The Flying Lap with Peter Windsor

A question to MG: looking at your time spent at Jaguar and what the operation has achieved as RBR, do you think foundations laid between 2002-05 helped the team? What are your expectations for Williams in 2013?

Hi,
I have a question for Dr. Gillan:
I’m currently involved with calibrating a 5 litre gasoline direct injection V8 at the University of Bradford. We use a design of experiment (DoE) approach to speed up testing as traditional methods are resource intensive. With that winglet in mind, do you use DoE to develop and test aerodynamic devices or do you use a more traditional one-at-a-time approach?
Many thanks and all the best for Silverstone.

Hi. Whats Dr Marks take on the Pirellis Does he think its good for the show. I do

Question for Dr Gillan: Over the years, Silverstone has a history of teams bringing lots of upgrades to their cars. Can you give us an idea of what Williams F1 will have this weekend as far as upgrades? Good luck in the race!

Mark,

Do all teams run different fuel blends and is there a window in which the blends must fit? If so, what does Williams F1 base the blends on?

Thanks

Good evening Peter. I wanted to ask this question last night at the fans forum but didn’t get the chance.
Do you think that F1 could benefit from having a ‘Grand Slam’ of races. As a way of protecting classic and historic races on the calandar such as Silverstone, Monza and Spa?

Hey Peter! Can you recall another instance where the anti-stall launched a car forward without any warning? If that’s actually what happened to MdV. I’d love a more in depth explanation on how the system could do that, I just don’t get it. :/ Hope she pulls through.

Best wishes to @ChristyUrban, and hope she is ecovering well from her accident. This week saw the tragic accident of Maria de Villota, Do you think this will set back the timeline of us seeing females drive in #F1 races.

Hi,

Why cant FOTA fan forum type events be part of every GP. The spectators pay premium price for tickets but in exchange they do not get that much, it would be great if teams would be more in touch with fans thanks to whom the sport exists.

How good do you think the Redbull is now, after Valencia and what can you tell us regarding what they did to the car to make it so fast compared to the competition. As I understand, Mercedes has gone to the FIA to complain about the engine setup RBR used… As I know the new ECU software revised by the FIA at the begining of the year, doesn`t doesn`t allow teams to play with the engine and exhaust at all. And as I know Mercedes is the one that was the Team which made FIA modify the ECU software in March

I know you tried to answer this question after the show last week, but seeing as you have a senior engineer on the show this week, was wondering if you could try and push them for an answer ;)
In terms of aerodynamic downforce, which era of cars produced the most – 2008 (before the latest big change in regs), 2009 (with double diffusers), 2011 (with EBDs) or 2012?

Maria de Villota’s sad accident made me think: how are testings regulated and what sort of restrictions are applied to them? To me that truck she hit and the way she was struck by it by the open back end were far from health & safety conformity.

Hi Peter,

Great to see Mark back again on TFL, and a varied season for all, to say the least.

Mark,

With the unfortunate event involving Maria yesterday at Duxford, would there be an alternative for the teams in future to consider other venues apart from airfields for straight-line aerodynamic testing? And will we see closed cockpits in new generations of F1 cars in years to come?

This year has been hailed by many as a great year in terms of exciting racing. This has been partly due to the tyres, but also some have suggested that the stability of regulations has brought the midfield closer to the big four. Is F1 shooting itself in the foot by forcing a new engine onto the teams – won’t the deep wallets fare better and we have a boring, processional season dominated by a single manufacturer again?

Since the guy he bribed went to jail will Bernie be going to jail for Bribery?
If so that raises a couple of questions.
1. Who will run F1
2. Will whoever takes over F1 then ban Bernie for life for acts detrimental to the sport?
And no I am not asking this question because Flavio asked me to!

Good evening Peter. I wanted to ask this question last night at the fans forum but didn’t get the chance.
Do you think that F1 could benefit from having a ‘Grand Slam’ of races. As a way of protecting classic and historic races on the calandar such as Silverstone, Monza and Spa?

What upgrades are Macca bringing to Silverstone and what is the targeted area for improving performance?

Thanks and love the show!

Maria de Villota’s sad accident made me think: how are testings regulated and what sort of restrictions are applied to them? To me that truck she hit and the way she was struck by it by the open back end were far from health & safety conformity.

Hi,

Is there a chance Bottas gets the chance to race this season as Senna is under performing.

Hi Peter,

William’s held a great event yesterday at for the fans at the FOTA Forum. My question is regarding something which Martin Whitmarsh spoke about at the event. He said during the Bridgestone era the tyres were benign and “open to abuse” by using extreme suspension geometries and such to extract performance. The Pirelli’s don’t tolerate that as much and need to be taken care of. He said the teams whose cars seem kinder to the tyres (such as Sauber) actually didn’t know the exact reason why it was so and seemed innate to the car philosophy to which it was built. To Dr Gillian, has he found the same? Innate car characteristics not completely understood affecting tyre performance?

Thanks for the show and I’d also like to show my respect to Maria de Villota.
Krit.

Hi,

Mark, Is Williams success this year bitter sweet as the car clearly has pace to be on podium every race and the drivers do not extract most out of it?
Do you think with better driver line up you could have challenged for both championships this year?

Good evening Peter and Mark,

I reiterate the sadness and sorrow for the injuries sustained by Maria yesterday.

Last night, FOTA had a forum at Williams HQ. I looked all over the web for a way to view that, with no luck. Surely as F1 is partly, some say mainly for the fans, why isn’t this publicly broadcast, on a platform just like TFL?

Many thanks,

Mick..

What is the Williams contribution to the first 24hours of Le Mans hybrid (flywheel) victory ?

Williams was involved also with Porsche on a GT car. Are you going to be involved with the new 2014 LMP Porsche ?

Is there any chance to see one day (2014 onwars) a flywheel on a Williams F-1 car ?

when designing and developing new cars, does the team look back over many years of ‘banned’ systems to see if there are ways of implementing them under the current regs, or do they concentrate on more recent advances in engineering/areo developments and adapt the latest banned devices to conform to any tightening in the latest regs? and what percentage of development is spent through analysing and copying other team’s developments?

Hello Mark good luck for the weekend, with your car get better results now are you thinking about diver changes next year, and if so are any clues? I’m sure your not going to give away any but, whould you take on Massa, or webber, as its might be time for them to change . Thank I love the show keep it up

Could Dr Gillan describe how much of the new-found performance is down to the Renault-engine? How is the driveability of the engine? Is the engine really more economical than others? Is WilliamsF1 campaigning to get Renault power for 2014 and onwards?

Do you think the FIA should clamp down again on EBD because teams seem to be stretching or bending the rules again i.e lates RB and ferrari updates.

What do Peter and Mark feel about the criticism Pastor Maldonado gets more widely, such as after the incident with Lewis Hamilton in Valencia. While Pastor has undoubtedly made errors of judgement in his F1 career, it strikes me that the criticism he gets is generally disproportionate and more acute than other drivers would get, possibly related to his ‘pay driver’ branding which I think is rather unfair.

During the last GP I noticed a lot of front running teams fell for the free pit stop without looking ahead and exploiting thier own predetermined race strategy. MSC and Ausi Grit did not fall for this and saw through their strategies and made big gain in the end.

Following the Williams hybrid power flywheel powering the Audi R18 etron quattro to LeMans 24h victory, are we likely to see it find more use in any race series?