Rising to the Challenge: Interview with Sam Michael

Williams will be a different team when they return to the track later this month, arriving in Barcelona with a Cosworth engine and Bridgestone tyres. The 2005 season did not go to plan for the Grove squad, outperformed by their rivals and dropped by engine partners BMW. But they are not about to roll over.

It seems a long time since the final race of 2004, when the departing Juan Pablo Montoya won in Brazil to give Williams a boost of confidence that in 2005 they would be leading the changing of the guard and finally overhaul multiple World Champions Ferrari.

The 2005 season started brightly but when Renault and McLaren forged ahead at the front of the field, Williams fell to pieces, gambling on an aerodynamics route that failed, suffering turbulent times with works engine partners BMW, and ending the year wondering just what their future will hold.

Former Formula One team boss Eddie Jordan, who sold his team at the start of the year, suggested exactly what he thought would be in Williams' crystal ball when he predicted the team would plunge down the grid and go the way of his own outfit, which has now been consigned, in name and spirit, to the history books.

But Sam Michael, Williams' young but experienced technical director, knows Jordan well, having worked his way through the ranks with the team during the glory days, and after witnessing his old team's demise first hand he is confident that Williams will not be following the Jordan route.

"I think the big difference between Frank Williams and Eddie Jordan is that Frank Williams has invested in his company and Eddie didn't," said Michael as he recalled apparently bitter memories of the time Jordan could have turned his team into a championship force.

"If you look at the points where Eddie should have invested, in 1998 and 1999, he chose not to. If you look at Frank Williams he doesn't have boats in Spain, he doesn't have Spanish villas, he doesn't have all that sort of stuff. Every cent Frank and Patrick have made in Formula One they have tipped back in.

"That is why there is such a strong company. I was at Lotus 11 years ago in my first year in Formula One when it was going bust and they had nothing, not no cash, there was cash, but there was no investment. Williams is a very different place to that.

"At the end of the day we have just spent $50m on a wind tunnel so you don't do that if you are planning to go and leave Formula One and do something else. Frank and Patrick are probably more committed now then they have been for the last 30 years.

"That is the significant difference between Jordan and Williams. For him to say that was just sour grapes because he didn't get a works deal, but that's his problem. At the end of the day, at least Frank had a deal to lose, you know! EJ almost did, but he didn't because he made the wrong decisions.

"It is very easy for Eddie to sit on the outside and take pot shots at us but at the end of the day he is the one that blew it and Frank's the one that is still in it. These are big changes, but let's just wait and see where Frank is in a couple of year's time."

There is no doubting, however, that those next couple of years will be crucial to Williams.

Some astute moves by the canny team chief ensured there is plenty of cash for next season, the sale of driver contracts for Jenson Button and Nick Heidfeld, and the get-out payment from BMW have seen to that. But the loss of German car giant BMW as a partner, and the free engines that came with that long-term deal, as well as the departure of computer giant HP, who could not justify the expenditure on Formula One sponsorship when they were forced to cut worldwide jobs, will hit hard.

Williams will have to work hard to replace those two factors within his team. There are currently few manufacturers looking for a way into the sport, and while his new deal with Cosworth looks set to provide the team with a competitive and exclusive engine, they will have to pay for it.

But that is where Michael and his engineering team, and those at Cosworth, play such an important part. Both companies will be on show, and while neither are looking to sell out, both know strong performances will be vital to convince sponsors to head their way and help them continue to compete.

"There is the potential to do anything next year, really," pondered Michael. "I mean, I cannot comment on the contractual side of Cosworth except there are definitely possibilities for going past the end of 2006, but that will take time before that all gets sorted out.

"I think Cosworth are flat-out trying to prove to themselves and to Williams that Williams should stay with them past 2006. It will be encouraging to see that. They will be very strong for the first six, seven or eight races and then they will need development budget, but that is part of our plan.

"We are determined to try to make sure they have enough resource to push and there are lots of things you can do. We already have a technical partnership with them, working on gearbox and electronics, which is a fundamental part of any engine integration now.

