Williams extends its partnership with Mercedes from 2022
Since 2014, Williams has been a partner team of Mercedes, sharing the same engine block as the German team. This partnership will be extended in 2022, but which parts does this involve?
At the dawn of the hybrid era in 2014, Williams announced that its engine supplier for these new engines would be none other than Mercedes, which had already been working on this technology for several years.
Very quickly in 2014, Williams established itself as the 3rd strongest team on the grid with 6 podiums and 300 points. A very positive outcome for the Grove-based team, which had finished 2013 in a meager 9th place in the championship with only 5 points scored.
If the future looked bright for Claire Williams’ team, history would prove otherwise with a slow decline that began in 2017. It has now been three years since the legendary English team has occupied the last place in the standings, but this new technical partnership with Mercedes might finally put an end to this unfortunate streak.
Starting in 2022, Williams will share the same gearbox and hydraulic system with the star-branded team. This is a system that has already proven effective for Racing Point, which shares many parts with Mercedes, AlphaTauri which shares the same suspensions as its big sister Red Bull, and the close relationship between Haas and Ferrari.
The advantage of this system is that it allows benefiting from the best parts on the grid right from the start of the season, but this can make car development more complicated for the rest of the season since teams that have not manufactured the components may find it difficult to know how to improve them.
This partnership is likely to elevate Williams in the rankings as the engineers can now focus more on other aspects of their car, such as the chassis, which has been a major flaw of Grove’s cars in recent years.
Simon Roberts seems to welcome this new partnership with joy: I am happy to see that our excellent relationship with Mercedes goes beyond the supply of engines. Williams is an independent team, but Formula 1 is constantly evolving, and as a team, we must be agile to respond to the current climate to put the team in the best position to be competitive on the right track. This long-term agreement with Mercedes is a positive step and is part of our strategic objectives for the future, while retaining our in-house design and manufacturing capabilities.
