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Massa said that the car looks more aggressive from what he's seen in the wind tunnel before leaving Williams. Even if the car is good, I doubt Stroll & Sirotkin would do justice to the car. Force India, McLaren & Renault have a much better lineup than this pair.

I think the Williams car will have to be the 6th best to finish 8th in the WCC

I wonder how much interest there will be in the Williams drivers this year, Stroll is the lead driver and he was half a second slower than Massa, it's a bit like a team without a sail.

My hope is that the car is really good and the drivers suprise the s#it out of all the negative nellies that post in this thread. Love it that they have gone with a canadian and a russian as their drivers instead of the usual suspects. Williams did quite well with the last canadian that drove for them. Now if they could get an american driver in one of the teams might make formula more relevant to the american audience.

Next year will be the big test for stroll as he has had a year to get up to speed and now he will need to prove he belongs. I think he knows this better than anyone else. He has shown flashes of speed but now he needs to be consistent to shut up his critics.

I would argue he was pretty consistent last year.

And how do we judge either drivers performance next year? If the car is better than expected and the drivers regularly score they will be rated highly. If the car is poor and they don't then they won't.

With no benchmark our opinions of the drivers will be entirely down to the car. If the Williams turns up with the best car and Stroll and Sirotin nab the occasional podium and score points regularly then people will rave about them.

I would argue he was pretty consistent last year.

It already has stopped; 4th is the highest Force India can ever hope to go, without something dramatic changing in either the structure of F1 or FI's own finances. They will never beat one of the big three teams as things stand.

The threat to Force India's current position as king of the midfield isn't that they'll suddenly get worse, it's that one of the other teams will get better. Renault and McLaren both have the resources to be well ahead of them, and certainly Renault has been on a sharp upward trajectory since they started developing their own car. There's a very good chance I would say that one or both of those teams will be ahead of FI this year. Although if it's because Macca and Renault have joined the ranks of the top teams, you could argue that Force India would still be the best midfield team, just king of a smaller midfield.

Sauber beating Force India, though? I don't see it happening, not unless the Alfa deal is firming up their budget by a substantial amount. Compared to Force India, Sauber will have a weaker engine (albeit not much), at least one weaker driver (and probably two, with Leclerc being a rookie) and a much weaker car to start from. It's just not a plausible target for 2018.

It hasn't stopped, their 2017 was better than 2016. More points scored (with one fewer race) and the gap between them and 5th place grew substantially

Has it begun to plateau? Sure. But they've still improved year-on-year going all the way back to 2013

So it's pretty much nailed on for Stroll and Sirotkin for 2018.

Let's hope that one of them can set a car up properly..

Setting up the car is not a priority..just bring in the money into Williams account.

2018 will be their toughest season yet. Williams may or may not improve but McLaren will surely, if not Renault. 4th will be hard to replicate.

It hasn't stopped, their 2017 was better than 2016. More points scored (with one fewer race) and the gap between them and 5th place grew substantially

Has it begun to plateau? Sure. But they've still improved year-on-year going all the way back to 2013

Williams doom and gloom. Couldn't be the same posters that predicted that hamilton moving to merc was going to ruin his career.

Paddy i hope you and your crew designed a bullet to run over all the negative nellies on this board. As for setups, it's the engineers that setup the cars with input from drivers. That as one area where williams had a big problem last year trying, to get their car into the right window, especially with strolls car.

I can't wait till testing starts to see if my hunch is right.

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You mentioned their incoming drop down the grid specifically, which to me would mean position instead of pace. By that same measure, their upward trend has stopped; they aren't going to be moving up the grid unless something dramatic changes in F1.

I agree that Force India gapped the midfield a little more this year, but they didn't do anything to catch any of Red Bull, Ferrari and Merceces, which is what they'd need to move up the grid.

Yes, strolls engineer definitely has to take some of the blame for the inconsistency on that side of the garage. Posters keep mentioning that stroll is "sawing" at the wheel. If i setup a car and the driver is sawing at the wheel,i have to take the blame for not doing a good enough job. With todays F1 car being so telemetry dependent the drivers engineer becomes even more important. The driver/engineer compatibility is ultra important.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion about williams drivers but i quess i look at it more from a view of it being a team problem. There are no bad drivers in F1. These drivers have all had success at lower formulas or they wouldn't be in F1, money or not. What makes the difference is the personal around them. So when posters say the car is 80% of the equation, then don't rag on the drivers for being the chief reason the team finishes where it does.

