Why have some teams, such as Ferrari, McLaren & Williams etc, made some absolutely shockingly bad cars when they had won championships just the previous year? For example... Ferrari F2005 & F60 Williams FW20 & FW12 Mclaren MP4-24 Can anyone please explain why these cars were so bad?
The F2003 was also poor, only luck got Schumacher to his 6th title. The F60, for example, you cannot compare to the F2008, because of the massive rule changes. McLaren also struggled with their MP4-24, same season's car. Alot of people believe this is due to the fact that they both took their eyes, or at least 1 of them, off 2009 car, as they were in a MASSIVE title fight in '08. Some people may then ask why they didn't have the same problem from '07 to '08, but the answer is simple. There were no massive rule changes between '07 and '08. Honda gave up on '08 after Bahrain, this was the year they ran their famous Earth Car that was horrendously bad so much so that Super Aguri out raced them on several occasions, so they had basically a whole seaosn to exclusively work on the '09 regulations. Onto Williams, with the FW12, they had poor straight line speed, and massive trouble with the reactive rear suspension, so they were just slow all round. And the FW20 wasn't designed by Adrian Newey, whereas the FW19 was.
Don't forget with the FW12 is that Wiliiams also lost the turbo Honda engines for 1988 and had to use a Judd V8 which was notorioulsy unreliable, so like the 2009 rule changes, there were mitigating circumstances for that team. To their credit, the Williams was usually the fastest non-turbo car, Mansell on several occations qualified it on the front row and would mix it at the front until retirement, the record books just don't show it. Possibly the worst car ever used for a title defence was the Ferrari 312 T5 of 1980. Scheckter scored a massive 2 pts, Villeneuve I think only got 6. Truly shocking, and it was ugly!
ASChris knows his stuff too doesn't he?! Listening to the two of you is quite an education. - It helps dust away the cobwebs in my greying memory… Thanks
Lol yeah, give a direct link to the BBC commentators as well, not just the TV guys, the Radio ones as well, because they constantly go on about past races or situations, but can never remember what happened or when