"That was one of the first things we did, we did not just want to pay money and get engines. Obviously, to do something different requires alternative sources of cash, and that is what we are in the middle of at the moment. But definitely we want to build into a stronger team next year."

The final days with BMW were tough for all concerned, with some bitter in-fighting and public criticism making for a frosty relationship that could not have helped things on the track. Indeed, for Michael, breaking up with BMW will make a refreshing change as he looks towards 2006.

Q. How has the BMW thing been, the relationship seemed to be deteriorating very publicly during the year. It must have been really difficult.

Michael: "At the end of the day if BMW want to go and do their own racing team I don't have a problem with that at all, it is what Toyota have done, what Honda are in the process of doing, it is quite a normal thing for a manufacturer and it is good they want to be involved in Formula One like that. Williams is a privately owned team with Frank and Patrick and we are just going to go in a different direction. The fact you are coming to the end of an arrangement you are going to have things you want to guard, they have done the same to us, but that is all perfectly normal when you come to the end of a relationship. There was no-one walking around the garage thinking 'oh, I don't like him' it was just professional."

Q: Has there been an element of not pushing forward that has harmed the season?

Michael: "It hurt the development of the car, not in an aero point of view, because we go flat-out with that anyway, but things like traction control, where it is heavily integrated between the engine and the gearbox, and that has been a struggle to improve that, and that is related to the starts."

Q: Does it feel a bit of a release now BMW have left?

Michael: "I never saw BMW as a burden or anything like that, at the end of the day they are an engineering company pushing as well, but they have just decided to go a different route. Now we will team up with Cosworth and do the same thing, but hopefully we will do a better job than we have done with BMW, and we are focusing on that now."

Q: It will be quite refreshing to have two entities focused on the one thing, won't it?

Michael: "Yeah, it is. We have already developed a really strong relationship with Cosworth, their target is simple, they are not interested in setting their own team up or taking over the aerodynamics or any other things that if you are thinking about setting your own team up you are interested in. They are only interested in producing the best engine and they want us to produce the best car for them, because next year they want to win Grands Prix and the championship and that is the same for both companies."

Q: And what can you aim for in 2006?

Michael: "It is the second year of the rules and now we have both tunnels on line we have a massive amount more potential for next year. We have a lot less excuses and we need to get to the front as quickly as we can. We want to make sure we can try to win races again. We are going into 2006 to try to win the championship, that is what our partners understand, Cosworth, Bridgestone, it is clear we are not there to make up the numbers, we are not there to have building years to come back in 2007 or 2008, that is not what we are about. We are focused on winning the championship in 2006."

But that will require a massive step up from where they finished competing this season, outclassed by superior packages from McLaren, Renault, Ferrari, even in their down year, and relative newcomers Toyota. Williams scored podiums early on, and looked set to put in a strong showing, but then it all fell apart.

"At the start of the year, the first five or six races, you are pushing hard to improve the car because you still always want to fight for the championship," said Michael. "I would say the first point where you start to realise that you can't fight the championship is around Monaco time, five or six."

The rain-hit qualifying upset the order right from the start in Australia, but it worked in Williams' favour, enabling the expected new superstar of the team, and home hero, Mark Webber to put his car on the second row of the grid and race to a fifth-place finish, equalling his best ever result in Formula One.

Nick Heidfeld qualified seventh but was taken out in a collision with Michael Schumacher, but he made up for that disappointment at the following race in Malaysia, when he claimed the team's first podium of the year with a strong third place finish despite starting 10th on the grid.

It was Webber's turn to be in a collision that time, with Giancarlo Fisichella as the pair fought for the podium place that would become Heidfeld's. Bahrain saw little joy for either, a sixth place for Webber and an engine failure for Heidfeld, and San Marino ended with them in seventh and sixth respectively.

Spain, too, was a disappointment, but then came Monaco, where everything worked well at the right time to allow Heidfeld, beneficiary of a final pitstop decision from the pitwall, to race home second, just ahead of Webber after both found a way past the slowing Fernando Alonso in the closing stages.

