F1 End of Season Report: Rate the Team - Williams Mercedes

[Paul Jeffrey]

Williams Mercedes are next up in our 'Rate the Team' end of season review series.

Having failed yet again to score a race victory in 2017, Williams will nevertheless be buoyed by what was for all intents and purposes a fairly solid season for the former multiple World Championship willing outfit.

Although failing to match up to the main players in Formula One circles, Williams did at least feel the joy of a podium finish in Baku thanks to well heeled rookie Lance Stroll, however the long standing British outfit will have to do considerably better in 2018 if they are ever to turn the recent tide and lift themselves back into the winners circle on a regular basis in the years to come.

Now entering the sixth season since last tasting victory champagne in Barcelona back in 2012, how do you rate the season gone for the Williams Martini Racing outfit in Formula One?

Vote now to tell us how you rate 2017 Formula One season for Williams Mercedes, and leave a comment below!

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[Jan Larsen]

Williams F1 Rental Services scores a 5 after what can be described as an average year. Massa did good most of the year, but is clearly past his best. Actually, he was past his best after the spring really. And Stroll was near a disaster.
Its sad to see a team with such a history be a complete shadow of its former self. They can praise themselves lucky to have the Merc engine or they'd be nowhere. Hopefully they'll use the money from another paydriver to actually develop some speed into a dismal chassis, which, not long ago, was actually pretty good.
I'm staying optimistic, but I'm also realistic - I'd not be surprised to see Williams muck about in the back end of the field this year.

 

[wombat999]

2,
Poor season and only interested in pay drivers.
Sold out to a Canadian Billionaire and in doing so sold their souls .

 

[Michel Forest]

4. Disappointing season. It seems like Williams' story for the last 10 years or so is one step forward, two backwards. Just when one thinks they are on the way up, they have a bad season and it's back to mediocre results. Paddy Lowe has his work cut out for him in 2018.

 

[Esploratore]

Could've given them 5 or 6, I went for 5 since we shouldn't forget the results they're getting already include a pretty decent budget.

The engine is ofc great, chassis isn't any more, and decision making has been in my opinion terrible.

Stroll isn't all that bad, but nowhere near massa level if you look at their speed, not just at the points (massa has been seriously unlucky this season), and as you know massa is past his peak even if he did relatively well this season.

So obviously williams had to keep stroll for the money he brings instead of massa and then get sirotkin instead of kubica, who has proved himself around or higher than massa level in the past and is still a few years younger.

So in the end, 5 no doubt and I won't be sorry if they have a terrible 2018 after the choices they made.

 

[snyperal]

I voted a six. Not competitive, but I guess they showed up...

 

[Craig Patteson]

As a Williams fan i gave them a 6 2018 will be a make or break season for them being paddy’s first car since his return and by god I hope it’s a good one Stroll got better as the season went on to be the only non Mercedes Ferrari and red bull driver to get on the podium is a pretty decent season but felt his last 3 races he struggled a lot so still has a lot to do over the winter Massa I can’t thank him enough for the season most races he drove well so I thank him for that as for who the other driver is gonna be time will tell if it the Russian driver in the end so be it end of the day they are a business and gotta pay the bills and to my knowledge both the Russian and kubica are bring money in no matter what I’ll still support Williams at the end of the day here is hoping to a step forward for 2018

 

[Giovaneveterano]

After the very good 2014 and 2015 seasons I expected a progressive step in performance.
Probably Bottas added the extra speed and consistency to get bigger results.
Disappointed: 5.

 

[Andrew Harper]

I think the team did reasonably well this year but of course they wanted to do better.

Lance was a bit of a disaster earlier on and although he's doing a reasonable job, some of his races left a lot to be desired. 2017 was always going to be a learning year anyway.

Massa I felt drove a really good season, he was a different driver compared to 2016. Ok, you could argue that maybe Bottas could have got more out of the car but Felipe finished in the points regularly and in general supported the team (and Lance) during the year. He was very unlucky in Baku when he might have been on for a win. Brazil was Massa of old and it was great to see

In the last few years what seems to happen is the car starts well and then due to lack of development the team starts to slowly fall away from the others. I know I'm repeating what we've said on here many times but they are operating on a tiny budget compared to the teams ahead of them. The only team that seems to operate better on the same budget is Force India, but even they've started to fall behind slightly now as team like Renault have gained momentum.

I'm not making excuses for them, I'm just saying that the world of F1 is more and more about how many millions you can throw a your car and development. In this respect Williams are suffering.

As @Craig Patteson mentions hopefully Paddy's 2018 car will be a good one and Williams can start to regain some of the form they had in 2014. Paddy freely admitted he just couldn't make the 2017 car work well.

I think asking for wins at the moment is too much but it would be nice to see them fighting for podiums again in 2018.

 

[Thang Nguyen]

I gave them 6, the main reasons for this are that they have scored at least 1 podium finish since 2014 and they have extremely quick pit stop times these days...

 

[KaRally]

Williams TAXI Team 2018

 

[aka2k]

Nigel Mansell in the FW14B would fare better.

 

[Andrew Harper]

It's official then...

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/133914/sirotkin-announced-as-2018-williams-driver

Sirotkin is in the 2nd seat and Kubica will be the reserve driver.

The team sound very impressed with the Russian (and his $15 million) so we'll see how things go in 2018....

 

[AvGas]

Williams fan since I started watching F1 around 1994. After seeing how Claire runs the shop for the last couple of years, and especially after seeing the documentary, I am fairly certain the objective here is to win a race before Frank dies. They have to go for the money to do this. Great to see Kubica onboard, even as a dev driver, I expect to see him in at least a few Friday sessions, and at least once for a race. I would happily donate some BTC to the team, were that an option. They can still be winners. This is what it's like to support a team, not jumping the bandwagon to Merc or Ferrari simply because they are winning.

 

[Deleted member 205301]

...and now with Sirotkin onboard
@++

 

[r3pr3z3nt]

Kubica might turn that wagon around. He's determined to come back, and he wants to come back to win the only racing championship he never won since childhood. Plus he has new skills, which people forget about - also - he's hand was designed and reconstructed in racing only in mind [as his surgeon admitted] - give that a thought. He's gonna make a difference when he gets used to the car, and then - 6 or 7 races in, they'll give him a chance.

 

[Tobiman]

I gave them a 1. With that engine and their budget, the least they could do is be on par with Force-India. Their aero development for 2017 was about on par with Sauber and Haas. Toro Rosso had a much better chassis and aero performance. Unbelievable!

To say that the performance for a team with such pedigree and history was lackluster is putting it very nicely. It was dreadful watching Massa fight for top 10 race after race. Honestly, they need to be fighting red bull this year or they will shed sponsors. Believe me.