F1 - Williams FW27

Williams FW27

By Josh Barnett February 2 2005
Williams launched their 2005 challenger, the FW27, on Monday at the Valencia circuit in Spain.

The car was launched along with the announcement that Nick Heidfeld will be the teams second driver for the 2005 season. This means that once again Antonio Pizzonia has missed out on a race seat and has had to take the place as the team's test driver.

The FW27 is claimed to be the lightest car Williams has ever produced. This comes as all the top running teams take the fight to the Ferrari dominance. The chassis has been painstakingly been developed to decrease the overall weight. The sidepods have been made smaller and now house smaller, more compact, radiators. This may of been alright for the aero department but Dr Mario Theissen, Director of Motorsport for BMW, had this to say on the new sidepods:

“It's a trade-off between engine and chassis targets. We'd love to run the engine a lot colder with bigger radiators. But then you sacrifice aero.”

The aero department has had a few major changes as well, tyres now must last for the whole race as well as qualifiying but more importantly downforce has been cut by 25%.

At least the 'walrus' no longer exists!