The Williams F1 Team has confirmed that Pastor Maldonado and Valtteri Bottas will be the team’s race drivers for the 2013 FIA Formula One World Championship season. Although Maldonado won the Spanish Grand Prix this year, with an impressive drive, he scored in only a handful of races and it is widely felt in F1 circles that if it were not for his considerable financial backing from Venezuela he would not be keeping the drive, as the car did not score anything like the number of points that it should have done, given its potential. The signing of Bottas is the team’s acceptance that while it is possible to survive with pay-drivers, the team needs more complete drivers in order to collect better results. This will lead to more prize money and will attract more sponsorship, and will take the team back to where it should be in the F1 pecking order. This year’s eight place is a step up from last year’s miserable ninth, but Williams should really be two or three places higher, gievn its record and its facilities.
The team will not say any of this out loud.
The decision is a little tough on Senna, who has not done a bad jog this year. He scored in twice as many races as Maldonado and achieved that without having the benefit of running on Friday mornings, which he believed was a serious disadvantage. It should be added that Bruno is still learning after two scrappy years and will probably be a much better driver in 2013. Sadly the choice was based on money and the word is that Bruno is now in negotiation with Force India and with Caterham.
One thing that is very clear is that Williams rates Bottas very highly.
“Valtteri is quite simply one of the most talented young racing drivers I have come across and we expect great things from him in the future,” said Sir Frank Williams.
Theteam has yet to name a test and reserve driver but if it follows its normal course of action, it will be a job that goes to an up-and-coming talent, rather than someone with some cash.
joeblogsf1 
Money? I thought Senna brought $10-12m – maybe I dreamt it. If not besides being managed by Toto Wolff, do you know how much Bottas brings?
Williams will get some money from Finland as a result of signing Bottas, but I think the team still needs to find more to cover the cost of the decision. However, it was the only sensible thing for the team to do.
Being managed by Toto Wolff certainly helps get you noticed by Williams. Not as much as being married to him, but still…
Bottas manager Didier Coton not toto
Toto is part of the management company
Have to say I’m not surprised. Senna has scored in more races, but the actual speed is not really there. In all his time in F1, I just see Senna as ‘average’. A journeyman.
I’m not saying Maldonado is a potential world champion, but he is bloomin’ fast on a Saturday afternoon – and Senna is often far far behind him.
It’s refreshing that Williams are looking to the future and picking Bottas for his speed and potential. I wish them luck.
Completely agree with this. Senna may have scored points on more occasions but he’s miles away from Maldonado on pace.
Yes, but he scored more results.
What do you feel is more feasable for a team in such a situation, to extract more speed out of the consistent driver, or to enstill calmness and maturiry (without loosing speed of course) on the fast but hot headed one?
…from my armchair in guessing the latter, but It would be great to understand how the teams work these things out.
It’s the same as with a car: you’d rather have a fast, but unreliable car than have a slow reliable one..
Not always. Sometimes it is better to have points in the bag, rather than broken front wings.
The aim is of course for both (if you want to win a championship in the long run). If you have the choice between a fast but hot headed driver or an slow (in relative terms) but consistent driver it, the hot headed one would be easier to calm down than the slow one would be to speed up. Many slower drivers end up overdriving to keep up and will start causing as many accidents are the hot head natural.
I think Maldonado has it in him to calm down, he shown he can act calm when he wants to! (Spain)
Look back over the results of the past few years, and you’ll see that these two options appear at Sauber (the former) and Force India (the latter).
Take away Maldonado’s win and he scored less than Bruno. You can get ‘freak’ situations where a team and / or driver hit on the perfect setup and get to the front for the odd race. Pace isn’t the only thing a driver needs, he needs to stay out of trouble and be able to put in a good race performance to finish well. So far, Senna has shown fairly well in races but due to the very bitty nature of his F1 career he’s not had the chance to crack qualifying.
Pastor needs to settle down next season and start scoring regularly otherwise I can’t see him being around long, no matter how much he brings in money-wise. When a car is capable of being in the points a team can’t afford to have a driver only score in 1/4 of the races.
My gut feeling is that if Williams didn’t need the money Maldonado brings they’d have Senna and Bottas in the cars. Although in some ways that isn’t a fair argument as if they didn’t need the money they would have a much wider choice if drivers.
