Team Williams might start the 2011 Formula 1 season without KERS – Formula 1 news
Recent reports suggest that Team Williams might have to start the 2011 Formula 1 season without the Kinetic Energy Recover System.
KERS is a device that converts the heat energy generated while braking to kinetic energy before storing it for later use. The drivers can use this stored energy whenever they choose to in order to give their car a sort of a power boost which increases the
acceleration of their car for sometime.
Even though Williams have its own KERS Company known as the Williams Hybrid Power, the Oxfordshire based team initially decided to develop a flywheel system which is a sort of an alternative for a battery. Instead, the team decided to opt for the more tightly-packaged
battery version of its new car later on.
Nevertheless, the team has been going through some problems regarding it recently and according to Rubens Barrichello, the team might remove it at least for the season opening race that is expected to take place in Australia on March 27, 2011.
“We need to decide quickly what we are going to do. I hope we do not conclude that we have to race in Melbourne without KERS, but it is possible,” he said. “It is an uncertain factor for us; one day it gives us no problems and the next day it gives us hundreds
of problems.”
Keeping KERS aside, Rubens is happy with the team’s new car and he is hoping for some good results in the upcoming Formula 1 season as he believes the FW33 will enable its drivers to score a good number of regular points.
Team Williams finished in 6th place in the constructors’ standings in the 2010 Formula 1 season with Rubens Barrichello in 10th place and Nico Hulkenberg in 14th place in his debut season. Nico is going to be replaced by
the GP2 champion Pastor Maldonado for the 2011 Formula 1 season even though the German was able to prove that he has the potential to score points consistently and give outstanding performances in a mid-running car as well.
Hulkenberg scored an amazing pole position at a dry Brazilian Grand Prix with a lap almost a second faster than the rest of the pack. Nevertheless, it is believed that the team chose Pastor over him because of the fact that he was bringing a major sponsor
for the team from oil based company from his country, Venezuela by the name of PDVSA.
Nevertheless, it is going to be interesting to see how Williams performs as compared to the rest of the teams as most of the teams are using KERS in their respective cars at the season opening race in Australia.
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