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I've thought about this for some time now. There is a surprisingly strong comparison that can be made between McLaren's situation in 2012-2015 and Williams' situation in 2003-2006.

Williams:
In 2003, they had a car about equal to Ferrari on pure pace. Only bad luck and reliability prevented Montoya from taking the WDC. At the time, Williams were still BMW's works team.
In 2004-05, we saw a gradual decline in Williams' form. They finished 4th and 5th in the WCC respectively, and were essentially midfield at the end of 2005.
In 2006, Williams broke up with their BMW engine partner and joined with Cosworth instead. The season turned out to be a complete disaster and they became backmarkers.

McLaren:
In 2012, they had a car about equal to Red Bull on pure pace. Only bad luck and reliability prevented Hamilton from taking the WDC. At the time, McLaren were still Mercedes' works team.
In 2013-14 we saw a gradual decline in McLaren's form. They finished 5th in the WCC on both occasions were essentially in the midfield in both seasons.
In 2015, McLaren broke up with their Mercedes engine partner and joined with Honda instead. The season turned out to be a complete disaster and they are backmarkers now.

What seems to be even more worrying for McLaren is that Williams was certainly more competitive during their gradual decline (2004-2005) than McLaren was during theirs (2013-14), and Williams' 2006 as bad as it was, wasn't as terrible as McLaren this year. With Honda not seeming to make much progress despite already using all their tokens, could McLaren go down the Williams route?

They're already well on the way there. One solitary championship this century.

Yes the difference is Mclaren already have a new works deal and a greater infrastructure than Williams ever did.

It's worth noting that BMW Williams had an enormous budget of more than 350 million back in 2003.



Source: F1 Racing Magazine, Ten Tenths forum.


Resources does not make a team immune from failure. However, if the management is incompetent, then the team is inescapably destined for failure.

KingVoid wrote:However, if the management is incompetent, then the team is inescapably destined for failure.

A competent management team at McLaren would have had Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton driving Adrian Newey designed cars between at least 2007 and 2009.

GingerFurball wrote:

KingVoid wrote:However, if the management is incompetent, then the team is inescapably destined for failure.

A competent management team at McLaren would have had Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton driving Adrian Newey designed cars between at least 2007 and 2009.

Adrian Newey hadn't won Mclaren a lot for quite a long time. He was king of the post 2009 aero but his cars rarely challenged after 2000 until then.

mikeyg123 wrote:

GingerFurball wrote:

KingVoid wrote:However, if the management is incompetent, then the team is inescapably destined for failure.

A competent management team at McLaren would have had Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton driving Adrian Newey designed cars between at least 2007 and 2009.

Adrian Newey hadn't won Mclaren a lot for quite a long time. He was king of the post 2009 aero but his cars rarely challenged after 2000 until then.

The 2007 car was his philosophy, hence the 2007 red bull looking like this.

The parallels continue to stack up. Yes Honda have underperformed, yes they have lost sponsors albeit partly their fault but even simple things like radio calls in qualifying and pitstops have not been good enough. Those things should be done properly at any team up and down the pit lane, budget or car performance does not come into it. McLaren is a mess right now.

Williams is still not a top team. Yes they are 3rd in the constructors for the 2nd year in a row, however they have not won a race for over 3 years now.

I think McLaren might win a race before Williams do. I am expecting Honda to make a big step forward next year.

The management was also lead by dinosaurs

lamo wrote:

mikeyg123 wrote:

GingerFurball wrote:

KingVoid wrote:However, if the management is incompetent, then the team is inescapably destined for failure.

A competent management team at McLaren would have had Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton driving Adrian Newey designed cars between at least 2007 and 2009.

Adrian Newey hadn't won Mclaren a lot for quite a long time. He was king of the post 2009 aero but his cars rarely challenged after 2000 until then.

The 2007 car was his philosophy, hence the 2007 red bull looking like this.

I never said he was in capable of designing good cars but certainly inconsistent. I think the 2007 Ferrari probably had a slight edge anyway. His only stand out fastest car in that period was in 2005.

Randine wrote:Williams is still not a top team. Yes they are 3rd in the constructors for the 2nd year in a row, however they have not won a race for over 3 years now.

I think McLaren might win a race before Williams do. I am expecting Honda to make a big step forward next year.