It would begin what would turn out to be the best part of their season and Michael recalled: "We had a good performance at Monaco and Nurburgring, where I think we worked well with a lot of things, we got the tyre to work, we got the strategy right, there are a lot of things that played into that.

"Every track is different and obviously we just suited the Nurburgring, there were others that we suited too but until then the season was not what we had hoped at all because we wanted to win. It was just respectable because we had enough performance in there to say we were turning things around."

Everything went to plan for Heidfeld at the European Grand Prix with a maiden pole position and a second consecutive second place finish while Webber suffered again, going out in a first-corner collision with Montoya. But just as the performances were turning things around, it all went belly-up.

Canada saw both cars qualify outside the top-ten, a trend that would continue, ignoring the debacle in the United States, for three races, and the French and British races were a disaster as both cars ran off the pace and finished no higher than 11th in either.

"We went through a bad patch at Magny-Cours and Silverstone, they were probably the low point," admitted Michael, who confirmed the introduction of new aerodynamic parts, a new direction that had been expected to push them further to the front, had actually pushed them back.

"After that, we put a lot of effort into analysing the car and working out our problems and we got a pretty good handle on what those problems were. Some of those things we could fix for this year's car, which we did, but some had to wait until next year.

"In Suzuka we had a really strong performance in full wet conditions and the race pace was good. We are still not as good as Renault or McLaren, and they are the benchmarks, you have to make sure that is what your target is, but we were definitely faster than BAR and Sauber and other people we were racing against."

Q: So where do you see yourselves now, compared to last year?

Michael: "In 2004 we finished fourth in the championship, we won the last race and we had a good podium in the preceding race in Suzuka as well, so we did finish strongly then. But with the rule changes this year we didn't have the resources to respond. That affects the whole season. We had a massive rule change and at the same time we were commissioning a new wind tunnel and re-commissioning an old one, it is fairly basic stuff, if you don't have the tunnels running then you are not going to develop the car compared to everyone else. But it was a decision taken three years before and not something you could stop and when you have made that type of investment you are always going to take the pain for 12 months on the track and hopefully get a 15 to 20 year return on it."

Q: But what good things can you take out of this year?

Michael: "Technically we learned a lot about the car, aerodynamically, and what we needed to do for the FW28, that is probably the best thing."

Q: What lessons have the team learned?

Michael: "Obviously we changed chief aerodynamicists at the end of last year in the middle of the development of the FW27 and we changed chief designer about a month before the end of the season, and it takes time for these things to grow. You can say 'well, Williams keep changing things', but you have to keep changing things until you are happy with them, there is no point in continuing things when you don't think they are right. I think the team has definitely grown to a position where we know what we have to change to be successful next year."

Q: And what have you learned personally?

Michael: "What I have learned is keep on pushing and get your head down. You can't give up in this business and Williams is a winning team and always has been. Even if you have bad years like this one, you have sponsors behind you and people in your factory then realise that ultimately you will win again, and you have to keep that focus and not be satisfied with anything else otherwise you fundamentally change the face of the team. If you look through the last 30 years of Formula One then Williams, McLaren and Ferrari have won everything with Renault as well in the top four, but that top three have won the majority of Grands Prix and there is a reason for that and that is they are not satisfied with anything but winning. The moment you get a podium, or a fourth place, then sure, considering the year we have had it is nice to have those results but you cannot send out a message to your team or anyone outside that team that you are happy with that, that you are satisfied, because the moment you do that is the moment you become a different team."

Q: So, can you describe the season in one word?

Michael: "I think that we had problems right from the beginning with the tunnels. It is pretty hard to sum anything up in one word. Um. Character building. Oh, that's two words, isn't it."

Character building fits. It has certainly toughened Webber's character, the highly-rated Australian who arrived at Williams thinking it was his big chance to shine and finished the season with dropped shoulders, wondering when his nightmare would end.

