Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has said that he was fairly inspired by Ferrari and Sauber’s relationship. Now, the German outfit are eyeing Williams F1 as a potential Mercedes ‘B team’.
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However, the Grove-based team is a bit hesitant has they have the slowest car on the 2018 grid. What further shoves them in a deep rut is a possible loss of main financer Lawrence Stroll to Force India.
On the other end of the scale, Alfa Romeo-Sauber is moving up the grid, courtesy its ties to Ferrari.
Imago
Williams F1
According to Wolff, “The Ferrari-Sauber model shows that such alliances can be very important in the future in order to remain competitive.”
He and the Mercedes top brass will be monitoring the situation closely. The team is already cooperating with the Force India team for this season. They are hoping that there could be a similar partnership with Williams in the future.
The Williams F1 team have endured a wretched 2018 season, with only 4 points to boot. Fortunately, there seems to be a ray of hope on the horizon for them.
“The car does what we expect it to do,” said technical boss Paddy Lowe.
Sergey Sirotkin’s 12th place grid start was the team’s best showing in a while. The Russian rookie squeaked into Q2 and was 0.045 seconds slower than Fernando Alonso. This just goes to show that the Williams F1 team are inching closer to McLaren and Sauber.
Their new front wing in Germany was just the start but it is definitely encouraging for the engineers.
“Unfortunately, this is not our only job to do,” Lowe admits. “The more you dig, the more vulnerabilities you reveal.”
The team are anticipating another upgrade for the Belgian GP, but after that the design department will likely focus on the 2019 car. How will things bode for them? we will have to just wait and see.
