Low budget and a very high staff level . Mathematically , it simply does not stack up . Then I have thought that for awhile and they keep going...
Interesting looking at 2021 with the budget cap at $175M (plus drivers. 4 top staff, I think, and 'fiddles') So I guess there will be a few staff going from top teams that could filter down the pack. So maybe end of this year could be a time for lower teams to change staff? IF Williams can survive till 2021 they may be OK. I still think for the first 2 years of the cap the teams with biggest budgets will be sort of living off work they are doing this year without the budget cap. I'm not sure it's Williams work ethic that's the issue. Somehow who ever is deciding on their aero and chassis direction hasn't been getting it right and they don't seem to have anyone who is directing them to a better solution. Maybe it's a case of not having the funds to stop and start down a better path? I'm not sure Claire or Frank are to blame for this other than they hired the people. Somehow it's getting the right person in the design team steering them in the right direction. I can't imagine its wind tunnel correlation or computational fluid dynamics tools that are the issue now as it's been too long not to spot that sort of issue.. Hopefully we will get a good close season.
The 700 to 1000 staff are the top teams, Merc, Ferrari, each 1000, McLaren and Renault, 700 to 800. I don't think Williams are anywhere near that.
That is probably not far wrong. I have no idea what they cost but in my past we assumed a fully costed employee was about £80k, included office space. 500 would cost 40m pounds, $50m+. a third of the budget or more.
Racefans also has this article: https://www.racefans.net/2019/12/27/the-cost-of-f1-2019-team-budgets-analysed-part-one/ Which puts Williams on a $150m budget with 635 employees. Haas have a similar budget and 260 employees.
635 employees is a lot given the performance of the company. Everyone has said they have talented employees. I have to hope Williams wrote off last year to develop a chassis for this year, although it is for one year only. A phrase I have used recently, small steps still enable a journey.
Fairly certain one of the reasons they employ so many is they make a LOT of stuff in house . Could mean job losses sadly .
That was great to watch, really great wheel to wheel racing. I hope we get some decent racing like that in F1 this year.
You mean better now? Obviously the cars are very different. In 2005 Seb was out to prove himself with no past expectations. Now, 4 WDC created expectations and I think Seb has struggled with that pressure to deliver. Hence, I think Seb was better in his mental attitude in 2005 than he is now. On reflection, without thinking about the stupidity of his individual mistakes, I believe his current problem is caused by pressure on him to deliver. If he is to survive beyond this year, he needs to relax and enjoy his driving again. The challenge is his emotion, his heart on his sleeve attitude does not make that an easy ask. Unfortunately, both Mercedes and Lewis have both been too good, not to mention Charles..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/51487601 Kubica has found a home in the DTM. Good luck too him, though not many ex-F1 drivers have found success there. It's a lot harder than it looks! Hopefully he'll be at less of a disadvantage then he was in F1.