Yes, strolls engineer definitely has to take some of the blame for the inconsistency on that side of the garage. Posters keep mentioning that stroll is "sawing" at the wheel. If i setup a car and the driver is sawing at the wheel,i have to take the blame for not doing a good enough job. With todays F1 car being so telemetry dependent the drivers engineer becomes even more important. The driver/engineer compatibility is ultra important.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion about williams drivers but i quess i look at it more from a view of it being a team problem. There are no bad drivers in F1. These drivers have all had success at lower formulas or they wouldn't be in F1, money or not. What makes the difference is the personal around them. So when posters say the car is 80% of the equation, then don't rag on the drivers for being the chief reason the team finishes where it does.

Yes, strolls engineer definitely has to take some of the blame for the inconsistency on that side of the garage. Posters keep mentioning that stroll is "sawing" at the wheel. If i setup a car and the driver is sawing at the wheel,i have to take the blame for not doing a good enough job. With todays F1 car being so telemetry dependent the drivers engineer becomes even more important. The driver/engineer compatibility is ultra important.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion about williams drivers but i quess i look at it more from a view of it being a team problem. There are no bad drivers in F1. These drivers have all had success at lower formulas or they wouldn't be in F1, money or not. What makes the difference is the personal around them. So when posters say the car is 80% of the equation, then don't rag on the drivers for being the chief reason the team finishes where it does.

Pokerman, strolls engineer was James Urwin who's only F1 experience was as Race Operations Analyst from 2014-2016. His experience as a driver race engineer was in GP 2 with caterham racing and other lower race formula's. With the new F1 formula for 2017 he was as much of a rookie as stroll. Ask any top notch driver how important it is to be in tune with your engineer and i'm sure they will tell you that they can make you or break you. I think both driver and engineer need to shoulder the blame for the inconsistencies.

Nobody expects williams to win. I'm hoping with paddys input they will be able to at least battle in the midfield. With two fairly inexperience drivers it will be tough but, just my opinion, i think they might surprise a few people.

I fear for Williams. I really do.
Despite what they say, it IS a pure financial decision.

I cannot believe they could not have went out and got a better driver than Stroll or Sirotkin.
That desperate they magically managed to forget about the ruling from Martini that a driver had to be over 25.
I'm not saying Kubica should have been picked, cos he wasn't up to it either.

Top 3 will be Merc, Ferrari, Red Bull.
McLaren will leapfrog them, as will Renault.
Force India are already ahead.
They are lucky Ferraris influence at Sauber probably wont make a difference yet and Toro Rosso have a Honda.

Here we go again with the "sawing at the wheel". Drivers sawing at the wheel are doing so because of what they feel in their a##. If that was the case why is it that when the car was good he was no longer "sawing". The incar video tells the story.

Posters are posting about how williams should be hiring better drivers. There were no choices other than a gamble on another rookie. Obviously kubica was not good enough with the data they had,de rista has already had his shot and Kyvat confidence seems to be shot. As for wehrlein, don't you think if he was as great as some of you think he is, shouldn't he have a seat by now? Also why is it merc has seemed to move on from him with other drivers?

F1 has never been "Fair" when it comes to drivers careers. I'm sure posters could name lots of deserving drivers that never got a shot.

I'm confused why your confused.

Yes he was slow in some races but, he was also fast in some races. We don't really know what his real level is yet.

As far as wehrlein i think he is just an average driver by F1 standards and it seems that is where merc see's him now. Really, we all have our opinion on drivers but our opinion is irrelivant to the teams that are going to employ them.

I fear for Williams. I really do.
Despite what they say, it IS a pure financial decision.

I cannot believe they could not have went out and got a better driver than Stroll or Sirotkin.
That desperate they magically managed to forget about the ruling from Martini that a driver had to be over 25.
I'm not saying Kubica should have been picked, cos he wasn't up to it either.

Top 3 will be Merc, Ferrari, Red Bull.
McLaren will leapfrog them, as will Renault.
Force India are already ahead.
They are lucky Ferraris influence at Sauber probably wont make a difference yet and Toro Rosso have a Honda.

I'm confused why your confused.

Yes he was slow in some races but, he was also fast in some races. We don't really know what his real level is yet.

As far as wehrlein i think he is just an average driver by F1 standards and it seems that is where merc see's him now. Really, we all have our opinion on drivers but our opinion is irrelivant to the teams that are going to employ them.

If they'd went for Kubica, who by most accounts turned out being slower than Sirotkin, would people be calling it a financial decision?

I think I would. I've posted before that I don't think it would have been a sensible racing decision

I know some would, but I'm willing to wager at least 75% of complaints about a pay-driver would have vanished.

I'm confused why your confused.

Yes he was slow in some races but, he was also fast in some races. We don't really know what his real level is yet.