Talk:WilliamsF1

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WilliamsF1 was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. Reviewed version: September 5, 2006

Contents 1 Creation Date 2 BMW.Williams or BMW Williams? 3 Hill and Villeneuve 4 Reason for changing HP to "Invent" on rear wing? 5 Fireball Roberts School of Interviewing 6 Frank Williams Racing Cars 7 Typographical errors 8 Piers Courage 9 Images Used 10 Removal of 1976 material 11 GA Nom comments 12 GA Failed 13 The Adelaide '94 incident 14 Photos used in the article 15 Senna "S" 16 Team Results 17 FW16 Image 18 Can someone update 2006? 19 Recent results 20 WilliamsF1 debut season and stats

[edit] Creation Date

Willians wasn't created in 1977, Jacques Lafitte was second in the German GP on a Williams as early as 1974. Previously the team was named from his sponsors : Polytoys and Iso-Malboro. Ericd 13:22, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well its a bit confusing. Technically, Williams Grand Prix Engineering (as they were known at the time) were established in 1977. However, in 1969, Frank Williams bought an ex-works Brabham for some selected F1 races. He continued racing on and off in F1 using other people's cars until 1972 when Polytoys approached him to produce a car for them. They were then called Iso-Marlboro until 1975, when they ran as "Williams" for the first time. In '76 he joined up with Walter Wolf, but ran Hesketh chassis (not designed by Williams) in races. Finally in '77 Williams as we know it today was made. This could be a bit of a contentious issue, but I think they were only a fully fledged F1 constructor (in terms of building and using their own chassis/parts in-house) from 1977... before that they were just participating when they could get their head in - building cars for other companies, buying cars from chassis makers and running them occasionally. It could be argued either way, but I think the wording of the article as it stands ("Frank Williams founded the team as it currently stands in 1977 after two unsuccessful attempts at managing Formula One teams of the same name.") is accurate, but an entire section could be written about his attempts before cracking it as a fully independent team... (See this - very good info from GrandPrix.com. AlbinoMonkey ^(Talk) 12:52, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] BMW.Williams or BMW Williams?

You can find the version "BMW.WilliamsF1 Team" at some sources, including their Official Team Logo. However, the Team does not use it in regular written texts neither does the FIA or the Official Formula 1 Website, they use "BMW WilliamsF1 Team".

Shouldent it be "BMW WilliamsF1 Team" here also then?

BMW is just there because it is the name of their engine supplier and main sponsor. When this changes (most likely next year) we don't want to have to change where the page is... I've made a redirect from BMW WilliamsF1 Team, but the article is about WilliamsF1 over all time, not just since they have had BMW engines... AlbinoMonkey ^(Talk) 30 June 2005 00:02 (UTC)

Yes I know, I was just talking about the full name in the box to the right, it says "BMW.WilliamsF1 Team", but it should be "BMW WilliamsF1 Team"

I think the version with the "." is correct. They could have had a space, or a dash, but they chose period/full-stop. JamesHoadley 06:58, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Call me old-fashioned, but I'll never yield to BMW./-Williams. It's chassis first, engine 2d: Williams-BMW. Tough Luck to BMW. Trekphiler 06:32, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hill and Villeneuve

Any justification for the line about these two not being regarded as great world champions? Hill helped bring the team back from its worst point(then) in 1994 and has won grand prix with more than one team. Also plenty of drivers have had the best car to drive but not managed a world championship (Raikkonen, Coulthard). Some revision please.

By any standard Hill & Villeneuve are not in the top flight of GP world champions. The greats are usually listed as Fangio, Clark, Stewart, Prost, Senna and Schumacher. Everybody else is deemed not quite there.

The main problem is that you only compare drivers of the same era. Hill and Villeneuve will be compared to Schumacher, as drivers they were not of the same standard.

All in all it's fair to list Hill and Villneuve as they currently are.

[edit] Reason for changing HP to "Invent" on rear wing?

