Sir Frank triple’s Fisi

While various statistician’s quarrel over whether or not Rubinoe has indeed broken the all time F1 career starts tally, along with Fishy-fella set to become only the ninth driver to make 200 Grand Prix starts, Sir Frank Williams will make a bit of history himself this weekend at Monte Carlo, as;

Monaco marks Sir Frank Williams's 600th World Championship Grand Prix as an entrant, his first race having been the 1969 Spanish Grand Prix when he entered Piers Courage in a Brabham BT26. In the course of his career Frank's cars have won 113 races, seven Drivers' titles and nine Constructors' titles. He has been knighted in England and received the Legion d'Honneur from the French.
"Reaching 600 Grand Prix means very little to me," says Frank. "I do have to admit, however, that there have been some brilliant moments over to 40 years that I've been racing, and there have also been some moments of great sadness. If I was 40 years younger I would still choose the same path to where I find myself today."
(Source: Grandprix.com)

Williams final coat

The Williams F1 team has been running the entire winter testing season in a variety of special paint schemes honouring it’s 30th Anniversary as a constructor. Now Sir Frank and the boys have finally divulged this season’s official livery, which you’ll note has a new name on the side-pod. Hamleys is an international toy store belonging to the Boggar Group who’s reportedly purchasing a 30% stake in Sir Frank Williams company…

(Source: F1 BITS)

Williams FW30

Williams rolled out its 2008 challenger, the FW30 amid little fan fare at Valencia, Spain last week during Formula 1 testing. The car was literally shrouded in fog, as the Grove based squad won’t be revealing their 2008 definative livery until Melbourne.

Williams tester Nico Hulkenberg spun the brand new chassis off track and lightly damaged the cars floor during shakedown testing, prior to Nico Rosberg taking over testing duties the following day…

Williams turns 30

Williams Grand Prix Engineering began celebrating its 30th season in Formula 1 racing today. The team will run a montage of six different liveries during pre-season testing to honour this accomplishment. The team will also contest its 500th Grand Prix this year at Monaco, while Sir Frank Williams will record his 600th entry this season. Williams himself has been in the F1 “Biz” for nearly four decades, as his 39 years will eclipse the record of the late Enzo Ferrari. (1950-88)

Its pretty amazing that Sir Frank has persevered this long in the pinnacle of motor racing, as the only two other entrants I can think of with such enduring runs in Grand Prix are Ferrari and McLaren, although I suppose Renault would argue that they deserve consideration. As you may recall, Renault launched its revolutionary 1.5 liter V-6 turbocharged RS01 chassis in 1977 and raced as a Constructor until 1985. Renault then tasted success as an engine supplier to Williams and Benetton in the 1990’s. Renault bought out the Benetton team in 2001 and returned as a F1 Constructor in 2002…

Kazuki joins Williams

The AT & T Williams F1 Team has announced their driver line-up for 2008, with test driver Kazuki Nakajima being selected to fill Williams second seat alongside Nico Rosberg.

Kazuki is the son of Japanese F1 racing pioneer Satoru Nakajima, who was closely linked with Honda throughout his career. But Kazuki has cultivated his association with Toyota since winning in Japanese karting, while trying to make a name for himself.

Nakajima scored five podiums and his first pole this season in GP2 while driving for the DAMS team. Kazuki then made his Formula 1 debut in Brazil, filling in for Alexandar Wurz, who has just retired from F1.

The move is attractive for Frank Williams as Toyota will now pay for the engines Williams currently uses, with Sir Frank solidifying his partnership with the Japanese automaker. Recall that Williams previously spurned Honda over Japanese talent two decades earlier and subsequently lost his supply of the all conquering Honda V-6 Turbos to McLaren in 1988.

The announcement of Rosberg as the Grove squads number one driver seemingly rules out his potential move to McLaren as Lewis Hamilton’s teammate in 2008…

Super Computer

Previously I’ve written about BMW Sauber’s newest Super Computer, better known as

“Super Albert.” Along with recently noting Renault’s major investments to upgrade its facilities with it’s newly formed Computational Fluid Dynamics organization.

Apparently the race has begun in earnest for the Formula 1 Constructor’s utilization of CFD computing technology as an extension of their current wind tunnel programs. This cutting edge technology (CFD) allows the virtual simulations of testing of any new aerodynamic design without having to physically build a wind tunnel model.

This also allows F1 teams to re-invest the huge sums of money and resources required to physically build, operate and maintain wind tunnels into the future wave of simulated F1 chassis in the never ending demand to continuously create the latest winning designs.

The only drawbacks to CFD is that it requires humongous computing capability, i.e.; Crey-type super computers which are extremely expensive as well as the massive amounts of electricity to operate these ginormous machines, hence the long standing process of F1 teams forging technical alliances/partnerships with major computer companies.

Therefore I was pleasantly surprised to receive the following press release the other day in regards to AT & T Williams latest CFD development. This is encouraging news since I’m a big fan of Nico Rosberg and would enjoy seeing Williams return to its previous winning ways.

I have simply copied the news release as sent to me below. Thanks Katherine…

Lenovo Revs Up Supercomputer Power for Formula One
AT&T Williams Formula One Team Selects Lenovo Best-Engineered Systems. Aerodynamic simulation speeds up by 75 percent

GROVE, OXFORDSHIRE, UK, 17 July 2007 – Lenovo today announced the successful installation of a powerful supercomputer for AT&T Williams, now being used in the racing team’s wind tunnel simulation facilities in the UK.

