Williams technical director Sam Michael feels delay caused by cancellation of Bahrain GP is good
Williams Formula 1 technical director Sam Michael thinks that the two week delay caused by the cancellation of the Bahrain Grand Prix will be helpful for the team. The Bahrain GP was cancelled following threats from anti-government protesters that they might
target the venue. The teams will have to wait two weeks to see their cars running in the Australian GP.
Sam expressed his point of view at the reveal of their new cars livery and said, “It's quite surreal at the moment actually, because everything in Formula One is geared around deadlines and not having deadlines that shift. Then to suddenly have one that
shifts by two weeks is massive.”
Pastor Maldonado was also present at the ceremony, as Ruben Barrichello skipped the ceremony to attend his 14th wedding ceremony back at home.
Michael joked about the extra time that the teams will get due to the cancellation of Bahrain GP and said that it is just like the extra six months given to finish a jetliner or like three months to create a new car. Although he never seemed concerned about
Bahrain’s government situation, he was relieved to have two more weeks to work on his new car.
He explained logically that had the Bahrain GP gone on as scheduled, the Williams team would have to squeeze the time table to install the specific cooling device in the new package which is precautionary for hot circuits.
He said, “Between Barcelona and Melbourne we will also change the car again, because we have found things in the wind tunnel and stuff that we'd like to change.” With this added time Michael was confident that their car will be busy in front of the circuit
as his car is one of the four cars with some design modifications.
The new Williams’ car livery has a unique rear wing design which has sharp angles on the drive shaft to improve the aerodynamic capability of the car, as the pull-rod suspension system is gone.
He spoked about the other three cars modification and said, “There's the Red Bull exhaust system and the way it blows the diffuser, there's the Renault exhaust system and the way it blows the front of the diffuser and there's the Toro Rosso double floor.”
According to Michael these are the four things that are going to make a difference on the grid this season.
With the old car livery Ruben Barrichello was able to steal a march on the final day of the Jerez test and it will be interesting to see how the new aerodynamic capacity of FW33 affects the race this year.
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