Thread by @NorthHertsSam

bit late this - @WilliamsRacing took a curious approach to launching its #F12022 specification #FW44, by revealing a show car (see here in render form), then almost immediately testing the real thing at Silverstone. Tech observations thread. #F1

Why did Williams do the showcar -real car shuffle? almost certainly as its online launch video and media assets had been created earlier. It probably wasn’t directly to hide anything… probably. Though the team has only released two images of the real FW44. ( showcar render here)

So starting at the front (of the real car) there is immediate interest with the nose and front wing design. The lowest element is very flat and dips under the tip of the nose, almost giving the appearance of a three element wing.

The nose tip itself is blended with the second element and is slightly raised, a similar concept to that seen on the Aston Martin.

At the outer edge the wing flattens out significantly. It will be interesting to see how other teams develop in this area.

The front wing end plate dive plane is very curved, essentially an elongated S shape. Expect to see some interesting shapes in this area and this is the first seen that has moved away from the usual shape.

Overall the upper section of the nose is very curved, which makes me rather nostalgic for some of the 1990’s F1 car designs!

The front brake ducts are very interesting, with a scoop split into three segments and a rather bulbous inner section with no aperture, this is almost certainly the team maximising what is allowed in this area.

The car features pushrod front suspension - have a look at the pushrod vs pull rod trade off here:

https://twitter.com/ScarbsTech/status/1488215409757245445

Drag reducing wing mirrors are used, as they were in 2021, for more on this see the Alpha Tauri AT03 thread -

https://twitter.com/NorthHertsSam/status/1493290907206098952

The roll hoop seems to be very different to the FW43, larger and more rectangular, with a horizontal split, a departure from the more normal A shaped ducting used on other Mercedes powered cars, and indeed the FW43 (pictured for comparison).

The sidepods are fascinating, they appear much larger than those seen on any of the cars officially shown so far (not including the Alfa which also has large ducts).

Inside the ducts you can see what I thing is the upper side impact structure sitting in a fairly low position. I think there is a lot of interest in the internal structures here, and light seems to be visible through the duct suggesting some cooling louvres are used.

There is a lot to talk about with cooling system layouts & side pods this year it seems. The slightly angular edge of the outer part of the sidepod shape is interesting.

A blister on the lower part of the sidepod probably houses the tip of the lower side impact structure, but the whole area here seems tightly packaged.

The Williams is of course Mercedes powered but lacks the ‘hump’ in the bodywork that appears on the Aston Martin and is expected on the Mercedes, another indication that the FW44 may have taken a different route to the other Mercedes teams.

For the first time since the Williams FW09, the car does not use a bespoke transmission casing, instead it uses a customer gearbox from Mercedes. This also marks the end (for now) of the metal gearbox casing in F1, as all teams now use a composite casing. (showcar pic)

The rear suspension on the FW44 is a pull rod layout, which means that it is pretty much certain that the Mercedes W13 has the same layout.

The rear floor appears to have some interesting details, a slot ahead of the rear wheel and a possibly a ducted rear floor section, though the available images are not entirely clear here. Looking forward to getting a better look at this section of the car

The mid floor section appears to have some interesting features, but the available images do not really show it well, it appears there is an additional element on the floor, and perhaps some sculpting on the upper surface.

The Williams is also the first car we have seen to use a single pylon rear wing support. The rear wing itself looks fairly close to a standard design but need a closer look.

Thats it for now - with only two pictures to go on its challenging to see much more!