This is Mike Blanchet's column (former Lola's MD) on the September
Engineering issue. Quite on the money.
Recovery position
How might Williams and McLaren regain their winning ways in Formula 1?
McLaren and Williams are in dire trouble,
and this shouldn’t please anybody who
genuinely recognises the value to the
sport of their names and achievements, and the
dedication and loyalty of their employees. This is
not just sentiment, there’s little room for it in F1, but
fans identify with certain teams. Losing them may
also lose some of the interest and support that is
essential if Liberty’s plans to expand race coverage
in areas including social media are to be realised.
All sports need recognised star names to attract
followers who will know that they are engaging
with the best in their chosen sphere.
It is immensely hard when down
and being kicked to pick oneself up.
It is difficult to step back from the
inevitable daily fire-fighting to really
assess the reasons for being in the
situation and then to identify and
implement ways out of it. Clarity is
essential, but far from easy to achieve.
Humble pie has to be eaten.
Reality check
If either team is to recover and reach
anything like their previous status, they
need to re-think themselves without
the baggage of trying to live up to their
successful pasts. Comments such as
‘we know how to win’ are just hubris
– very clearly they no longer do know.
Kidding yourself over the performance of your
and talking it up, as McLaren’s Zak Brown
has frequently done, only confuses and obfuscates
the real picture. So does Claire Williams’ use of
semantics to avoid the term ‘pay driver’.
The relentless pace of Formula 1 guarantees
that rapid obsolescence is built-in and it is easy
to assume that design processes, including tools
which were state-of-the-art when quite recently
installed, remain fully effective. While certain
aspects of a design brief are red lines that simply
cannot be compromised, for example driver safety
and product quality, establishing the right firstorder
priorities other than these is essential. But
it takes a strong and clear-visioned technical
director to see beyond all the ‘fluff’.
McLaren has not been benefiting from this and
it remains to be seen if recent acknowledgement
will create the step-change required. Williams
has similarly not benefited. In particular the
organisation has to adopt the mind-set of a start-up
team; it needs to be lean and hungry and open to
new and innovative operating practices. Pride in its
history, while important, has to be subjugated to
the needs of today and tomorrow.
Non-core activities that bleed focus and
resources from the sole task of getting to the front
half of the grid should not be countenanced. In
the near future Williams doesn’t have a chance of
winning races, so only realistic objectives should be
established, not too far removed from those of an
outfit fresh to the battle, however hard to swallow.
The team’s steadfast refusal to go along with
proposals a few years back of permitting a limited
number of customer cars to be run always smacked
to me a little of hypocrisy, given that this was Sir
Frank’s original way into F1. It also reflects dogged
ideology and a refusal to face facts, the results of
which have sadly come home to roost.
Williams has now to accept that the only
advantages it has are an annual $30m historical
earnings budget contribution and a substantial,
skilled workforce. The vast database of technical
information built over time ought to be an
additional plus, but there’s no sign of this being so,
judging from the team’s woeful situation.
Firing line
Head of aerodynamics Dirk de Beer ‘stepped-down’
after only a little more than a year since, with great
play on his abilities and Ferrari knowledge, he was
recruited. Every designer gets it wrong from timeto-
time; Adrian Newey was responsible for a couple
of howlers during his time with McLaren. The key
is to learn quickly from the mistakes. Personality
clashes and poor management skills aside, only if
a technical head is dogmatically following a certain
design philosophy that is not delivering should he
or she depart with such speed.
Regarding former Williams technical director
Sam Michael in 2011, this was evidently the case,
despite his commitment and hard work. Since then
there have been a number of senior engineering
director appointments and departures, actions
which can have a negative effect on ongoing good
work. No consistent upward movement in results
has ensued, aside from positive blips in
2014 and 2015. These occurred partly from
the advantage of having Mercedes power
when their PU was hugely dominant – this
actually a good leadership decision –
partly due to driver quality and also to the
intervention of Pat Symonds before he,
too, abruptly departed the scene. The team
principals therefore have to hold up their
hands and admit responsibility.
Winging it
There seems to be an ongoing weakness
in Williams’ engineering processes. Fitting
development rear wings to the FW41
cars at Silverstone caused a so-called
‘phenomenon’ of stalling the underbody
when the DRS closed. Thorough assessment
of the overall aero effect of the wing assembly –
essential, surely, with a change of this magnitude –
should have revealed the problem. If such a process
was short-circuited then it smacks of desperation
to find some kind of quick-fix improvement. If the
process was followed, then there is something
seriously wrong with Williams’ aero tools, or with
the analysis of the results. Perhaps both.
Paddy Lowe, despite his abilities, is discovering
that being in overall technical charge is different
from being just one member of a senior group,
especially in a depressing non-performing
situation. He, too, maybe needs time to shape up
to this role, even though Formula 1 doesn’t permit
much in the way of learning on the job. However,
an honest and detailed appraisal of what’s
gone wrong must extend beyond the technical
shortcomings that Lowe was hired to address.
Some serious self-analysis is needed at the very
top to regain effective direction.