The article doesn't say so, and I can't remeber. I think the reason was simply "It looked shit", and Hewlett Packard was too long, so Invent it was. JamesHoadley 06:56, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fireball Roberts School of Interviewing

Asked why drivers didn't like the new car, Patrick Head demo he'd been there, replying, "Not quick enough." Trekphiler 06:35, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Frank Williams Racing Cars

I can see you're hard at work, Skully! I'd be included to cut the lengthy section on FWRC, though. AlbinoMonkey gave a very good explanation up above as to why the two should be considered as seperate bodies - there's no real connection between them other than Frank Williams (and Patrick Head?). I agree with his position that this article should restrict itself to a brief mention of Frank's earlier activities and a link to FWRC. Cheers. 4u1e 18:44, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Typographical errors

Final sentence of Introduction has the word "won" omitted.

"Williams have won 113 races out of 524 races they've completed."

Do you mean completed or competed?

[edit] Piers Courage

Piers Courage died at the 1970 Dutch Grand Prix in a De Tomaso, not in the 1969 version in a Brabham.

[edit] Images Used

With regard to the fair use picture of Mansell's FW11 in 1986 used in the article, is there a reason why it couldn't be replaced by this 1985 image (of the FW10?) which is Creative Commons? I don't want to replace it if there is a reason for the FW11 to be used. Alexj2002 10:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of 1976 material

I started copyediting, but ran into trouble almost immediately with trying to keep things consistent. Turned out the problem was the 1976 and 1977 seasons. There's a nasty little trap lurking in the statistics.

Although it is true that both 'Wolf Williams' and 'Williams' are listed in the 1976 results as constructors, this does not mean that Williams Grand Prix Engineering competed that year. Confused? I was! The list of 'teams' given for 1976 is actually the list of constructors. In 2006 'team' and 'constructor' are the same thing because team's must own the copyright to the design of their cars and so in effect almost always build them themselves and different teams cannot use the same car. This has only been the case since the early 1980s however.

Before then there was nothing to stop teams using cars from other constructors - however constructors score points, not teams, so it was the overall performance of all a constructors cars, not just their 'works' team that determined their position in the table.

Going back to Williams and Wolf in 1976. Frank sold 60% of his team to Walter Wolf in 1976. (See Walter Wolf Racing). The team ran Hesketh 308s that Wolf bought from the defunct Hesketh team, but these were renamed Wolf-Williams FW05s. The team also ran the previous year's car in a couple of races - the Williams FW04 (not Wolf-Williams, because it was built by the previous incarnation of the team). In some tables of results there are therefore two 'Williams' constructors listed - 'Williams' and 'Wolf-Williams', but these only represent one actual team (Wolf Williams). Frank did not leave until early 1977, which is when he set up WGPE. Further adding to the confusion, in 1977 the team used March 761 chassis, so 'Williams' doesn't appear in the constructors table, because the cars were constructed by March.

I have therefore deleted the 1976 paragraph, as this was actually describing the results achieved by the Williams FW04 run by Wolf Williams. Williams Grand Prix Engineering's history starts in 1977. Apologies for the length of the explanation!

See also [1], [2], [3]--4u1e 22:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I have also rewritten the 1977 paragraph - the 77 season was a consolidation season in which WGPE was not a constructor, using March Engineering customer cars instead. Patrick Nève was the only driver. --4u1e 23:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Nom comments

I've dropped by to review the article and am fairly satisified with the quality of work done here. I'd like to see at least one inline reference for each year, however. The object is so that the reader can find more information about an idea, event, concept, etc. without have to google around for it. The inline references you already have done this nicely. We just need more of them. I'll put the article on hold to give you all time to work on it. --CTSWyneken^(talk) 13:04, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Failed

The hold has expired and the article denied promotion. Please take a look at the issue listed above. When you've had a chance to address it, please renom the article. --CTSWyneken^(talk) 15:48, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Adelaide '94 incident

