22/11/2004
NEWS STORY
Sam, thanks for your time. You've been in Formula One about 10 years now and perhaps for many people who don't know exactly what you do, you've recently had a big promotion at Williams, but can you just tell us what your position is at Williams and what you do?
Sam Michael: I'm technical director here, which means that I'm responsible for all the racing cars - from design through to operation and results on the circuit. And that job involves working with the chief aerodynamicist and the chief designer and the race engineers and drivers at the track to make sure we're in a position to produce the best car to get the best results for Williams.
So what's involved in creating a Formula One car? How long does it take, how many people, what length of time?
SM: The whole design process typically takes around nine months. The early part of the design process starts off slowly and there's a lot of work in the last three or four months of it. There's 480 people that work at Williams. Total design of a car takes around 25,000 man hours, and the total cost is around 150 million pounds. So you're looking at $350 million Australia.
One of the things they always say about Formula One is that if you've got to ask the price you can't afford it.
SM: That's right, yes.
If you could buy a Williams F1 car?
SM: We produce around six or seven cars per year, so if you divide the $350m (Aus) by seven you're looking at around $50m (Aus), if you want to look at total cost to the company. If you actually go and produce one isolated car by itself then you're talking about a couple of million dollars.
Just going back a little bit, Sam. Before you got to this position, tell us a little bit about your own life, where you came from, where you were born and went to school?
SM: I was born in Geraldton in Western Australia and moved around through New South Wales and Queensland for a while. I studied at high school and college in Canberra, so I was there for quite a number of years, and then I moved to Sydney to go to university and did a degree in mechanical engineering at the University of New South Wales.
How does someone from Western Australia, from the country of Western Australia, end up in Formula One? How did you get into F1?
SM: I think that I was always into motocross bikes, and then later cars, when I was young. And my father taught me a lot about the mechanics when I first started, and from that I got into the racing side. Once I got involved in racing at an early age, racing is a bit like a bug once you get it, you can't really shake it off - and so from that point, while I was at university I worked on rally cars and in the Australian Drivers' Championship on open-wheelers, and that experience on open-wheelers took me into Formula One once I finished my degree.
You've been with three F1 teams now. Can you give us a brief summary of each of those experiences?
SM: I started in Formula One at Lotus and I started there as a design and data engineer and vehicle dynamist, and I left there and went to Jordan. And I was with Jordan for a long time. And when I started at Jordan I worked on the same sort of things. Then I set up research and development there, and when I finished that I became a race engineer. I was a race engineer there up until the end of 2000, and then at that point I joined Williams to become chief operations engineer, and I've been at Williams ever since.
Williams is a team with a great history. We can see a lot of it here in the museum. Being now responsible to create the next Williams BMW F1 car, is that a lot of pressure on you?
SM: It is now, I suppose, because the final buck stops with me, but ultimately any car that I've ever been involved in in the last 10 years has been a lot of pressure on me anyway. Maybe not directly as an end result if it fails, but I've always seen it as a team effort and taken the pressure accordingly. I've never been in a position where "he made the wrong design decision, or he did … or whatever". It's always a team effort and, right from the beginning, even before I was technical director, if we had a car that wasn't performing I always took it personally as well.
I guess you've made it perhaps even a little harder for yourself. Williams won the final race of this year, and in March next year you start the season at the Australian Grand Prix with some expectation: can Williams win the first race?
SM: Whether we win the first race or not we definitely want to return to the front regularly. That means winning races, that's what our intention is for next year. We will do everything that we can to make sure that we can be in that position to lead and challenge for wins. We've been putting in place recently a very strong base in design and aerodynamics, and that should enable us to push the performance of the car and the engine and the tyres and the drivers, so if we're not in a competitive position, or even if we are, even if you're strong in Formula One it doesn't last for very long, you have to make sure you keep the pressure up because of competition from others.
Just on the 2004 season, it perhaps overall wasn't the results that people expect from Williams. What's your take on the '04 season?
SM: We made a few errors in mechanical and aerodynamic design and we corrected some of those during the year. And we definitely saw in the last three or four races a ramp up of performance in the car, culminating with a second in Suzuka and then a first in Brazil. That's still not good enough for us, really. As I said, there's a couple of things that we couldn't change back on this car, and it (changes) will have to go into the 2005 car in terms of design. And it's not the sort of season that we will look back on proudly, if you like. But at least we've started to turn the corner and, as long as we can continue that momentum over the winter, then hopefully we can start off on the right foot next year.
Anything specific that you can tell us about that you might change, or is that letting out too many secrets? There's been the obvious one of the change in wing?