Webber has his own views on why he has failed to achieve many peoples' expectations this year, but from the outside it is immediately clear that, for the first time in his career, he came up against a driver, in Heidfeld, who would not be knocked down by the personal confidence that Webber exudes.

In comparison to 2004 drivers Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher, the new partnership was very different but similarly matched and Webber was forced to take second best to Heidfeld on several occasions, something that nobody thought he would be doing when he signed the long-anticipated deal to join the team.

Q: So, how has Mark been this year?

Michael: "He has been fine. He has been through a disappointing year, he wants to be more competitive and I would be worried if he was jumping up and down with a smile on his face saying everything is good, then you would think he didn't have the same expectations as us. He has obviously got a very good natural ability in the car in terms of qualifying, he has had some ups and downs in terms of races through the year but I think he is getting on top of those, Suzuka showed he can definitely keep everything together and do a solid race, and that will be good for his confidence going into the winter."

Q: Is he as good as you expected?

Michael: "Um, his talent, in terms of driving ability is very impressive, so...I didn't really form too much of an opinion of Mark anyway before I worked with him."

Q: He looked to have been put under pressure from Nick.

Michael: "Definitely not in qualifying because he always beat Nick in qualifying. Mark has inherently got a lot of confidence in himself anyway and in terms of racing he just kept pushing. I didn't really see that anyway. Obviously Nick is a good driver but if he put him under pressure I didn't see much evidence of it."

Q: Are you sad to lose Nick?

Michael: "He has made a good contribution but Williams also made a good contribution to getting his career back on track. Twelve months ago he was out of a job but Frank brought him back, he did a good job with us and he is very intelligent and I am happy he has a good contract."

Q: It will help BMW to have some continuity from this team too.

Michael: "Yeah. I am not that interested in helping BMW but I am happy for Nick."

But Jenson Button was the Williams driver who made the biggest headlines this season, even though he wasn't actually a Williams driver. The BAR-Honda man, who was given his debut by Williams in 2000, had signed a contract with his former team for 2006 but changed his mind and wanted out.

For the second season in succession there was a contract war between the two teams but this time it concluded with smiles on all sides as Button got to stay and BAR and Williams got a bunch of cash to spend on next year's car. It was a big mess with Jenson, so what were Michael's views on it?

"I was not involved in the front line," said Michael. "To be honest the driver is a fairly secondary factor at that stage of the design process and Mark is the bigger driver (in physical size) anyway, so it is not a massive factor until you get to a later stage."

But did he not think that pairing would be ideal for the team? Surely he had a personal opinion? "No, I don't actually," he retorted. "I am confident we will have the best combination for Williams and the combination will be the strongest one we could put together, regardless of the contractual situation with Button."

The driver line-up has now been confirmed as Webber, 29, and German Nico Rosberg, 20, the GP2 champion who arrives with an attitude. Rosberg is not ready to wait around and is determined to chase success from the off, having been hotly tipped as a star in the making by his new team boss.

Q: So, why Nico?

Michael: "A couple of years ago he showed at 17 that he had a solid engineering understanding of the cars and the set-up and the things that make a car go fast, we were impressed, he went away, developed himself through Formula Three and GP2, he listened to our criticisms and suggestions and improved. He is fast, and that is important, but if you want to have someone to finish the job in Formula One you really need everything. He had an outstanding year in GP2, where he was not only fast over one lap but also his racecraft was very good, he made very good decisions in racing and that is when a driver really understands racecraft. He made the right decisions a very high percentage of the time and got it right. His tests were fast, he was on the pace very quickly and he will get a lot of miles through the winter. But he will not go into next year as a favourite, definitely not, because it is his first year in Formula One and he has a lot to prove."

Q: You sound like you rate him extremely highly.

Michael: "It is not possible to rate him extremely highly yet but I rate him as definitely good enough in terms of preparation. I don't want to be quoted as saying he is the next Michael or anything, he is not at that stage yet and he needs to go through a learning period. But I will say that if he is not ready for Formula One it would be difficult to pick anyone that was. He has done testing, he has shown in the feeder categories that he has good racecraft and he has got all the ingredients. There are gambles and risks, but I think he is as good as you could have as a new driver."

