[Team] Williams: Do they have a spare tub?

[S griffin]

Yes I can see it being a struggle for Williams for the rest of the season. Wouldn’t be surprised to see them going under. But hopefully they can continue for a bit longer

[Sodemo]

They need some points, badly.

Or is it time to start selling off parts of the company...?

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Skam85

Impressive stat considering Toro Rosso wasn't an F1 team in 2020.

They were rebranded for the 2020 season from Toro Rosso to AlphaTauri, in order to promote Red Bull's AlphaTauri fashion brand.

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

'Why Williams will be worried about Albon's Suzuka shunt – and what it could mean for the rest of the season'


'All teams operate under a budget cap, so a three-crash damage bill will have an impact on upgrades Williams are able to bring for the rest of the season, both in terms of volume and speed of delivery.

Vowles said: “I think take any team, to have three major accidents where you’ve pretty much taken out all equipment on the car is enormous.

“Taking that across a season, you can deal with it, taking it across just a few races is difficult. The impact of it will be what you expect.

“We’re making spares as quickly as possible in the background, but ultimately performance will have an impact on it, we can’t bring as many updates [later in the year].”'

Exactly, at last! Confirmation of what I have been saying.

Crash damage and spares is a major monetary and resource cost. The media and fanboy sensationalism about flying tubs around is a virtual irrelevancy on budget.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

I some how suspect the budget is the reason the work is yet to commence on the 3rd tub.

Vowles has previously stated work on 3rd tub was/is underway, but work to repair damaged tubs delays completion of the 3rd. His comments were regarding the initial repair. I can imagine it still holds true for recent damage.

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

The original point was about more than just the airfreight costs. It was also the materials and time spent on carrying out the repairs.

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

By focussing on the airfreight alone, the bigger picture is lost.

100%

Originally Posted by peebee2

Repairs, and carriage of parts, is a normal occurrence. It’s a standard part of the budget, with an allocated portion of budget. Just like tyres, fuel, staff, teabags, anything else.

Things like fuel, staff, teabags are fixed costs. They are very predictable and unlikely to deviate from budget. You also have planned consumables for the car such as components that age out (have finite lifespan), aero bits that are made obsolete via development. Those are less predictable costs than the teabags, but still pretty predictable. But things like tub and other crash repair, while you have to make an estimate budget for things like that, those are variable costs. So assuming you try to end the season with all (or nearly all) money spent, the more you spend on repair and other crash damage the less you can spend on new development. In short, you may blow past your prediction for repair costs which means you have to pull money from elsewhere in your finite budget.

Richard

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by peebee2

Exactly, at last! Confirmation of what I have been saying.

Have you really been saying that?

Richard

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by Richard C

Have you really been saying that?

Richard

Yes. People were jumping up and down and shouting about the cost of flying a tub back to repair and then flying it back out again. The reality is that the cost of the flying it is not significant.

Of course each team has a damage budget, which can be challenged by turn of events. Some of the other things mentioned are nowhere near as fixed as your imagination might suggest either.

[veeten]

But notice who's comment crmalcolm used as the lead in for the article.

Just sayin'...

[veeten]

But notice who's comment crmalcolm used as the lead in for the article.

Just sayin'...

[BertMk2]

Originally Posted by peebee2

Exactly, at last! Confirmation of what I have been saying.

Crash damage and spares is a major monetary and resource cost. The media and fanboy sensationalism about flying tubs around is a virtual irrelevancy on budget.

That's almost exactly the opposite of what you were saying?

You said that crash damage was budgeted for and therefore the accidents were irrelevant - whereas what that article says is that the accidents will impact how many upgrades they can bring later in the year. Your two posts I've quoted here contradict each other surely?

Originally Posted by peebee2

Sorry, you’re continuing to completely miss the point.

Repairs, and carriage of parts, is a normal occurrence. It’s a standard part of the budget, with an allocated portion of budget. Just like tyres, fuel, staff, teabags, anything else.

By focussing on Williams freighting tubs, the bigger picture is lost.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by peebee2

Yes. People were jumping up and down and shouting about the cost of flying a tub back to repair and then flying it back out again. The reality is that the cost of the flying it is not significant.

Of course each team has a damage budget, which can be challenged by turn of events. Some of the other things mentioned are nowhere near as fixed as your imagination might suggest either.