AT&T Williams and Lenovo collaborated on the customized supercomputing solution, designed to optimize the aerodynamics of the team’s Formula One cars.

“Aerodynamics plays a critical role in determining how competitive we are for each of the race circuits we visit,” said Alex Burns, chief operating officer, AT&T Williams. “The optimum balance of downforce and drag varies between different circuits, so the aerodynamics at Monaco -- lots of tight corners with few straights -- are very different from Monza, which has few corners but lots of long straights. The increase in supercomputing power from Lenovo will give us the capability to examine a greater range of design variations between races, which will increase our development rate, bringing more performance to the car sooner.”

The supercomputer is being used for operations in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), performing billions of calculations that simulate airflow around a virtual model of a three-dimensional, on-track racing car. This process will help predict how even the smallest changes in component shape and placement will affect drag and downforce, with resulting impacts on speed and handling.

With a peak performance of eight teraflops (trillion floating point operations per second), the Lenovo supercomputer is four times more powerful than the team’s previous solution. This will enable the team to speed up the process of aerodynamic simulation by approximately 75 percent.

“Aerodynamics has been steadily gaining importance in recent years, accounting for roughly three quarters of the performance of a Formula One car today,” Burns said. “The tremendous increase in power delivered by the Lenovo supercomputer will allow us to perform the same tasks we do today in a quarter of the time.”

The team uses the supercomputer to examine numerous aerodynamic variables, such as surface geometry, wheel turbulence and track surface. For example, the team can analyze the effects of adjusting the curvature of the car’s surface, with the goal of improving the generation of downforce and the reduction of drag.

The aerodynamic simulations are being done in combination with experimental techniques in the team’s two wind tunnels. Computer-generated tests will enable the AT&T Williams team to focus resources on building the most promising solutions for testing in the wind tunnel and on track.

“The high-performance computing solution developed for AT&T Williams is the latest example of Lenovo capabilities in world-class engineering and research,” said Deepak Advani, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, Lenovo. “We’re excited about providing a supercomputing solution that delivers the power and speed necessary for AT&T Williams to stay competitive in the most technologically advanced sport in the world.”

This agreement is an extension of the relationship between Lenovo and AT&T Williams. At the beginning of the 2007 race season, Lenovo announced its support as an Official Partner of AT&T Williams. The team uses Lenovo PC technology in every facet of its business, from ignition to inventory.

About Lenovo

Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) is dedicated to building the world's best-engineered personal computers. Lenovo's business model is built on innovation, operational efficiency and customer satisfaction as well as a focus on investment in emerging markets. Formed by Lenovo Group's acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, the company develops, manufactures and markets reliable high-quality, secure and easy-to-use technology products and services worldwide. Lenovo has major research centers in Yamato, Japan; Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, China; and Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information, see http://www.lenovo.com/.

About AT&T Williams
AT&T Williams is one of the world’s leading Formula One teams, with 16 FIA Formula One World Championship titles and 113 Grand Prix victories to its credit. Today, Williams F1 employs around 520 personnel at a 40 hectare technology campus based in the heart of the UK’s Motorsport Valley in rural Oxfordshire. The company is unique as an entrant in the FIA Formula One World Championship as it is the only organization that exists solely to race. The company’s core competencies are the design and manufacture of Formula One race cars, and the deployment of this expertise in running the team’s entries into the Grand Prix each season. The company was formed in 1978 and is privately owned by Sir Frank Williams and his long-term business partner, Patrick Head. For more information and photographic images of the car, visit: http://www.attwilliams.com/

Williams to avoid Customer Controversy

Although I previously pondered whether or not Williams would join Spyker who is taking the matter of customer car chassis to arbitration, apparently “Talk is Cheap.”

While I thought that Sir Frank (Williams) would keep a “Stiff Upper Lip: and join the legal proceedings. I mean whatever happened to “In for a Penny, in for a Pound.” Or would that be a pence or farthing Sir Frank?

And I wonder if there may have been any pressure from the Far East put upon the Grove squad? Williams has just announced that they will not join the fight, leaving Spyker to proceed alone in the matter of customer chassis.

What’s next? Does this mean that Toyota will be campaigning re-badged Williams race cars in ’08? Talk about you’re reverse engineering…

Williams good out of the box

With the launch of the Williams FW29, the team has been quite encouraged by the new race cars showing of speed during initial winter testing.

And although Mark Webber has snubbed Williams, the Grove squad has so far to date outpaced the mighty “Works” Panasonic-Toyota F1 team

Williams FW29

There has been much Williams’s pre-launch speculation that the Grove based team has signed a “mega” deal with Lenovo of China to become its title sponsor…

Yet with today’s launch of the FW29, Williams confirmed that it had signed Lenovo to a major sponsorship deal while announcing AT & T as the teams new title sponsor…

Williams hopes to rebound from a very disappointing season last year as it struggled along with the unloved Cosworth V-8 “lump” after BMW left Williams to purchase Sauber…

To read about Red Bull Racing’s 2007 Launch, see: Red Bull Racing RB2

Williams Speaking Japanese

How to keep your major suppliers happy? In typical Formula 1 fashion, Frank Williams has prudently decided to hire Toyota’s “preferred son,” Kazuki Nakajima as Williams test driver for 2007. The 21 year old Nakajima is son of Japan’s first full time Formula 1 driver Satoru Nakajima…