Although I might as well just copy and paste the neutral paragraph from the Damon Hill article, I thought it would be better if we had re-write for the incident for this article. Of course the incident has many people split, but personally: I believe that Schumacher did cause the incident (thus the late apex), but whether it was intentional is another matter altogether. Anyway, I'd like to hear others toughts.--Skully Collins 14:39, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

"By the penultimate round in Japan, Hill was 5 points behind Schumacher and if he didn't finish ahead of him, it would be very unlikely that he'd take the title in the final round in Adelaide; however, Hill did win, by three seconds to Schumacher who finished second and so to the final round in Adelaide, where Schumacher lead Hill by one point. Despite Mansell being in pole for Williams, Schumacher would be in the lead followed by Hill from the first lap until mid-way through the race, where a controversial collision would decide the championship. Schumacher clipped the wall coming into the fifth corner and went wide. Schumacher managed to get back on track and ahead of Hill but had lost some momentum. Hill saw that Schumacher was going slow and took his chances cutting to the inside on the next corner. Schuamcher turned for the corner and stayed on his own racing line. With both drivers refusing to budge from their decisions, the collision then occurred. The collision ended both Schumacher and Hill's race, and the double retirement that resulted meant Schuamcher was the champion."

This is close. I'm not really all that sure, though. Schuamcher had the lead, although he was going significantly slower than hill, he did not actually turn into Hill. He remained on his normal racing line. It's hills cutting across Schuamchers racing line in hopes of passing him that caused the incident, though I doubt schuamcher or hill would fault each other for what they did. That's racing, and it was just a racing incident. We have a dozen or so every year. This one just happened to decide the championship, which is why it gets more attention. Ernham 15:03, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but the question still remains: Would Schumacher still have continued the race if the title wasn't at stake or if it was a mid-season race?. I seriously doubt that he would've continued if it was a different scenario, which is what really angers me, along with the fact that it was blatenly obvious Schumacher was at fault IMO. Anyway, that paragraph was written partly by me...if you check the history, I think you'll find that I wrote an NPOV paragraph to that part of the article.--Skully Collins 15:18, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure we can have a discussion on this issue that you believe that Schuamcher was at fault for this incident. Neither driver was really at fault. Schuamcher had the lead, and he stayed on his line. He had no idea if any damage had been done to his vehicle yet because ghe just got it back on the track. Hill came around the corner and saw a slow Schumacher... Later on Hill said that he thought Schumacher had a engine problems(Hill never saw the schuamcher go off the road, which is why he was actually going so slow). So Hill thinks schuamcher's race is over, but Schuamcher did not know if his vehicle was fine or not. Take a look at what hill himself said(about 4 minutes into this video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuirVZMI-Zc

Note how Hill says "he must have known that". Schumacher had no idea yet if he was fine or not.Ernham 15:36, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

additionally, If this is what Hill truly thought at the time, we did he not just wait to pass him on the next straight which was right after that corner? He could have blew schuamcher away. Instead he went right for the inside. Watch his cockpit cam and see just inside the track he cut before the collision. Like i said, I don't blame Hill, but blaming schuamcher is beyond ridiculous given all the evidence and "testimony". Ernham 15:43, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

If '94 was an isolated incident then I think the above argument would be warranted. But throughout his tenure MS has made the decision that gives him the best chance of winning. MS lost the championship and all his points for trying the same move on Villeneuve. Do we need to list it all again?

The incident with Hill was more blatant MS went off the circuit, hit the wall, came back on and at a dramatically slower pace re-joined the racing line. Hill went for the pass and Schumacher then turned in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5H0w-pEe90

Hill has repeatedly faulted MS for the accident. Hill has also said that it was not an innocent accident but he has stopped short of saying it was a deliberate action on the part of MS. Other drivers have not been so diplomatic.

This accident will always be contentious. But to try and paint it as just a racing accident that should be ignored is not a correct depiction.

If we saw the telemetry then wee would know if Schumi turned in or not. It does look like he turns in on Hill but then, Hill could have waited until the big straight or something. I still think it was delibrate on Schumi's part.

