It seemed like Jacques only had the intention to win it once, given his driving. He channeled his father in 1997, and then just phoned it in for the rest of his career.
It's a shame how quick Williams fell off after the late 90s, though. Within a few years they went from frequent winners to usually mid pack or back of the pack. Save for a win from nowhere in 2012. 2014 looked like a resurgence, but instead of developing the car they just let themselves languish as Ferrari and later Red Bull stepped their game up.
I wouldn't expect to see much overtaking in 2017. Gonna be a massive bump in downforce, which means they'll have an even harder time trying to keep on the arse of a leading car.
Yeah, JV. If he had played the corporate game, stopped dying his hair and shut his mouth, he could have got the McLaren seat in 98 as I think DC may have been at risk. Of course that was the year that McLaren started kicking ass again. Anyway I could go on and on about JV, but that was then.
Williams looked good in early 2000s with Ralf and JPM. I saw Ralf win the CDN GP so that was cool as I went during the MS era of domination to Montreal. The other 3 CDN GPs I went to, MS won them all. I was huge fan of Williams of course because of JV. I followed him to BAR but that sucked so then I latched on to Alonso in mid 2000s. Then when he went to Ferrari I kind of lost the rooting for one driver or one team and just want to see a good race, regardless of who wins. As long as it isn't same team/driver most of the time. As we know, from 2010 to 2016, it has been mainly two teams winning everything. So I have a lot of hope for 2017. And with Stroll at Williams, I hope they are competitive and he is good as it might reignite my interest like the JV days and I will root for a Cdn Driver/Williams again!
I hear ya on passing issue, I have read many comments of the same, including from the drivers themselves. Its been a dilemma for too frigging long and while I am apt to agree with you and we won't see many non-DRS passes, I sure hope we are wrong. Another thing on the cars, it will be interesting come Monaco with these wider cars! Maybe Baku at the narrow turn too.
I guess for me, for next year, I am hopeful with the major aero shakeup, getting rid of the engine tokens, engine convergence getting closer (I read somewhere the other day that one manufacturer may have found 200bhp more-rumoured to be Honda), wider tires and many drivers swapped around, I have some hope that maybe parity will be there, at least in first few races.
Like Force India maybe grabbing a win, or Renault being in Q3 regularly, McLaren fighting for podiums, Manor points every few races etc. And oh yeah, Mercedes has a dog of a car! That would be enjoyable. Kind of tired of the domination. 2012 was great with 7 diff winners to start season. That would be cool to repeat.
Still 2 races left this year. I am calling Nico to win the race next weekend. Time to wrap this up.