Williams’ Sam Michael feels that his FW33 features are hard to copy – Formula 1 Update
The Oxfordshire company’s technical director Sam Michael pointed out the four innovations in this 2011 Formula 1 season. These being the Renault and Red Bull's exhaust systems, the Toro Rosso double-floor, and Williams' ultra compact and low gearbox. Michael
thinks that the William’s innovation will be the hardest to copy.
He was talking to the media and said that most team try to copy the design of other teams, as Force India copied the exhaust system of Red Bull in the last test, but he said about FW33’s design, “Whereas a gearbox is a completely different kettle of fish.”
Michael further said that the pre-season testing is used by most of the teams to just know the rivals technology and try to overcome them by either copying them or making something advance than them.
Previously, William’s launched their new car livery which featured very extreme angles of the drive shaft to improve the aerodynamic capacity of the car. These angles on the livery specified as around 14 degrees is by far the steepest angle used in Formula
one, as normally 6 to 7 degrees is considered the limit. Also they got rid of the pull-rod suspension system, as most of the other teams, and used an entirely different layout for the suspension system, as only Ferrari, Virgin, Hispania Racing Team and Sauber
are using the pull-rod suspension.
This has been a trend in the past that the teams bringing out innovation always delay their launch as McLaren did last year when they introduced the F-duct technology. There is a reason to believe why William’s waited too long to unveil their new car livery,
as Michael is so worried about the copying trend in Formula 1, he never would have wanted the top teams to take advantage of that.
William’s tested with the old livery in the previous three tests where Rubens Barrichello was able to top the time charts on the final day of Jerez test. For the first time in the Barcelona test the new livery will be tested.
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