@UK
I think the level of Williams expertise is being tested by what Coughlan has bring to them rather then what Williams can allowed him to do. Williams FW33 was so bad that it was just not possible to do any improvement on that car, I think FW33 was McLaren equivalent of MP4-18 but the only difference was MP4-18 never made it to the race track while FW33 made it most likely because of FIA's season regulations have changed from the option of having a new car to being mandatory to have the new car at the start of season.
Sam Michal have comes up with a very innovative idea of the most compact gearbox but with the Cosworth engine not upto the standard of other engines in driveability we have not seen the full effect of what that gearbox innovation can do. But one should take Newey's opinion about that as a complement that he was impressed by how compact the rear of Williams FW33 was and he has designed the RB7 which was not fat either at the rear side. Another thing is even though Patrick Head was not involved much in the designing of the car but he certainly was trying to use his ideas in combination with what Sam has trying to do and being half owner of the team no one can refuse his suggestions even if they are not working with the propose design.
Barrichello's relations with the top management including Patrick Head and Adam Parr was also not sweet for good part of 2011 season as they certainly wants results from him in a disastrous car and he was whinning more then been able to point out the problems they are having.
And last but not least the economic situation of Europe is going down in an almost straight line and teams are struggling to get bigger sponsorships from major companies so they are force to drop better drivers in favour of pay drivers. Apart from Sutil's legal worries, do you think he could get the same level of sponsorship that Senna is bringing, just look at the names Senna is associated with Embratel largest Latin American Cellular company, Gillete world leader in Men related products, Head & Shoulders world renowned shampoo brand and part of the big Multinational company P&G group. Sutil only had Medion backing which were ready to give about $10 Millions in sponsorship, Senna's backing is over $20 Millions. Any team can fall for that.
Just have read that Peugeot has back out of the LeMans programme sighting economical situation as a reason, for almost a whole month now WRC is struggling to finalise the deal for broadcasting and holding the media rights of the 2012 rally season. The problem is so big that even the Monte Carlo rally was under threat of facing calling off until Eurosport gets the deal for the time being to broadcast it. Spain is already thinking of dropping both the races altogether because of the economic crisis they are having so its not just the F1 teams the whole business scenario of Europe is facing a downfall.
