Williams FW32 spied by Autosport

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A second 2010 F1 car has broken cover today – Autosport have published a picture of the Williams FW32 being driven at a PR event at Silverstone.

Like the Ferrari F10, the FW32 has a long, high nose and a bulkier rear engine cover due to the larger fuel tank.

It’s not clear if the car is running in its definitive livery. The front wing appears to be unpainted and there are no Phillips logos on the sidepods as there were at the end of 2009.

Have a look at the Williams FW32 here.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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57 comments on “Williams FW32 spied by Autosport”

  1. Hmmm – RB front nose – Brawn sidepods – McLaren rear wing – I’m sensing a pattern here….

    1. Looks like all the cars could end up looking the same. :/

      1. That would be new.

      2. All the cars have looked the same for the last 10 yrs ..

        1. apart from last year. brawn/mclaren/redbull/renault/bmw- these all had completely different front noses which changed their appearances accordingly.
          but yeah in general i agree with you.

        2. That’s complete BS, dude. You’re telling me the Renault looked the same as the Ferrari or the McLaren or the Brawn or the Red Bull or the Force India? BS. The only car it looked even remotely similar to was the BMW Sauber.

      3. Apart from the Red Bull :P

    2. Looks nothing like the Mclaren rear wing to me. Looks ok…the livery is getting a bit boring though.

      1. yeah, i wish they’d keep their all dark blue testing livery, looked smart. :D

    3. talking about imitations this year mclaren beat all records Ferrari sidepods toyotas engine cover are the same only the front and rear wings are fresh

  2. “AUTOSPORT’s exclusive spy shot of the new car show it to be a radical departure from the team’s 2009 challenger”

    Is it? The only major difference I can see is the raised nose cone, and apparently the design of the nose area is pretty superficial, it doesn’t generate that much downforce

    1. There are also some interesting bits at the top of the wing, there is no central support of the rear wing, back is really tight and exhaust is positioned surprisingly low. Also, comparing it to the Ferrari front suspension looks a bit more compact.

      Nothing new all in all ;) And that is what can be seen from one angle.

  3. Another RBR like nose, we will be seeing plenty of those I’m thinking

  4. To be fair the teams did admit that a lot of the 2010 would follow the red-bull style.

    I do like to see the wheels properly again however, deffo an improvement!

    1. Agreed. The F1 wheels look brilliant!! Properly and beautifully machined, methinks.

  5. Looks like it really cuts away at the back, dropping very low. I like the look of it.

    1. The Red Bull last year was by far the best looking car. So I don’t think it’s a shame to see these cars look similar. I just wonder where the innovation is going to surface.

      Can’t wait for Newey’s new design. :)

      1. the thing i didn’t like about last year’s red bull was the shark fin engine cover and the high nose. in terms of body shape i liked the brawn or the ferrari.

  6. Pretty much the Ferrari then…

  7. Kudos for linking to Autosport’s page, Keith. I’m sure other, less reputable sites are busy cropping in Photoshop as I type…

    The high nose is obviously a good way to go, if the keel, floor and diffuser all match the design philosophy – but I can’t help thinking how much more vulnerable it looks than Brawn’s design last year, for example, which withstood contact a few times.

  8. How come Hulkenburg is able to drive the car before the testing begins?

    1. they’re allowed to do 100km of PR things, video’s etc.

      1. Don’t rookies get to have a shakedown first before testing?

    2. It isn’t testing, it is shakedown. You can see from the picture they are using special tires which won’t be raced on in 2010 season.

      1. aren’t they just normal wet tyres?

        1. No, they mustn’t use tires which can be raced on. This are some akward extreme weather tires Bridgestone produces specifically for shakedowns.

  9. I’d absolutely love to see Williams back at the front.

    It will be interesting to see who wins the battle of the Cosworth engines as well.

    1. I think that Williams have to mess up big time if they want to loose against the other Cosworth teams ;)

  10. After the rules shake up for 2009 when we had a lot of variety in the looks of the cars I feared the 2010 cars would all follow the leader and have similar looks.