SM: Not really. Obviously those things are confidential, because they're important performance parameters to the car and we wouldn't give away anything that means our competitors get an advantage. But you will just have to wait until February when you see the FW27.
So what's in store for 2005? What can Williams achieve or what do you hope to achieve?
SM: We hope in 2005 that we're competing at the front regularly. We want to win again. Our target is always to win. Although we have short, medium and long term planning internally, as far as every time we turn up at a race track we are there to win and to do nothing else but that. We don't sort of kid ourselves when we do; that's why we haven't taken anything from Brazil, thinking it's all better now and everything is okay, because it doesn't work like that in Formula One. So our target in 2005 is to win.
Earlier this year at the launch of the Williams cars, you said we'll have to wait and see for next year, but we saw something radical this year with what's called the "walrus" nose. I gather that's gone now. Can we expect anything radical like that?
SM: Once again, you'll have to wait until you see the FW27 There could be some radical things, and I'm sure everyone is pushing as hard as they can now to try and recover at least some of the downfalls that were lost due to the regulation changes over the winter that we will probably end up with some radical designs on some cars.
Ferrari is obviously the benchmark in Formula One. Can it be Williams that matches them next year?
SM: Ferrari has got a very strong combination of people with obviously Rory Byrne and Ross Brawn and Jean Todt and they've followed up with Michael Schumacher. They've been together for a long time. They are a class act. They've dominated, really, the last four world championships in the current tyre war, and it's going to be very hard to beat them. There's no kidding that, but that's what our target is. Our target is to beat Ferrari.
A new factor is a new driver at Williams BMW - Mark Webber. Were you involved in the decision making process to bring Mark to the team?
SM: I was. Frank Williams makes all the final decisions on driver choice, with advice from Patrick Head and myself, but Frank always makes the final choice.
What is it that you and Frank Williams and Patrick Head see in Mark Webber that you think has stamped him as a successful driver at Williams?
SM: The first thing that we saw that stood out really was his talent on the track. He's done a lot of things, whatever car he gets into. Pre-Formula One we saw, when we started to take notice of him, we saw that everything he has got into from a sports car, to a 3000 car, to a Formula One car, he's been fast in the car very quickly. The second thing that we saw was when one of our test drivers went there (Jaguar) in 2002, which is Antonio, Mark did a pretty good job of out-qualifying and out-pacing him for the 10 or so races that they were together. We knew how quick Antonio was from testing, so that told us straightaway that Mark was obviously something pretty special. In addition to that, we saw him do plenty of things in practice and testing and things that you don't normally see on the television, but we see them all the time from the lap times on the screen. And we saw three or four times where he did exceptional lap times under difficult circumstances. What that showed you is he is a driver that had confidence. There were things where he was taking unusual risks, especially for the team that he has been racing for, where points, one or two points, is very valuable. And you could see positions in races where he'd go and set fastest lap times when he didn't really need to. I specifically remember the end of Austria in 2003 when he set his fastest lap of the race, which was also the fastest Michelin lap, on the last lap. And this was in a position where he couldn't gain anymore places, and those two points to Jaguar were very valuable, but what that told you is he was very confident. That's the type of thing that really stood out for Patrick and myself. Then that continued into when we met him and started having discussions with him - and realised this is a pretty motivated person. He's very intelligent and articulate about the car, and getting people to work around him, and that was something that drew us to him.
Moving on to a name that's very well known in Formula One, Jack Brabham, from many years ago. But also alongside Jack was Ron Tauranac, perhaps nowhere near as well known, but Ron was very much a part of the Brabham success story behind the scenes. Do you see any similarities between what Ron and Jack did to what perhaps you're trying to achieve at Williams now with Mark Webber?
SM: Obviously Jack Brabham was three times world champion and Ron Tauranac was the main engineer behind that, and it's probably more of a credit to Ron, but I actually know more about Ron than what I do about Jack, because I know Ron quite well. And I knew about Ron before I started in Formula One. I've got a lot of older friends that are friends with Ron as well, so it's something that obviously they worked together in the '60s and '70s. They obviously were very successful in Formula Junior and leading into Formula One at the time, with Jack winning those titles, but then Ron himself went on and was very successful through the '70s and '80s in Formula Three and Formula 3000. And because of his position as an engineer in that era he has produced a hell of a lot more cars, and successful cars, than I ever will be, being involved in Formula One. The most cars that I will ever be responsible for is six or seven a year, but Jack was making hundreds - and they were all winning all over the world. And there's not very many race tracks you can go to in the world where you won't find one of Ron's cars, or the influence of Ron's cars. So that's something that's got similarities between their relationship, similar to what Mark and I will perhaps hopefully develop into. And if Mark comes out of it with three world championships behind his name then I think he will be pretty happy.
