George Russell believes there is some “potential” that can be unlocked in the new Williams car.
On the first day of the second test in Spain, the Briton completed a morale-boosting 119 laps without incident in what was arguably the team’s first meaningful day of running this year.
In fact, Russell more than doubled the mileage Williams has put on the FW42 which was only met with one reaction.
“After the last couple of weeks it’s a huge relief to get a day like today,” the F2 champion told Motorsport.com.
“We’ve learned so much about the car at lower fuel and higher fuel, it gives us such a good indication moving forward into the next few days and for the guys back at the factory who are already designing the upgrades.”
Performance remains the one concern, with Russell’s best time on the C5 tyres still almost two-seconds off the fastest set by Lando Norris, but that, as the 21-year-old suggested is something Williams can look at later.
“It certainly hasn’t made up for last week because everyone else at this stage is fine-tuning the balance, whereas we’re needing to understand the car,” he explained.
“But I feel we’re in a good spot. The car isn’t in a perfect window right now but I feel like it’s definitely got the potential.
“We’re still finding the limitations, what the different compounds do. There was no reason to worry we didn’t find the lap time we should have done because that should come.”
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Finally, Russell ended with a tribute to those at Williams for their efforts to get the car ready.
“I think everybody’s happy with today’s performance – not in terms of lap times but in terms of no issues,” he said.
“Everybody’s working so hard. We’re all human. Everybody is pretty knackered. They’ve been performing 24/7 over the last two weeks to get us ready.”