Q: He performed well in the assessment tests when he arrived at Williams, didn't he?

Michael: "Well, we go through performance assessments and a series of different procedures, to engage the drivers' levels and they give us an idea of the drivers' strengths and weaknesses. He certainly had more strengths than weaknesses."

Q: The last youngster Williams brought in was Button, how do you expect their first years will compare?

Michael: "I think it is completely different now to when Jenson came in. The pressures are much higher now because of the manufacturer involvement in the sport, and there is much more limited mileage on the race weekends. In the old days we had a bunch of engines and lots of testing but not now. That said, Nico comes into Formula One much better prepared than Jenson was because of the series he has been in, he has already raced on many of the Formula One tracks."

Q: So, is having Nico plus cash better than having Jenson?

Michael: "It is different. It is something that we will only be able to tell in time. All I can say is that we think the current solution is the best we could have come up with, there was a lot of consideration went into it and the end solution is the best solution for Williams. There was no financial consideration in Nico's drive, it was purely on merit but you could list all the options that Williams had for the driver line-up next year and I am happy that the option we have is the best one."

Q: So, if you were given £15 or £20m and told to spend it on a driver or the car, what would you do?

Michael: "It depends which driver it is. If you look at the top drivers, those are the kind of salaries that they are demanding. If you had access to those drivers and had a stable car development programme then you would definitely consider spending that on a driver, but for that kind of grade one driver we are only talking three options, Kimi, Fernando and Michael, and they are not available probably for the next two or three years. Once you drop out of those three, and I am not saying the others won't develop into grade one drivers, then you would rather try to bring on the guys you have. In the circumstances of this year, that was the situation."

Q: And how much can you gain from that kind of investment?

Michael: "It is the aerodynamics and the testing where that kind of investment would go, they are the main costs, and the amount you can gain depends on where you are in the cycle. Williams is a large team with lots of people and massive facilities and it will make less difference to us than it would to a small team, we can gain less lap time. It is hard to quantify, but having it is definitely better than not having it. It definitely helps."

But success for Webber and Rosberg will rest on the success of Michael to steer his technical team in the right direction and, faced with new design parameters created by the regulatory requirement for a new V8 engine, rather than the old V10, the Australian technical guru admits that will be a tough task.

"The introduction of the V8 and is going to throw the cards up in the air again," he said. "You will see people sort their aerodynamics out but the engine change changes everything. There will four or five different factors due to the V8, not just dimensional but a lot of others too."

To explore new areas to their limit requires more manpower and more money, something that Michael already readily admitted Williams did not have available even last year, with the support of BMW, when they failed to prepare themselves for the big changes that came about for the start of this season.

So what hope for the future? "Well, the only sponsor that is leaving us for next year is HP," said a defensive Michael. "And actually they will probably stay with us as a technical partner, because of all the computing equipment we use, which is still a big commercial deal.

"They can see Williams in the long-term is a winner and they are not stopping because of our poor performance but because they are having to cut budgets worldwide. Obviously Frank is working on a number of different replacements, and there will be one."

One of them seems to be driver sales, something that is becoming rather profitable for Williams, but Michael warned: "Those are very lucrative, but they are only single point inputs. It's like a bonus, if you like, not a continuous income stream.

"It does not take the pressure off, that's not the way Frank works. He will psychologically forget about that, put it to the back of his mind and say 'at the end of the day if I didn't have that what would I be trying to do?'"

Wise words, indeed, if Williams are to remain in Formula One for the long term.

"Things go in cycles don't they," Michael added. "Everyone is getting excited about the amount of money manufacturers are tipping in at the moment, but it only takes one board-level decision for that to all collapse. And that decision will come, I can guarantee you that.

"All those guys that are there now, they won't be there in ten years' time but Williams will, because they exist only to go motor racing. And you will always see that come back, that will never change, it has been like that since the 1950s."

And Williams are determined to still be there when that happens.

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