As an F1 technical director, what's been the biggest influence in your career? Have you had a hero or someone that you've looked up to that's inspired your career progress?
SM: I don't really have any heroes as such. I've got people who I've got a lot of respect for what they've done in the business, and that goes for Ron Tauranac and Patrick Head, Gordon Murray and John Barnard. And obviously that was all the guys from the '70s and '80s and early '90s. And then in latter years Rory Byrne and Adrian Newey, and these are people who have pushed engineering of racing cars to the limits and above - and really pushed motor racing on. And I do have a lot of respect for what they've done.
So is this a bit of an adventure in some way? We know that Formula One is a very clinical business, big money, but in some ways you and Mark Webber being together now, is there a feeling that perhaps there is a bit of an adventurous spirit here?
SM: First of all, yes, there is a lot of technology and electronics and things in Formula One these days, and it is very big business. The most important thing, and the way any relationship will develop, is if you're successful and if you can see that both sides of the party are pushing. That's very important to see, that pushing, and then get the success because of it. It's still very much a team with a good pedigree, and they expect us to deliver. Mark is very much part of the team now, and if he does a great job, which I'm sure he will, then that relationship will grow. And I'm sure it's not all going to be flowers. There's going to be hard times as well in that. Even fantastic drivers and teams have bad days, and those experiences build the relationship. That's what's important, because you actually learn a lot more from the bad times than you do from winning and the good times. It's the mistakes that you make that make you successful.
You spent some of your time around Canberra, as you said, which is the part of the world that Mark Webber is from. Did you know anything of Mark or the Webber family when you were in Canberra?
SM: I didn't actually and I think a lot of that is probably because Mark is five or six years younger than me. Although I used to race dirt bikes at a place called Fairbairn Park, which was near Queenbeyan, which is near where Mark used to live, I was there when I was 15 or 16 years old, and Mark would have been about nine or 10 at that age, so I didn't know him at all. He used to be into other types of racing as well, so I didn't actually know him at all until a couple of years ago.
When did you first hear of Mark Webber and when did you first meet him?
SM: The first time he started to show up was when … one of the early memories I can remember internally was obviously those sports car accidents that he had when the sports car was flipping over (at Le Mans in 1999), but I had heard his name from a guy called Greg Siddle in Australia before, who had said, "This guy is pretty good." I think it was early 2000-2001, around that time, when we started to hear his name pop up. And then when he became a Formula One test driver, then obviously that was when he was on the map. The first time I actually met Mark myself was at the end of 2002 at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
So you've had three or four years now with Williams and there seems to have always been a different way that Williams operates from other teams. It's seen very much as a no nonsense team, that's always about racing rather than all the hype that goes with Formula One. What is it that you think really makes Williams tick and be successful?
SM: I think you're right. There's no time here for small-time politics. The main focus is engineering. We're not led by anything from the side, if you like. It's really focused on winning, and if we come second we come home unhappy. It's a difficult environment to work in, if you're not used to it, but if you're a racing-type person then you get used to it very quickly and understand what the requirements are. Unless we come home with a win, then it's not good enough. And that's what makes Williams a fantastic place to work - because that for me is very motivational.
We've nearly always been used to seeing Williams in the top three, if not at the top of the constructors' championship, but not this year. So I guess there's a bit of a battle coming with Ferrari, McLaren, now BAR and Renault?
SM: That's right. They're all strong teams, the ones that you've mentioned there, and I think it will be very tight at the top next year. There's going to be three or four teams that are all trying to knock Ferrari off their perch. Ferrari will still be strong; there is no doubt about that. They've put in place a very conventional, iterative type design procedure, so I can't see them making any mistakes, and so they will be a tough act to beat next year, along with those other teams.
Typically home races are a lot of pressure and a lot of special atmosphere for drivers but, of course, Albert Park next year is also going to be a home race for you. Is it the same for a technical guy that a home race in Australia, Albert Park, is going to be any different from another race to you?
SM: It is because of the cultural things that you are familiar with. There is cultural familiarity there, and that makes it nice to be in Melbourne. It's still a Grand Prix where you have to turn up to work and deliver, so it's still very much focused there, if you like. It is a great place to go and Australia puts on a very good Grand Prix, and it's an enjoyable place to be, and, yeah, it is a bit more special being in Melbourne.