AT&T Williams F1 Team

The AT&T Williams team's 2008 season race car, the Williams Toyota FW30, took to the track for the first time at the Valencia circuit in Southern Spain on Monday 21st January.

Frank Williams had a brief career as a driver before deciding that he was more suited to running a team. He entered F1 with a Brabham in 1969, driven by great friend Piers Courage. Two second places confirmed the potential of the team, but tragically Courage was killed the following year. Frank spent most of the 70s trying to conjure up enough money to keep his team going, and rarely rose above the status of midfielder. In 1977 he made a fresh start by setting up Williams Grand Prix Engineering with talented designer Patrick Head. The team quickly grew in stature and was winning by 1979. Alan Jones became World Champion the following year. The team's fortunes peaked in 1992-97, when Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve all became World Champions. In 2000 the team linked up with engine supplier BMW and was soon winning races with Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya, but the two companies parted at the end of 2005 leaving Williams as a true private team. Since last year the team has used Toyota engines, and the Japanese connection sees rookie Kazuki Nakajima join Nico Rosberg this year.

The new car represents a clear engineering philosophy of iteration and progressive development from the competitive and reliable platform of last season's FW29. The team's Technical Director, Sam Michael explains, "With four years of regulation stability, we have a good basis to be progressive about the development of this season's car. With a good reliability record last year, we have been able to build on this quality while also turning some of our attention to clear performance objectives."

With an established technical team, the car is the product of a stable engineering base as well as settled regulations and for the first time since 2004, continuity of engine supplier with Toyota meaning that drivetrain installation has not been a resource-demanding aspect of the design process. With 8,000 mechanical releases and 35,000 manhours of design time, it is remarkable to consider that much of this work will be rendered obsolete in the next eight to twelve months.

The car retains the general structural and layout philosophy of its forebear, featuring a zero keel and dual pillar rear wing, with notable visual changes including a three plane front wing, increased sidepod top cooling louvres in view of the altered orientation of the water radiators, the sidepod and side impact sails and the increased cockpit sides for compliance with the new driver safety requirements.

"Our focus has been on performance as well as refining our packaging and weight distribution. We are designing a tidier car with a higher standard of build quality. The FW30 should represent a good step forward when all of the many small areas of attention and improvement are brought together in the overall package," said Michael.

Prior to the roll-out of the FW30, the team has also spent considerable time and made good headway in attending to a number of the other regulation changes, such as the integration of a standard ECU and the outlawing of traction control. As much as a busy winter for mechanical designers and CFD aerodynamicists, specialist code and software engineers have been busy re-writing strategies that will govern the management of the car's main components, from the new seamless shift gearbox to the differentials and engine. The FW30 is also biofuel compliant in order to meet the new season requirement that all race fuels contain 5.75% biomatter. Having worked in tandem with its fuel partner, Petrobras, the team was the first to use biofuel as part of a Formula One demonstration run in downtown Rio de Janeiro last October.

Technical Specification

Chassis

• Monocoque construction fabricated from carbon aramid epoxy and honeycomb composite structure, surpassing FIA impact and strength requirements
• Cockpit: Driver six point safety harness with 75mm shoulder straps & HANS system, removable anatomically formed carbon fibre seat covered in Alcantara. Safety Devices extinguisher system

Suspension

• Front: Carbon fibre double wishbone arrangement, with composite toelink and pushrod activated torsion springs
• Rear: Double wishbone and pushrod activated torsion springs and rockers
• Dampers: Williams F1

Transmission

• Williams F1 seven speed seamless sequential semi-automatic shift plus reverse gear in an aluminium maincase, gear selection electro-hydraulically actuated
• Clutch: Carbon plate

Wheels & Tyres

• RAYS forged magnesium
• Bridgestone Potenza, F350mm wide, R375mm wide

Brakes & Steering

• 6 piston AP calipers all round, Carbon Industrie carbon discs and pads
• Williams F1 power assisted rack and pinion

Engine & Management Units

• Model : FW30
• Fuel system: Kevlar-reinforced rubber bladder
• Electronic systems MES
• Fuel: Fuel by Petrobras
• Cooling system : Marston oil, water and gearbox radiators
• Motive Power: Toyota 2.4L V8, 90° V angle, pneumatic valve train.
  
• Fuel management and ignition systems by Toyota.
  
• Spark plugs by ND.
  
• Engine materials include block and pistons in aluminium, crankshaft in steel billet, connecting rods in titanium
  

Dimensions & Weight

• Weight 605kg with driver, camera and ballast
• Wheelbase: 3,100mm
• Overall length: 4,500mm
• Overall height: 950mm
• Overall width: 1,800mm

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