It is reported at PlanetF1 that Senna is not allowed to participate in Friday sessions at 15 out of 20 races. Quite a significant disadvantage for Senna to overcome given the peculiarity of the Pirelli tires takes some amount of practise time to understand them.
I agreed Pastor is usually the faster of the 2 during qualifying.but how much of that is really down to his contract stipulation that Williams must bar Senna from Friday sessions at the majority of races?
Does PlanetF1 have anything to do with F1? Or is it from another planet?
It is from Earth and it reports on F1 news.
http://www.planetf1.com/
Yes but I don’t think there is anyone involved in F1, is there?
Touché
They are your favourite kind of F1 site, Joe – one that throws a hint of opinion on second hand news.
It used to have some big names way back when. I guess not anymore.
Very happy for Bottas, secretly hoping that he could bring along something special; sad for Senna though, RAI said he is also in talk with Lotus, no?
Kimi said that Senna is in talks with Lotus?
Kimi is not always right.
Leave him alone, he knows what he’s doing!
:^)
Or RAI, as in the Italian national station. They broadcast F1 on radio.
Sir Frank, nice signing, but if you want to win please give a sizable equity position to Adrian Newey and get him back where he belongs!
First the car, then the drivers. Even a talent like Fernando couldn’t push the Ferrari past its limitations.
Joe how realistic are Bruno’s chances of getting a 2013 seat at Force India or Caterham with so many others vying for these seats?
Very realistic, if the money is there.
Joe, where does Alguersuari fit in to all this? He’s cashed up and has been linked to Caterham and FI hasn’t he?
He has not been linked to anything by me.
What do you make of the reports by other journalists on the subject? Credible? He has access to decent cash does he not?
I don’t know to which reports you are referring
Joe, by the way, given Massa’s resurgent form, do you still see Webber being wanted by Ferrari for 2014 as mentioned in one of your earlier articles?
Not too long ago Jaime boasted on Twitter that he would be in F1 next year for sure. LOL jumping the gun.
Yes, I have heard it said. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Anyone can talk a good game. Half the people out there angling for drives says they have a load of money, but when it comes down to banker’s drafts and deadlines, it is often a different story.
Joe states the harsh truth about Bruno Senna and Formula 1. No sportsman has affected me more than his Uncle and I’m sad that Bruno has been used and discarded by yet another F1 team. I believe the main reason a team like Caterham or Force India would hire Bruno for the 2013 season would be to help fund their new 2014 chassis and engine package. Cars that each team has no intention of ever letting him drive! Hopefully, a Ron Dennis or Gerhard Berger will step in and advise the Senna family that it is time for Bruno to gracefully exit the F1 stage and move to another series. Sadly, I think Bruno and his mother will do whatever it takes to keep him in Formula 1.
I would respectfully say that Bruno got a decent amount of the deal too. You could argue that there are more deserving drivers, but without famous or rich family members, that should have gotten a seat in F1. Bruno has at least had a chance to prove what he can do. The respective team principals looking for a driver are better placed to judge on his talent and therefore future in the sport.
Its a shame that sports cars, whilst becoming more popular, isn’t the force it used to be. It would provide a good career path for drivers that missed out on or left F1.
“The team has yet to name a test and reserve driver but if it follows its normal course of action, it will be a job that goes to an up-and-coming talent, rather than someone with some cash.”
Or someone that is married to the boss…
That is not going to happen.
Just wondered, has anyone ever asked Mrs Wolff the famous Mrs Merton question?
What’s the Mrs Merton question?
What first attracted you to multimillionaire…
Thanks.
Personally I thought the funnier one was when she asked Chris Eubank ‘how did it feel when Nigel Benn came from behind and licked you in the ring?;
Enlighten me. What question is that?
The Williams team and Sir Williams are truly honorable folks. I pray F1 gets more like them.
You’ve not been following long, have you Chris?
Not to the depth I do now, no. Enlighten me…..
Bruno Senna has had his chance at F1. He’s shown himself to be nothing more than a competent F1 driver in an era when you need to be far better than that. More than that he’s had chances with three teams, a luxury very few are afforded. If he was any good surely Lotus would have kept him. Instead he took his cash pile to Williams who simply discovered what Lotus already new. Apparently a very nice guy, but that doesn’t cut it. Williams have made the right choice.
