Can Williams Challenge for the F1 Championship in 2016?
Last November, in the midst of her team's best season in a decade, Williams deputy team principal Claire Williams said there was more to come.
She wasn't referring to last season, although both Williams cars finished on the podium at the next race. And she wasn't referring to this season, although the team has 30 more points now than at the same time last year.
Rather, Williams was looking two years down the road when she told the official Formula One website, "From where we are now, 2015 should almost be a dress rehearsal for a championship challenge in 2016."
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But can a team that have won just one race since the beginning of the 2005 season actually challenge for an F1 title?
Williams' biggest advantage is their engine customer relationship with Mercedes. The Mercedes power unit is once again the class of the field, both in terms of power output and reliability.
But a dominant engine alone is not enough to win. Force India and Lotus are also using Mercedes engines and sit fifth and sixth in the constructors' standings.
Also, the fact that Williams are customers, rather than engine manufacturers, puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to integrating the power unit with their chassis.
In explaining why his team left Mercedes for Honda, McLaren CEO Ron Dennis said, per Autosport's Jonathan Noble:
"You have no chance of winning the world championship if you are not receiving the best engines from whoever is manufacturing your engines.
And a modern grand prix engine at this moment in time is not about sheer power, it is about how you harvest the energy, it is about how you store the energy.
Effectively, if you don't have the control of that process, meaning access to source code, then you are not going to be able to stabilise your car in the entry to corners etc., and you lose lots of lap time.
Even though you have the same brand of engine that does not mean you have the ability to optimise the engine.
"
That has been the case for Williams, who have made a dramatic improvement since switching to Mercedes engines for 2014, but they have still generally lagged behind the Mercedes factory team.
However, "We have demonstrated in the past that we can win against manufacturer teams," Claire Williams told the official F1 website. "We have the same engine as the Mercedes cars have and it is up to us that our chassis is better than theirs. If we did not believe that we can win a world championship against our supplier team then we would not be here."
Another advantage Williams have is their driver pairing. Felipe Massa has revived his career since arriving at Grove and Valtteri Bottas is one of the sport's brightest young stars. Both have had brilliant performances over the last two years, but they are still missing a victory that would show Williams are truly back at the top of the sport.
And the team's advantage in this area could soon dissipate as well. Ferrari are rumoured to be interested in Bottas to replace his Finnish countryman Kimi Raikkonen. If Bottas does leave, there is no guarantee the team will be able to bring in a driver of equal talent immediately.
Meanwhile, the Italian newspaper Corriere dello Sport (h/t Sky Sports) claim a deal is already in place that will pay Williams €12 million to release Bottas from his contract for 2016.
And that brings us to one of Williams' disadvantages: money.
According to Business Book GP and El Mundo Deportivo (h/t Crash.net), Williams' budget is less than half that of the four highest-spending teams, including Mercedes and Ferrari. And while a massive budget alone does not guarantee success (see McLaren-Honda), more money certainly does provide an advantage when it comes to development.
At the same time, Williams are not exactly struggling financially. Their improved performance last year means more prize money and more opportunities for sponsorship revenue.
"Let's be clear," chief technical officer Pat Symonds told the official F1 website earlier this year, "Williams doesn't have a small budget—we have a very healthy budget. But some of the teams we are fighting do have extremely large budgets and when you are in a formula where attention to detail is everything, you better use your funds more smartly than others."
With Ferrari's resurgence this year and Mercedes' ongoing dominance, Williams will have to be very smart if they are going to challenge for a title any time soon.
But it is not impossible.
If Ferrari continue their improvement to the point where they can regularly challenge Mercedes in 2016, it will reduce the Silver Arrows' points haul. Closer battles on track will also mean more opportunities for mistakes for the Mercs, who have spent much of the past season-and-a-half well out in front.
And Williams have already demonstrated they are a match for Mercedes at certain tracks. For example, Massa and Bottas qualified first and second in Austria last year and they led the Mercs for the first part of this year's British Grand Prix.
Both times, the drivers were let down by overly conservative strategy calls, but the pace—at least on some weekends—is there.
"For sure, this season winning is really difficult and I think maybe next year Williams' performance is going to show more whether it is possible or not," Bottas recently said, according to Crash.net, echoing Claire Williams' assertion that 2016 is the real focus for the team.
Actually winning the championship may still be a dream, but it will not be a big surprise if Williams are at least in the title discussion.
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