Williams F1

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Paul
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Post by Paul »

(If this is allowed in Off Topic?)

BBC2 - great looking documentary just starting (spot Peteski😉)
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ScotMac
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Post by ScotMac »

Just watched most of it :D :D
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Post by Deleted User 1874 »

Frank Dernie is a class act and a lovely bloke. When you wanted to hear some common sense, he was the one to consult. Making him redundant was the end of all sensibility at Williams and it just spiralled down hill from there. Jonathan Williams is a really nice bloke too, but he looked totally disengaged in that documentary. Unfortunately Williams is one of those places that is stuck wallowing in its past glories like some sad old fart in the pub.
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Post by Dandock »

An enjoyable and enlightening watch. I particularly liked Frank Dearnie’s contributions: simple no nonsense observations.

And yes, Jonathan appeared hugely disengaged. Very odd for him to be buried in the heritage cavern. A very odd dynamic!
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Post by Col Lamb »

For me Williams lost all credibility in the manner in which Nigel Mansell departed.

Lo and behold a few years later the same thing with Damon Hill.

Williams today are small fry, a make up the numbers team, zero potential, but that is the same for all but Mercedes, Ferrari and to an extent Red Bull.

Alas today it is not the sport that it once was, am I am not sure it will ever recover.

Keeping fingers crossed that the changes made this year will result in actual racing.
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Post by Dandock »

Col Lamb wrote: Sun Feb 17, 2019 10:53 am
Alas today it is not the sport that it once was, am I am not sure it will ever recover.

Keeping fingers crossed that the changes made this year will result in actual racing.
Not much if the rumours are to be believed. And with Liberty looking to tie up a zero fee deal for Miami at the same time as Silverstone looks to be bowing out cos they cannot afford to stage the event, not to mention the perennial idea to trim Ferrari’s ‘extras’ and stymie innovation, revolution could well and truly be in the air.
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Post by Col Lamb »

Dandock wrote: Sun Feb 17, 2019 11:27 am
Col Lamb wrote: Sun Feb 17, 2019 10:53 am
Alas today it is not the sport that it once was, am I am not sure it will ever recover.

Keeping fingers crossed that the changes made this year will result in actual racing.
Not much if the rumours are to be believed. And with Liberty looking to tie up a zero fee deal for Miami at the same time as Silverstone looks to be bowing out cos they cannot afford to stage the event, not to mention the perennial idea to trim Ferrari’s ‘extras’ and stymie innovation, revolution could well and truly be in the air.
The sooner the better, the playing field should be level for all the teams.

Miami, good grief it will be as bad as the other street circuits, dull boring processional races.

Thank goodness there is still sone racing in Moto GP where there are not the prima donna Playstation drivers that there are in F1.
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Rab J
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Post by Rab J »

The new street circuits are barely racing at all and not worth watching IMO. I have tried to watch the formula E thing, all seeming to be inner city round the streets affairs, which apart from sounding like demented sewing machines are just boring follow the leader or crash into the leader passing him races. Cant see me wasting time watching any more of it and if F1 go that way probably wont bother with that either.
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Post by Dandock »

Rab J wrote: Mon Feb 18, 2019 8:33 am The new street circuits are barely racing at all and not worth watching IMO. I have tried to watch the formula E thing, all seeming to be inner city round the streets affairs, which apart from sounding like demented sewing machines are just boring follow the leader or crash into the leader passing him races. Cant see me wasting time watching any more of it and if F1 go that way probably wont bother with that either.
+1 re street circuits & FE. I tried with the first race this season but a) found the circuit totally boring and being without obvious landmarks difficult to to follow. And b) as for the contrived nature of the rules...!

Neither can I understand how it can pay as there were very limited viewpoints and less than a handful of grandstands.

Take that and pay per view sport - and that’s where Liberty appear to be taking F1 - unless the advertisers have an audience then it’s literally a road to nowhere.
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Post by Deleted User 1874 »

Col Lamb wrote: Sun Feb 17, 2019 10:53 am For me Williams lost all credibility in the manner in which Nigel Mansell departed.

Lo and behold a few years later the same thing with Damon Hill.

Williams today are small fry, a make up the numbers team, zero potential, but that is the same for all but Mercedes, Ferrari and to an extent Red Bull.

Alas today it is not the sport that it once was, am I am not sure it will ever recover.

Keeping fingers crossed that the changes made this year will result in actual racing.
Well Frank and Patrick are not exactly renowned for their driver management skills (or any other sort of people management skills). I went to Williams with Mark Webber and saw first hand how he was treated and it very nearly destroyed his career at the time. Certainly put me right off the whole scene too and once I left in 2009 I was glad to see the back of F1 and I've hardly watched a race since. Doesn't look like much has changed since then. Pretty much everyone I know from Williams who had any sense moved on pretty quickly, which is yet another reason for its demise.

Frank himself was a shadow of a figure when I was there. Really not involved on a day to day basis like I have no doubt he was in his prime. He just didn't have the strength or stamina by then and it is an absolute miracle that he is still actually alive today. I think the problem with Frank is that, by all accounts, he was a hard-faced bastard anyway before his accident and then afterwards his own quality of life was so compromised that he literally had no compassion whatsoever for anyone who could still wipe their own arse and didn't have to drink their food from a straw. It just made him even more hard-nosed about everything and everyone around him. It didn't really help much either that Patrick was basically a shaved, educated Neanderthal. Even worse than that, Sam Michael suddenly came out of nowhere and started emulating the same destructive behaviour.

I walked into all this mess at the end of 2004 and the atmosphere was like a cross between Mad Max, a funeral parlour and a scene out of 300! Mark Webber was totally deflated well before his first race for Williams and it was a real eye-opener for all the other decent drivers that came and went while I was there. Really decent intelligent guys like Alexander Wurz and Nick Heidfeld who just couldn't believe what they were getting involved with.

Well you know what they say about being best not to meet your heroes!
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