Williams technical chief Pat Symonds has bemoaned the team’s lack of development in 2016.
After finishing third in the Constructors’ championship the past two years, sometimes being a thorn in the side of Ferrari, Red Bull and even Mercedes, this season has seen the Grove-based team struggle.
A push to improve their weaknesses, which remain slow speed corners and traction, has perhaps seen the team unable to develop their strengths, particularly their straight line speed as well as before.
As a result, the team are often 1.5 – 2 seconds slower than the leading Mercedes, even failing to make Q3 in qualifying.
More recently, they have slipped into the midfield battling the likes of McLaren, Toro Rosso and Haas. However, with four races left to go, Williams’ main fight is with Force India for fourth in the teams’ standings.
Once 51 points clear of the Silverstone team, that has become a 10-point deficit as consistent performances from Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg often see them ‘best of the rest’ behind the top three teams.
Symonds pointed to the gains Force India have made compared to his team this season and even highlighted how most of the improvement came at a single race.
“I think we have been remarkably stagnant this year and other teams, particularly Force India, have moved on,” he told ESPN.
“Force India did most of it in one upgrade, which is quite unusual these days because you tend to trickle things in race by race, but at Barcelona, they made a pretty major step forward.
“It may not have been quite as apparent in Barcelona — I think it took them a little bit time to understand it and best utilise it.”
The veteran engineer would praise the ‘exceptional job’ Force India have done this year, who are well on course to their best ever season in F1, and refused to blame Williams’ early 2017 focus as the reason for their issues.
“We did make quite an early switch this year to next year’s car, but that’s not all of it,” he explained.
“Some of the things we concentrated on at the start of the year, to become our developments right through the year, simply didn’t work as well as we expected.
“We have a target of what we expect to get out of the wind tunnel in terms of [downforce] points per run and this year it was not as good as it was last year.”
Speaking of 2017, Williams are now expected to announce Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll as their line-up for next season.
Recent reports had linked Bottas with a move to Renault but it’s believed that provoked the team to activate the additional year option in his current contract.
Twitter: P1 Race 1 by over 6secs. 18th podium of season that includes 12 wins @fiaf3europe @PREMAPowerteam @TheodoreRacing1 https://t.co/CcoFqLsGej (@lance_stroll)
As for Stroll, he recently became Euro F3 champion and both Williams and the man he’ll replace, Felipe Massa, have recognised his achievement via Twitter.
His success does make him eligible for the necessary superlicence and it is expected he’ll be confirmed around his 18th birthday, during the Mexican Grand Prix weekend.
The reason for the delay is quite bizarre as Williams title sponsor Martini required the Canadian to be 18 before being announced as a driver.