Guys, just a quick reminder to sign talk page messages with 4 tildes (~) at end, it's getting quite hard to follow this discussion and work out which bits were said by the same person. Alexj2002 22:32, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photos used in the article

Would anyone object to me removing the picture of the BMW and putting a picture of the Renault Laguna BTCC car in instead? As you may know the BMW V12 is being used under a (slightly dodgy) claim of fair use because (as yet) no freely licenced alternative is available. I might have found a freely licenced image of the Laguna BTCC car, which would be preferred for use in a free content encylopedia but I appreciate I'm not replacing like with like. So would anyone mind using the Laguna instead of the BMW? Alexj2002 18:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, replace it. We have enough BMW powered Williams cars on the page anyway.--Skully Collins ^Edits 18:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. Feel free to revert if you don't like it or disagree with the removal of the BMW V12. Alexj2002 20:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Right I'm going to take this opportunity to have a look at all photos used in the article. First up the image of Alan Jones is going to have to go. It's actually under copyright in the USA (whose laws apply on Wikipedia) so we'd need to claim fair use which isn't usually possible for a living person. Any freely licenced alternative would be much appreciated. Second there isn't a single picture of a Ford-engined Williams (with TAG/Fly Saudi liveries). If one can be found it'd be nice. The FW10 image looks good, the FW16 image looks pretty bad but it's an important car so it'll have to do. Perhaps having both the FW17 and FW18 is overkill and I think a Winfield Williams would make a nice variation to show a different livery (again provided a freely licenced image can be found). I think the Walrus-nose hp Williams should stay and one of the other two more conventional ones. I say we lose the blurrier London-demo one. Again a Compaq sponsered livery would make a good replacement to have variation in the images and to spread them through the article better. The 2006 photos can be reviewed after that section of the article has been cut down a bit. The non-F1 photos I think are OK now - 2 is plenty for section of that length, and both licences are OK. Your opinions, as always, are appreciated. Alexj2002 21:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I've got some pictures of every Williams F1 car (including the 6 wheeler) that were on display at their factory in Didcot when I was privileged to visit it in 1996 - would one of these photos be suitable until an action shot can be found? I'll add a link to my Flickr gallery once they are uploaded and if you like them I can release some under a suitable licence. KevS 12:50, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

That'd be fantastic, look forward to seeing them. Alexj2002 13:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in posting the link, the uploader crashed on me and I then forgot. Now online at my Flickr page, any that you think are appropriate I can upload to Wikipedia, allowing appropriate licence use. I think all the model numbers are correct, but as they were taken over 10 years ago there might be some out of synch. KevS 21:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Added the FW07 to the main article, and a couple of Alex's other suggestions (see User talk:KevS for more info) - a bit stuck on how to handle the last two of his suggestions though - if anyone has any comments (Williams FW16 car 2 destined for the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix page, and Damons' FW16) I'd much appreciate it - thanks!

Well, you can handle the images - You seem to be more "on the ball" when it comes to this ;-). I'll do the "mass text" work, ie. Research, References, etc. I was just thinking about the following:

• "Origins" section - Should this be included? Sure, the article has nothing to do with FWRC (see above), then fair enough. But I think it at least is worth a mention and it would make more sense for the reader's sake.
• Expansion of several seasons, namely the "Judd".
• Get the 1994 section sorted out
• Cutting down of BMW and Cosworth Section
• Toyota section needs copyediting. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Skully Collins (talk • contribs) 22:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

With regard to the Hill/Schumacher 1994 collision perhaps this needs to be sorted out once and for all on the WikiProject F1 talkpage as it's affecting quite a few articles. We need to agree on what we can say that is NPOV and backed up by reputable source. Alexj2002 23:22, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Senna "S"