I think a lot of Williams trouble has to do with culture. They've been midpack for so long now they don't consider that they might actually win. It is reflected in how they call strategy and how the team seems to have issues at the worst times.

I think I had read something about how when Newey went to Red Bull that was one of the first things he tried to address with Horner was to instill in the team that the midfield party team is gone and that they are working towards not just the podium, or the win, but for WCCs & WDCs.

Yeah too often Williams let the race play out instead of grabbing the race by the scruff of the neck and dictating what's going to happen.

And when they tried to do it in Russia, they picked the one track of the year where trying the undercut simply doesn't work.

I made this thread in 2015.

Now that McLaren have lost their works team partnership and star driver, have the parallels only got stronger three years later?

McLaren will struggle to go back to the top as they really made some bad decisions due to lack of patience. They dropped Honda engines mainly to keep Alonso in team, they lost some money, few years of development process and now they have no Honda as a partner, no Alonso in the team and pretty much no perspectives. They will stuck with Renault engine as I can't see Merc or Honda back to them not to mention Ferrari... and I have a sneaky feeling Honda will be a top engine soon and probably better than notoriously under powered Renault even next year.

Yes. McLaren are at best a midfield team now. They did well to hide it for a few years by blaming everything on Honda but they've been well and truly exposed this year. The lack of development through the year and the mid-season technical reshuffle tell me that their engineering department has been a mess for some time and they've not produced a front-running chassis since Hamilton left.

McLaren's decline actually started when Mercedes bought their own team, much as Williams' decline started when they split with BMW. It's a shame, but from a purely competitiveness point of view both have made the same mistake of losing that crucial manufacturer backing because they refused to cede too much control (although admittedly if they had done, one could argue that the resulting entities wouldn't have been "McLaren" or "Williams" any more than BMW Sauber retained any of their previous identity). Now by remaining an independent team they simply cannot compete with those being backed by large parent companies.

Their only hope is for Liberty's proposed budget cap to become a reality.

Mclaren gambled big time with Honda and then got cold feet rather than see the project through. They will have to stick with the Renault partnership now as their bridges are burnt with Honda and Mercedes, while a Mclaren-Ferrari is obviously never going to happen. Perhaps they can do to the Renault works team what Red Bull did at the start of the decade. Wishful thinking perhaps.

For Williams, an end to the tough times seem a long way away. The budget is not at all strong anymore, amd they haven't mounted anything resembling a title challenge since they partnered BMW. Just one win all decade.

As a McLaren fan, this is something I've been discussing with my Macca-supporting friends since 2015 at least. It is a worrying parallel, and all I can really do is hope that next year bucks the trend.

What is Williams sources of income other than racing.

McLaren and Williams both get legacy payments but the Mclaren tech centre/ cars have a steady income that leaves me to believe one day they may bounce back.

The one problem being they got rid of Ron Dennis who was a huge driving force for their success in both F1 and business.

Realistically a great design of a car can catapult any team up the grid and back into the spot light. If Renault ever manage to out pace Red Bull then there may really be a case for works teams/ private teams championships.

Exediron wrote:As a McLaren fan, this is something I've been discussing with my Macca-supporting friends since 2015 at least. It is a worrying parallel, and all I can really do is hope that next year bucks the trend.

I find it difficult to see them being anything but a decent midfield team until at least the regulations change for 2021. If Renault can deliver a good engine then it at least gives them half of what they need, but as we've seen this year, it's difficult to have a lot of faith in them to build a good chassis. On a related note, one of my mum's neighbours works in their aero department and it sounds like a mess, but what sounds even worse is that they can't even organise their car park! Apparently they have overlapping shifts and what happens is the people on the early shift arrive and park, then the people on the late shifts arrive and park in front of them, blocking them in. Then, when the early shift ends the people on the late shift have to move their cars.

He might've made it sound worse than it actually is but it does sound pretty chaotic there.

stevey wrote:What is Williams sources of income other than racing.

McLaren and Williams both get legacy payments but the Mclaren tech centre/ cars have a steady income that leaves me to believe one day they may bounce back.

The one problem being they got rid of Ron Dennis who was a huge driving force for their success in both F1 and business.

Realistically a great design of a car can catapult any team up the grid and back into the spot light. If Renault ever manage to out pace Red Bull then there may really be a case for works teams/ private teams championships.

Yes. McLaren has solid backing from rich investors and other businesses outside F1, this is why they are not in the same situation as Williams.