Look what’s happening to the nice guys. Kobayashi, Senna, seemingly Kovalainen… No wonder David Coulthard made his annual “no more Mr Nice Guy. This is my year” statement – he was only trying to hang on to his job.
The new drivers coming in are nice guys too.
Joe are you optimistic that replacements of quality will emerge when the current top five talents in F1 move on? Remember that they may all do so within a year of each other, except for Vettel of course [he may be here 10 years…]
Yes.
Sad news for Senna. I hope he finds a place with FIndia.
On your point regarding pay drivers, I know I’m reopening an age old disucssion, but isn’t Bottas a pay driver? He brings sponsors to the team (Kemppi) How should one define a “pay driver”?
Some would argue that Alonso is a pay driver, in that Santander sponsor Ferrari (and also McLaren when he joined them)
I disagree with this – to me a pay driver is someone who gets the drive ONLY because he brings the money, and loses the drive as soon as the money runs out.
Good drivers joining a team can happily result in sponsors joining the team, with no fear of being branded a pay driver.
Alonso is most definitely in this category, and I would argue that Bottas is too.
This is the difference between buying a drive, and greasing the wheels
You’re sure pressing the case for pay drivers……
Understand more clearly now why many regard Alonso as one . Thanks!
No-one with a brain regards Alonso as a pay driver.
Alonso gets the sponsorship because of his talent, they aren’t backing him in the hope he might make something of himself one day or promote a region. It’s the other way round to pay drivers. Pay drivers arrive on a sea of money, great drivers tend to move the way the sea flows.
Looks like the right decision to me, Senna is a nice guy and decent driver so a shame to see him go (if he doesn’t get another drive), Bottas deserves a drive but so does Maldonado, yes he brings money but so do many others and he justifies a drive (with or without cash) from his speed. How many times has he qualified right at the front with Senna being out of the top ten? He has crashed quite a few times but then so did Hamilton last year, it’s easier to stop a driver making silly mistakes then it is making them go 0.5 seconds a lap quicker. Plus the benefit from winning one race is far bigger than a string of 7th and 8th places in terms of team moral, media exposure and sponsorship.
I can start to see an agree Maldonado for Grosjan-esqu lunges at the sight of a williams wing in front of him. Bring on 2013!
Hi Joe:
Any thoughts on why Rubens Barrichello was let go the year before considering the final results that these pay drivers have achieved for Williams this year? Surely (I know hindsight is a lovely thing) Williams had an inkling that if they had kept Rubens in the car this year they would have had a better chance to place higher in the driver’s standings (just from his experience over the driver that were there this year)?
For answer to your first question, see Joe’s reply below re Kova.
“The decision is a little tough on Senna, who has not done a bad jog this year”
What does a good jog look like then?
Sorry to keep bringing it up, and it’s all in the past now – but dropping Rubens for Senna was a crazy move. Senna may have brought money in the short term, but Rubens would have scored way more points and lifted Williams several places higher in the Constructor’s Championship. Anyway, as I say, old news now. Senna was alright but nothing special – up till this year I’d give him the benefit of the doubt but I don’t think there’s any doubt now he’s trading on his name alone. I suppose as an OK driver with a wedge of cash he’s going to remain of interest to Force India and Caterham, but beyond his budget choosing him would be a difficult decision to justify.
So moving along, good to see Williams bringing Bottas in – by all accounts a great young driver well worth a go. And as it looks like Heikki steps out of F1, another Finn to take his place behind Kimi!
Ancient history
Indeed, but worth noting, especially as the ‘safe’ option for 2012 was drop expensive Rubens and bring in Senna and his money. Probably they didn’t anticipate having a car good enough that if maximised by a top notch driver (Rubens) would bring home a bundle of points each race.
This year the safe option would be to keep Senna – he’d do an OK job and bring his money – versus the risky one of bringing in a rookie, no matter how good. Clearly they believe they can maintain the same level of car performance and are taking a chance on Bottas hitting the ground running and getting quickly to a level beyond which Senna would ever achieve.
If anything this is a good decision because it shows Williams rediscovering its confidence and beginging to take the initiative again rather than playing it safe.
Joe how does the paddock at large perceive Senna?
A decent driver.
Interesting proposition for Caterham to have money from Senna and Petrov with 2014 in mind.
