The Grove-based squad has been removing paint from its FW44 over the past few races, with the first stage happening in Australia and further tweaks being made for the recent Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
The changes, which are aimed at helping reduce the car’s weight, have resulted in some of the blue paint that featured on the nose, engine cover and sidepods being stripped back to leave only raw carbon fibre.
The request from engineering to reduce car weight by tweaking the livery had to be approved by Williams’ marketing chiefs, to make sure it did not impact too much on the livery and sponsor exposure.
And the team’s head of vehicle performance, Dave Robson, said his engineers did go as far as probing the chances of stripping all the car back to carbon.
“Of course. Absolutely,” he smiled, when probed if that idea was discussed.
However, while a complete stripped back car did not get approval, Robson said he understood why the team needed to keep some form of identity.
“It’s just the thing that engineering meets marketing, isn’t it?” he said. “We all want the car to look stunning, which is part of the sport.
“And it’s not just about the livery on the car; it sets the tone for the whole brand which is clearly really important.”
He added: “For sure it’s a compromise. The car needs to have some visible personality about it. But at the same time, it’s in the sponsors’ interests to make it as quick as possible.”
Williams is not the only team to have resorted to stripping weight off its car in a bid to get near F1’s raised weight limit for this year.
Williams FW44 side detail
Photo by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images
Aston Martin, Red Bull, McLaren and Red Bull have all removed paint from key areas of their car in a bid to save weight.
But with almost the entire grid struggling with car weight, there is an argument to suggest that F1 set its sights wrong in laying out the current limit.
Robson said: “I think we’ve known for quite a while that achieving the…
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