According to Head of Car Performance, Rob Smedley, Williams believe they have a good chance of fighting for victories at the upcoming Belgian and Italian GP’s.
Technical director Pat Symonds recently said that Williams are the third fastest car behind the Mercedes and Red Bull’s, however Smedley believes that the nature of the track layouts at Spa and Monza will help Williams.
“It’s a possibility,” he said when asked if wins were possible.
“Both of those tracks will suit our car very well, I would have thought. That’s mainly because the power sensitivity at those tracks is very high, so every 1bhp you have is worth more than at other tracks, and the drag sensitivity, especially at Spa, is very high.
“We know that our car is strong in both of those areas. Additionally, in somewhere like Spa, with harder compounds, it can sometimes be quite difficult to get the tyres turned on and I think our car can do that, especially when it’s a front-end problem. I’m reasonably confident that our car can go well in both of those races, but I’ve said before that we don’t fear anywhere really.
“In Hungary people would say: ‘Williams with their low-drag configuration is not going to be any good around the hot and twisty Budapest’. And then in qualifying, apart from the Mercedes, we were right there just 0.1s off the Red Bull.”
