the timings on the F1 main website if you don't believe me.

I think, with our car so resolutely unracy, this is our best chance of a point.

Anderis
19/07/2021 22:28
Quote:
rumble strip
And I know that someone will say "you have to be in the top ten to get the fastest lap point". But I believe that rule has been waived this year - because Sergio came in from 10th, got the new rubber and finished in 16th - but with fastest lap. Look at the timings on the F1 main website if you don't believe me.
No, this rule is still in place. Perez had 104 points after Austria and still has 104 points after Silverstone.

The fastest lap is still credited to you in the statistics even if you finish outside top10, but to get the point, you need to finish inside top10.

rumble strip
23/07/2021 09:24
Oh well, that's a shame. It was a nice idea that amused me whilst sat outside a hospital for 6 hours, awaiting news of Mrs R. (Good news in the event.) But it explains why only the top 4-5 cars can make it worthwhile, given 25 seconds dropped on the tyre change. Effectively it is a extra point that only the top teams can ever win it - or in this case, can deny another top team from winning it.

GPL
23/07/2021 09:47
Like the rest of you guys no real idea why George can qualie so well in this car now but come Sunday look so very average to poor again.

Remember the new team are trying to make a silk Purse out of a Sow,s ear.

Not going to happen.

Seems slow off the start line.
Seems to struggle more on opening lap or 2.
Seems to use up it,s tires faster
Seems cumbersome of high fuel load.
Drivers ??



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2021:07:23:09:58:33 by GPL.

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