Not good to see F1 driver standards slipping from world class to those who can raise the most money, it will affect the sport in a bad way. I’m sure we’ll see more silly mistakes leading to more crashes, we’ll also see a smaller number of drivers winning races and championships as the quality narrows.
Not good for the sport.
I do not agree. The best drivers attract money., Yes, you will still get drongos now and then but the quality of the field today is as high as it has ever been.
Be a while then since there’ve been as many drongos show up in one season, wouldn’t it?
Hi Joe. What is the situation with Davide Valsecchi ?? He is a reigning GP2 champion and talented driver. He drove very well in young driver test. Just no money in Italy ??
Yes, he has money. But no-one is showing much interest. read into that whatever you will.
Maybe his managers aren’t “selling” him well or he is just a run-of-the-mill driver ??
It possibly says more about how GP2, or rather, drivers who have been there for more than two or three years, are perceived.
Any developments on Qatar sponsorship?
Senna missed out on a lot of FP1 running, which meant he had less time to set the car up to his liking, and test his settings on long and short runs. With the race being critical, and a car handling on heavy fuel being more urgent, race set up was focused on. As a result, his qualifying wasn’t as strong as Maldonado.
However, saying that, Senna scored in 10 races, Maldonado in 5, and Pastor qualified higher most times. It’s the races that count, and despite qualifying lower than his team mate, and with limited running, Bruno was the most consistant driver.
If you take Maldonado’s win out of the equation, Senna would have been the highest scoring Williams driver – and after that win, Pastor didn’t score any points for nine races. Over the year, Senna finished higher than Maldonado 7 times. There were six races when either, or both Williams failed to finish, so from that aspect, it was 50/50. however six of those times, Senna brought the car home in the points, while Maldonado did not.
The only reason Bruno lost his driver is because of those PDVSA logos on the side of the Williams.
So I just looked some of this up.
Senna drove FP1 in : Australia, Monaco, Canada, Singapore and the USA.
What’s spooky is that on average, Senna’s qualification relative to Maldonado was actually worse on those occasions where he ran FP1, though the margin is slim enough to probably be irrelevant.
It’s a similar story with his race finish positions, on average he’s finished further up the field in races where Bottas took FP1, but again, on such a small sample set it’s hard to put much confidence in any of this.
(For the record, directly comparing finishing positions of Maldonado and Senna gets complicated due to retirements and penalties, usually Maldonado’s)
Of Senna’s points finishes, of which there were 10, only 2 were at races where he took part in FP1 – 2.5 obviously being the “expected” value, it’s pretty much what you’d get from random chance. Senna’s best three finishes (Malaysia, China, Hungary) saw Bottas take FP1.
I can’t explain any of this and frankly it’s hard to know whether it’s got any meaning at all, like any sporting event, an F1 race is so full of random chance and contextual details that numerical analysis is tenuous at best. Nevertheless, Senna doesn’t appear to have gained anything from running in FP1 (or to look at it another way, he didn’t actually lose anything by making way for Bottas).
Some hypotheses though, for the sake of discussion:
1) It’s all random chance, sometimes that stuff happens and the margins are too fine to read anything into;
2) Senna was more motivated by seeing Bottas drive his car in FP1 and so drove harder to try to impress the team;
3) Analysing data from a different driver in the same car allowed Senna to better optimise his own driving, taking the best elements of Bottas’s laps and trying to merge them with his own strengths;
4) Practice programmes at Williams were set up around getting Maldonado to test out new parts and different configurations throughout FP1, meaning that relative to his team mate, Senna didn’t lose much ground.
Joe, you say that the paddock sees Bruno as a “decent driver”. How would you say that the paddock sees the other 2012 rejects and how would you list their desirability to teams, considering ability/sponsorship/connections? And finally, is Grosjean’s seat safe? Thanks.
Kobayashi is seen as quick but unstable.
Kovalainen is seen as a guy who had his chances.
It is a shame for Senna. He seems to get the blame for not arriving and being as good as Ayrton – but then who does? And sacrilege it may be but if even Ayrton had been away from racing for most of his developing years in his 20s would he have been as good?
Bruno might have paved his way in with his surname but he also seems to be hanged by it too.
Given Button didn’t really shine until later in his career I do hope Bruno gets a few more years chances. When he’s been good he’s genuinely been impressive. He might be another Button, not the fastest like the top three, but capable of wins and maybe even a WDC if put together in the right car.
