Webber calls Williams second rate

[davewilson]

THE Williams Formula One team that took Alan Jones to his world title will not bounce back from the disasters of 2006, according to former lead driver Mark Webber.

Australia's only current Formula One grand prix driver said his old team nearly destroyed his career and had few prospects for improvement.

Webber, who will drive for Red Bull this season, sees Williams as a Toyota B team, taking its engines from the world's No.2 carmaker but without the necessary strengths to re-emerge as a force in Formula One.

"It looks tough for them, it really does," Webber said.

"They might have new engines, but not a lot has changed in the structure, so there's no real reason why the results should be any different for them this year.

"I thought I would go to Williams and then finish my career at Williams, but it was a tough gig for the credibility of a lot of people. That's what happens when there's such a huge drop in form."

Williams, winless since 2004, is spending millions to use Toyota's V8 engine in 2007, its third engine in as many seasons after an acrimonious split with BMW in 2005 and the axing of last year's privateer Cosworth engine.

"Of course Williams is a Toyota B team. There will be denials, but there is a feeling and a perception that a B team is actually how it is now," Webber said.

"I'm sure they will be working hard to beat Toyota, but Toyota in Japan will obviously prefer any success to come to the factory team."

Formula One will embrace the B team concept from the 2008 season, and Super Aguri and Toro Rosso, formerly Minardi, are controversially trying to get in early by running last year's Honda and Red Bull designs this season.

Prodrive, which runs the Ford Performance Racing V8 Supercar team and Subaru's World Rally Championship program for Australian Chris Atkinson, is rumoured to become the McLaren B team next season.

Williams has had one major technology transfer head the other way, with Toyota electing to run the Williams-developed seamless-shift gearbox instead of its own, with an improvement of 0.2sec a lap expected.

While Webber is aware of the irony of his comments - his Red Bull chassis will run Renault's V8 engine this year - he is adamant the situation is very different at his new team.

"Williams's finances are stretched. We have a Bahrain test at the end of the month which will be good. Williams can't go because of its finances," Webber said.

"Williams has still got great resources at the factory and that's why it's so hard to believe what's happened there.

"When we launched last year's car, we just had nothing on it that was interesting to give you a step forward compared to the other guys, you know, mechanically or aerodynamically."

Webber said the Williams cars he drove in 2005 and 2006 had problems with maintaining their performance.

"It just wasn't reliable enough on the days when it was fast enough, and it wasn't fast enough on the days it was reliable enough," Webber said.

"Turkey was a classic example for us. I just made the top 10 and came out of turn one in fourth and had a faultless race, but we got smashed in times, with the 14th-fastest race lap.

"I would get to the point of finishing races 20 or 30 seconds behind Kimi (Raikkonen) after 90 minutes of racing, knowing he was in a McLaren and I was in a Williams and knowing that wasn't a bad effort over a race distance with what we had.


"But it's not what I went there to do."

The Stig

[Dare]

  Think both sides need to act mature and stop
  throwing barbs at each other

[Ian]

As someone said before Dare, the football prima donna is spreading