  11. Looks pretty cool!

  12. No technical freedom, get used to see all cars looking the same!

  13. I Must be honest the rear end of the cars are a dramatic improvment from what i have seen. but i am getting really sick of this RBR-High Nose it is awfully ugly and ruins the looks. as a mclaren fan i am hoping that when the mp4-25 is unveiled tommorow it will not follow the trend of The 2009 RBR look because it is absolutely awful.

    1. The nose looks great actually. A bit like a missile :D . Mclaren wont follow the leader they always come out with something fresh and have had there nose dip very low for years. If mclaren has this pointed noise I would be surpirsed :\

  14. I think it looks great with that black front wing and bargeboards! And open wheels again, that’s a big improvement.

  15. Obviously some area at Silverstone is OK to test on. My money is the Stowe circuit – otherwise the Williams would have been avoiding lorries and diggers!

    1. I was wondering about that too, I think works are being done on the inside of the current track only.

      1. look at the pics from silverstone recently. u’ll see that trucks are all over the main circuit and run off areas are piles of mud atm :)

  16. This was a great shot of the new Williams FW32. Ditto Ned Flanders. That car looks to be a bit more tightly packaged than the Ferrari F10. I hope that this car will finally get Williams back to winning some races. I hope the Cosworth engine doesn’t hole them back. I am a big McLaren fan, and I am hoping like crazy that they don’t have a “Red Bull nose”!

  17. Giuliano Vilela
    28th January 2010, 22:46

    I don’t know what this fuzz about “RBR nose” is all about, really. It’s an engineering solution, not a magical piece of speed. Ideas are copied all the time, and along those adaptations is were the innovation comes.

    Just because it “looks” the same, doesn’t mean everyone is secretly using a powered up RBR. Nobody here knows what other solutions they came up with, and aren’t showing to everybody.

  18. Keep the existing livery as is, Williams. I like it.

  19. Theres something odd about that front wing. Look at the right hand side (of the wing, so the left as you look at it), you can see straight through between the main flap and the end plate, the flap is not connected to the end plate at all.
    Its either a new flap design or some sort of new end plate design, but as far as I can remember the flap has always been connect to the inside of the end plate.

    That also seems to be a phenomenal piece of packaging around the back to be as tightly sculpted as it looks. Bit of a bulge under the RBS logo, but otherwise it looks extremely sleek compared to the F10.

    1. I agree, it looks really nice. It’s so low at the back it might just be pull-rod.

      Also looks a bit lower overall than the F10, but that just be an optical illusion.

      1. The rear suspension is pushrod, it’s visible in the photo.

  20. Prisoner Monkeys
    28th January 2010, 23:17

    Wasn’t RBS ending their sponsorship???

    1. I don’t think they can get out of contract until 2011 or something like that.

    2. RBS leave at the end of this year:

      Williams to lose RBS sponsorship in 2010

      1. They still sponsor golf tournaments ,which is where the rbs execs like to hang out .
        they have no shame .

  21. I saw the pic… something interesting on top of the car … right next to the air box intake. There is something which looks like a hole to suck air for the engine also. Assumingly it’s for engine and gearbox cooling … but it’s quite interesting to see that there.

    1. That appeared on the FW31 also, they are seperate cooling intakes for gearbox and other internal components (it was probably designed with KERS in mind).

  22. Why are they all copying RB5 and not BGP001 given that BGP001 won more races and both the titles ?

    1. Mouse_Nightshirt
      29th January 2010, 8:44

      Because by the end of the season the Red Bull was a superior car.

      Hell, by mid season, it was a superior car.

  23. Phillips is appearing on it’s wrong so may be there are some more sponsors to come.

    1. Sorry about the mistake

      Phillips is appearing on it’s wing so may be there are some more sponsors to come.

  24. Computer’s design these cars to an optimal shape and the these cars (williams and ferrari) reflect that .
    the Engine’s are still different and the horsepower will be nominally different too !.
    I like the williams !good luck Ruebens .

  25. Question, isnt it true that Cosworth engines are still in their developing stages? So what it means would be that Cosworth is still eligible to make adaptions on their engines before the season starts?

    Is there any conformation denial what Keith could give on this?

  26. not as sleek as the scud

  27. Looks disapointingly normal if you ask me. I have no idea how Williams are ever going to become race winners again.

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