Wizzie wrote:giraurd wrote:Yeah they have been rare, but we know he has the potential to do good with that Williams. Even if it is just two times a season - I personally believe one flash on the podium would do more good for Williams than eleven P7's Alguersuari would bring.
11 finishes in 7th = 66 points. Two podiums = 50 points at most. The WCC is incredibly important to a midfield team with all the prize money involved and in a year like this, every point matters. Therefore your argument is invalid
giraurd wrote:Williams has got a good lineup and bringing another driver in would be a waste imho.
Define 'good'. They've got the same problem as Toro Rosso have right now. If they combined their two drivers together (Maldonado's pace with Senna's consistency), they'd have one really good driver. Instead they've got one whose far too temperamental and crash happy to be useful 90% of the time and the other's so damn slow on Saturday that he's too far behind the eight ball to maximise the car's potential. As I said a few weeks ago, they should be well and clearly ahead of Sauber in the championship right now. Instead, they're barely ahead of the slower but far more consistent Force Indias.
Arguably, Maldonado has cost Williams more points than his win in Spain - his crash in Melbourne cost the team at least 8 points, and his crash in Valencia (even if I would agree with those saying that it wasn't entirely his fault) cost the team a potential 15 points for 3rd (Hamilton's tyres were so shot that I could not see him holding Maldonado off much longer). In Britain, he then crashed out whilst fighting with Perez over a potential 7th place, which would have seen him gain another 6 points, so Maldonado's accidents have cost the team at least 29 points - and that is before we consider what points he could have picked up in Monaco had he not rammed Perez in practise and ended up being put to the back of the grid, before crashing into De La Rosa and taking both of them out at the start.
If you take those lost points into account, Williams, instead of being stuck on 44 points and 7th in the WCC, could have been on 73 points and 6th in the WCC. If you then consider that Mercedes would have their points total reduced by seven points (4th instead of 3rd in Valencia and 8th instead of 7th in Britain for Schumacher, and 7th instead of 6th for Rosberg in Valencia), Mercedes would then be on just 91 points in the WCC - so there could even be the faint prospect of 5th place in the WCC for Williams given Rosberg's slight slump in form recently.
As for giraud's comments about the publicity that Maldonado has generated, it is true that Maldonado's victory in Spain gave the team a major shot in the arm and a lot of positive headlines, even if that victory was overshadowed by the fire that came afterwards. On the other hand, since then Maldonado has been making the headlines for the wrong reasons - the penalty for his clash with Perez in Monaco and crashing into De La Rosa lead to a fair amount of criticism in the press afterwards, and his more recent clashes, combined with Perez's rather critical remarks following their clash in Silverstone, has only further tarnished his reputation.
At this point, your average casual fan will probably have forgotten the positive image that came about after his victory in Spain - what they are now more likely to picture is Perez's indignation, and Maldonado's broken car cartwheeling its way across the track.
As for Bruno, whilst he is staying out of trouble more often than Maldonado, he is virtually anonymous by comparison - he has made no notable passes, nor any notable performances in qualifying (his highest starting position is 13th). He may have his high points occasionally through the season, but for most of the time that is drowned in a sea of pretty average results at best. From the outside, their current drivers perhaps have more people talking about Williams than before, but that isn't necessarily always in a beneficial manner, nor is it necessarily paying off in terms of cold, hard cash at the end of the day.