But your response was not to a post that talked about the airfreight. The post you responded to read 'Williams' budget being slowly eaten away with all this. It's what makes it worse when it comes to being able to make upgrades later on. Mostly because it's being spent on replacing basic parts.'

You claimed that:

Originally Posted by peebee2

It really isn’t. Cost is tiny part of budget.

Which could mean that Williams' budget is not being eaten away, or that the cost of replacing basic parts is only a tiny part.

It was then your posts that focussed on airfreight, nobody else's:

Originally Posted by peebee2

Lol, if their accounts show significant cost for freighting damaged tubs around they need some new admin and coordinators.

Originally Posted by peebee2

The point was that airfreighting a monocoque is a tiny cost overall. Little more than the business class cost of a couple of team members.

Nobody else was focussing on airfreight. You then agreed with the original point being made about Williams' budget being eaten away.

I'm not sure who were the 'People [...] jumping up and down and shouting about the cost of flying a tub back to repair'

[Akrapovic]

He doesn't know what he was saying - he just likes to confirm he was correct. Paddock sources.

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by BertMk2

That's almost exactly the opposite of what you were saying?

No it isn't. I was only ever commenting on the claims of flying tubs back being financially punitive. I understand how damage budgets work. I've operated them.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by peebee2

No it isn't. I was only ever commenting on the claims of flying tubs back being financially punitive. I understand how damage budgets work. I've operated them.

Dear god I hope not, your ability to think and process each item is laughable. No one said ONLY the costs of freighting things around but the costs from having to do EXTRA. Reading is important.

Oh and when you have 5 bucks extra something that costs 50 cents uses a significant part of the extra funds even though it's a mere pittance for most. everyone else seems to understand costs RELATIVE to the funds set aside not Ferrari's overall budget

[BertMk2]

Originally Posted by peebee2

I was only ever commenting on the claims of flying tubs back being financially punitive.

That's not how your posts read.

[Greem]

Aaaaaanyway...

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by Greem

Aaaaaanyway...

Yes.

To be clear, I was just referring to the costs of flying tubs.

Anyone who says that continual damage is going to prove long-term costly is absolutely right of course. Maybe I missed if we'd moved on to the more general costs of continually shunting.

[GTRMagic]

Spare Parts Crisis @ Williams?

[Tourer]

Murphy's law really does apply sometimes in motorsport and Williams is living the reality of that right now with shunt after shunt after shunt, right when the team can least afford those shunts, both logistically and financially.

It certainly is giving the scribes (& us) something to talk about but hopefully for everyone on the team, as the season unfolds, these shunt-ridden couple of races will be seen as a blip or an anomaly.

We may see a situation where the Williams drivers have to be more circumspect and take less risks (i.e. be slower) but hopefully it won't come to that.

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by Tourer

We may see a situation where the Williams drivers have to be more circumspect and take less risks (i.e. be slower) but hopefully it won't come to that.

Or finally learn not to put their car in a silly position on the outside of another at turn 3 on lap 1.

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by peebee2

Or finally learn not to put their car in a silly position on the outside of another at turn 3 on lap 1.

Yep - that's exactly what I was thinking as I wrote the "taking less risks" comment. Given that Albon is quoted in a number of articles saying that he was worried about the damage and effect on the team before he hit the barrier, it would have been even better if he had thought about that before hanging on the outside in what was always going to be a closing "gap".

[Akrapovic]

Does Alex get to take Daniels chassis now?

[Greem]

Surely VCARB still have the plans for the old Minardi two-seaters. We could have ten cars with twenty drivers!

[broadrun96]

Is that half points in play again then? or going back in time like Indy and requiring onboard mechanic

[v8supes]

Rumours doing the rounds on Social media that Sargeant will be getting replaced with Andrea Kimi Antonelli from Imola onwards with a view to him gaining experience before taking the Mercedes seat in 2026. Personally i can see this happening because presumably Mercedes will give them a much needed discount on the engine bill in exchange for booting Sargeant.

Now whether it would be right to make an exception on the super licence rules to get Antonelli his super licence or whether its a good idea to move him from F2 after just 3 rounds into the F1 grid, im not sure. For sure he will end up in F1 at some point though.