Where exactly on the car is the Senna "S" located? I can't seem to find it anywhere. The Senna "S" may not even exist. Bubby the Tour G 21:48, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I know how you feel. I tried to find a reference to it a while ago...I couldn't find anything so I deleted the statement. Apparently, it's on the front wing, on the pieces of metal connecting the actual wing to the nose. Hope that helps ;-).--Skully Collins ^Edits 08:21, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeh it's on the inside of the front wing uprights. I have a photo, but it may take a while to access (it's not on any computer i have easy access to) – AlbinoMonkey ^(Talk) 11:42, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah... whenever you can, please upload the photo? Bubby the Tour G 20:24, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Well it turns out I was thinking of a different photo, taken with a film camera, so I've had to scan it in. The colours are a bit messed up due to the scanner, but here it is. – AlbinoMonkey ^(Talk) 22:04, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

It's ok. It looks great. Think it can be used in the article? Bubby the Tour G 23:36, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Team Results

To the anonymous editor who is currently adding the team results - brave work! As I've noted on your talk page, the results you are currently working on actually refer to Frank Williams Racing Cars and should be in that article if anywhere. I suggest that it would be best if they were moved there - I note that you have footnoted them, but they shouldn't really be in this article at all. Cheers. 4u1e 08:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FW16 Image

Currently we are using the image shown on the right for this model. I'm not a big fan of this image, the shot seems too low, not quite straight and too busy in the background. KevS has made the second photo available to us. It's not great quality at full size, but the shot composition is much better I think. When shrunk to thumbnail size, the quality becomes much less of an issue. I think we should use Kev's one instead. Which one do others prefer? Alexj2002 16:52, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can someone update 2006?

I've just trawled through this page – the 2006 paragraph is now out of date and needs altering in light of 2007 events. I'm not qualified to do so, as I don't know enough about the sport!

cheers Jlhughes 20:25, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recent results

Can someone add the last five or so F1 results to this article? and the others in the sub article can be linked to. Christopher Connor 21:22, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

The best location for the last five years' results is currently under discussion at the WP:F1 discussion page. DH85868993 06:08, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WilliamsF1 debut season and stats

I changed the statistics a bit, because according to all statistics the WilliamsF1 team debuted in 1975 and has by now taken part in 511 Grand Prix'. Just take a look yourselves

http://www.formula1.com/teams_and_drivers/teams/4/

http://www.statsf1.com/cars/fiche.asp?IdConstructeur=102&LG=2 —Preceding unsigned comment added by SchumiChamp (talk • contribs) 18:50, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Frank Williams Racing Cars debuted in 1975. Williams Grand Prix Engineering (renamed WilliamsF1) debuted in 1977. This article only deals with the latter team. AlexJ 22:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I've noticed it is considered as two different teams. But I thought it needed mentioning, because statistically it's all the same team. Could be mentioned somewhere in the article as well... —Preceding unsigned comment added by SchumiChamp (talk • contribs) 15:37, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

The relationship between them is mentioned under Origins. Statistically it's a different team because FWRC became Walter Wolf Racing, while WGPE was formed separately (just happened to be by the same owner). AlexJ 16:10, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

The article really needs two infoboxes, one for "WGPE/WilliamsF1 the team" (which would include the races in 1977 with the March) and one for "WGPE/WilliamsF1 the constructor", in the same way that Team Lotus has. I'm cool with us making a distinction between FWRC Williamses and WGPE/WilliamsF1 Williamses, but we probably need to add footnotes to explain what we do and don't include in the stats, to explain the discrepancies compared to sites such as the ones mentioned above. For the moment, I've reverted the debut and number of races to match List of Formula One records and FORIX, until we agree the best solution. DH85868993 03:06, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm still not happy with the situation. All statistics refer to these teams as one. Most websites seem to refer to 1975 as Williams' debut season, and currently already having taken part in over 500 Grand Prix'. SchumiChamp 16:02, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

That's all fine until you try and go into detail. When you look at the details of constructors (remember that Williams goes back to the last era when you could buy cars from other teams), teams and entrants, it all gets very complicated. Most of the sites you refer to lump all possible variations of Williams together, including cars built by Hesketh, Brabham, De Tomaso and March Engineering in the total. Having FWRC and Williams F1 (né WGPE) articles helps us deal with this. 4u1e 18:32, 25 October 2007 (UTC)