Williams: Smedley wants to “keep up with everyone else”
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance at Williams, urges his team to quickly, but carefully, develop the car as the European season is about to begin.
All the teams are planning significant developments that they will start implementing from the Spanish Grand Prix in two weeks. Rob Smedley, head of performance at Williams, wants his team to set priorities in the work to be done.
His opinion is that development must be done intelligently by carefully analyzing what is most important. He expresses himself on this subject to the website Crash.net: « Part of my role is to make sure we’re focusing on the right areas first. Because you might rush to attack all sectors at the same time, but you need to see in which sector you gain the most. »
For him, that is actually what makes the discipline charming and the reason why he is with Williams: « I think it’s the most important and clever part of Formula 1; you have to realize where the biggest gains are and what we can delay by a week or two, a month or two, or even an entire year, and what we need to do in the next two days. It’s part of what I do here. »
In China, the Grove team had a race between shadow and light with an interesting seventh place from Valtteri Bottas. However, a mix-up during Felipe Massa’s first pit stop ruined the Brazilian’s race, leaving him finishing outside the points. Despite this irreparable mistake, Smedley finds positives from the Shanghai race: “We need to develop the car, there’s no doubt about that. We were still in a reasonable position in the top 10 [in Shanghai] – we probably would have been sixth with Felipe. In my mind, all the developments we had – the result of very good teamwork – clearly worked well, but you will never see huge leaps forward on the grid. It’s always progressive.”
More specifically, he explains the work remaining to be done for the Catalan Grand Prix: « So what should we do for Barcelona? We need to fix what wasn’t working operationally, address the reliability issues that could stop us on track, and keep adding more performance. We hope that – at least from what I’m used to – we will make a reasonable step in all areas of the car, which is really, really interesting. »
As for making a prediction on the results of Williams’ advancements, he prefers to reserve judgment and remains cautious: « I’m always reluctant to say whether it will propel us to the front or something else. Maybe it will just keep us where we are, but if that’s the case, that’s already something and it’s good; at least we’re developing the car quickly enough to stay on par with everyone else. »
