The Williams FW36 was the car built by Williams for the 2014 Formula One season. It was powered by the Mercedes PU106A Hybrid engine and was the first collaboration between Williams and Mercedes. It was Williams' first turbocharged car since the 1987 Championship winning FW11B.
In the hope of improving on a disappointing 2013 season, Williams recruited F1 veteran, Felipe Massa to partner Valtteri Bottas to drive the FW36. Pre-season testing proved successful for the team with Massa setting the fastest time at the second Bahrain test.
The team was much more successful than the previous year, scoring nine podiums, and locking-out the front row of the grid for the Austrian Grand Prix.
At the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the stripes and logo of Martini & Rossi were replaced with blue and black stripes due to the restrictions of alcohol advertising, like in the video game.
Williams finished third in the Constructors' Championship with 320 points.
Season review[]
Williams started off their season at Australia with Massa qualifying in 9th and Bottas qualifying in 10th, but he had a gearbox change, which meant that he started in 15th. Massa retired from the race after a collision with Caterham's Kamui Kobayashi on the start of the race, meanwhile Bottas finished fifth after a recovery drive from a wall-clipping tyre puncture on lap 11.
Williams could not get both cars into Q3 at the Malaysian Grand Prix, and in the race, Massa was ordered by his race engineer, Rob Smedley, to let his team-mate Bottas past. Massa eventually finished ahead of his team-mate in the end.
At the Chinese Grand Prix, Massa qualified 6th and Bottas qualified 7th. However, at the start of the race, Massa and his former Ferrari team-mate, Fernando Alonso made contact, but Massa was able to continue. Bottas was also involved in a first-lap collision with Mercedes' Nico Rosberg in Turn 1. Bottas finished seventh, meanwhile Massa could only finish 15th, outside of the points.
The Monaco Grand Prix race weekend was another poor qualifying effort for Williams. Massa was involved in a collision with Caterham's Marcus Ericsson in Q1, preventing him from taking part in Q2. Bottas could only manage a 12th place. In the race, Bottas retired on lap 55 from an engine failure, meanwhile Massa could only manage a seventh place.
At the Canadian Grand Prix, Massa was battling for the podium spot along with Daniel Ricciardo, Sebastian Vettel and Sergio Pérez. At the final lap of the race, when Massa was about to overtake Pérez on the first corner, his front right tyre made contact with Pérez's rear left tyre, causing both to crash at a high speed, and damaging their cars severely. Bottas eventually finished seventh in the race; had the final lap crash not happened, Bottas would finish 9th.
At the Austrian Grand Prix, both Williams cars made a surprise in qualifying, qualifying on the front row of the race. Massa qualified on pole, with Bottas qualifying 2nd. However, they could not turn it into a possible victory, as Mercedes won the race.
The British Grand Prix was a miserable qualifying effort for the team. Bottas could only qualify 17th, meanwhile Massa qualified 18th. In the race, Felipe Massa, in his 200th Grand Prix, crashed at the start of the race as he tried to avoid Kimi Räikkönen's Ferrari car, but failed. Valtteri Bottas went on to finish second in the race.
Williams had another superb qualifying effort at the German Grand Prix, with Bottas qualifying second and Massa in third. Unfortunately, it was another bad weekend for Massa, as he was hit by McLaren's Kevin Magnussen into Turn 1 at the start of the race. Bottas went on to finish in second place again, his best result to date.
Bottas impressed the team in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix by qualifying third, but could not keep up the performance, finishing in 8th instead. Massa eventually finished 6th.
Complete Formula One Results[]
Complete Formula One Results | |||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Year | Driver | Tyre | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
2014 | ![]() |
||||||||||||||||||||
P | Ret | 7th | 7th | 15th | 13th | 7th | 12th | 4th | Ret | Ret | 5th | 13th | 3rd | 5th | 7th | 11th | 4th | 3rd | 2nd | ||
5th | 8th | 8th | 7th | 5th | Ret | 7th | 3rd | 2nd | 2nd | 8th | 3rd | 4th | 11th | 6th | 3rd | 5th | 10th | 3rd | |||
TD | TD | TD | TD | TD | |||||||||||||||||
TD | TD |
Notes[]
V T E | ![]() |
||
---|---|---|---|
Drivers 23. | |||
Personnel Frank Williams · Patrick Head · Pat Symonds · Mike Coughlan | |||
World Champions | |||
Cars March 761 · FW06 · FW07 · FW07B · FW07C · FW07D · FW08 · FW08C · FW09 · FW09B · FW10 · FW10B · FW11 · FW11B · FW12 · FW12C · FW13 · FW13B · FW14 · FW14B · FW15C · FW16 · FW16B · FW17 · FW17B · FW18 · FW19 · FW20 · FW21 · FW22 · FW23 · FW24 · FW25 · FW26 · FW27 · FW28 · FW29 · FW30 · FW31 · FW32 · FW33 · FW34 · FW35 · FW36 · FW37 · FW38 · FW40 · FW41 · FW42 · FW43 · FW43B · FW44 · FW45 · FW46 · FW47 | |||