If he’d gotten ruebens seat earlier in 2009 it could have been quite a different story. Yeah, sorry, the many ‘ifs’ in this post…
History shows Williams struggle to make good driver choices and treat existing drivers badly at contract renewal time. Nothing new in this announcement. Much as I would like to see them climb back up the grid I think they would still balls it up even given any choice of driver.
History shows that Williams gives drivers great cars and when they get greedy and forget that they get dumped.
Would a cynical translation of that be “Act like you had more to do with winning the race/WC than Sir Frank (et al) and you’re toast”?
By all accounts FW is a seriously red blooded racer (no shit you might say!). Were he not in a wheelchair no-one would even question that.
If you read into that that I’m saying that his high profile cutting down to size of some (not all I must stress) drivers is a result of a very self aware man reminding us of his rightfully earned No 1 status then so be it – I have to much respect for the man to spell out the obvious Freudian interpretation in any more detail.
It seems that the biggest faux-pas that a Williams driver can do is to start giving it the big potatoes without paying due tribute to FW.
Result: “We won’t be asking you to drive for us next year Damon, thanks for everything and good luck. And we won’t be changing our decision”.
Heirarchy established…
One common factor across the long-standing teams (Williams, McLaren, Ferrari) is that the driver is not bigger than the team. I think it was Ron Dennis who observed many years ago that drivers come and go, but the team continues, so his first priority is the team. Lewis Hamilton may have been the most recent McLaren driver to notice this…
Having said that, Williams has had more than its fair share of driver management SNAFUs over the last 30 years. The Damon Hill era ended because they had signed Heinz Harald Frentzen in 1995 for 1997 and beyond, then they signed Jacques Villeneuve in 1996 for 1997 and beyond, leaving them with 3 into 2. When Damon, who was out of contract at the end of 1996 demanded (quite logically) that Williams pay him a WDC salary for 1997, the decision to drop him became an easy one. Villeneuve was a good driver for the team, Frentzen under-achieved, doing better when he moved to Jordan.
watching B.Senna hit Vettel in the first lap was very disappointing; I find difficult to understand why the “first nephew” (ref. Flavio Gomes) did not take a more conservative approach, even slightly, to the beginning of a race to which everybody predicted would be run under very complicated conditions, so allowing him the possibility of climbing up to a final good point scoring position.
if he assumed Vettel equal to all other competitors, in that specific situation, the final decisive round of the championship, well I think he made a considerable misjudgement – to let the german overtake him and trying to get stuck to the rear of the RB for how long possible could be, seems would have been more clever, in my opinion.
maybe there is that thing some people tell that being right behind a car makes difficult to heat up temperature of the tyres, so better to avoid it, well i dont know any of that, I’m just a domestic spectator, but clearly Vettel was half a car ahead of him when contact happened, and that in the second apex of Descida do Lago (turn 4 I think, for the engineers) not a good spot to try to overtake, not at all – usually one tries in the braking zone for that corner, even more in a first lap.
I saw Bottas racing in F3 once at Brands Hatch in 2009, he delivered quite well, though I dont remember who won that race (may even have been him), so I hope he does not do as many mistakes as these guys oriundi from GP2 have staged in F1 the past season.
a grid with Maldonado, Grosjean, Bianchi and Senna already makes me expect an hecatombe in the starts, a GP in a GP out…
He did not take a conservative approach because he is a racing driver.
the contact did not happen at the second apex of the Lago corner, was at he first, the usual place to try to overtake; only noticed now, my bad.
AS his uncle once said if you are a racingdriver and you see a gap you go for it if you dont your not a driver….. or somthing like that
Talking of Williams, whatever happened to Adam Parr after his departure?
Williams, throughout their history, have been a see saw team. They run a few seasons right in the thick of everything, then end up losing an engine deal and finding themselves as a mid pack contestant. Right now they seem to have a lot of ingredients in place as far as the car is concerned, so we’ll have to wait and see how their driver evaluation pans out for 2013. With what? Three Finnish drivers in the World Championship next year, the true decendents of Atilla The Hun could have the paddock looking to the 5th century for answers, with Bottas being the latest addition. We’ll see how Williams fairs with this Finnish rookie and if they put their eggs in the right basket.
Joe, any information about new sponsors for williams?
Thanks
No