While Williams may have the worst car, many within the team are still motivated to be the best in Formula 1, says George Russell.
The Briton’s comments come as the pit crew once again picked up the fastest pit-stop award in French Grand Prix, completing the first sub-2s stop of 2019 on Robert Kubica’s car.
This marked the third straight race Williams had claimed the award and Russell believes it is something the Grove-based team should take pride in.
“The fact is every person who comes to the race track, whether for Williams, Mercedes, whoever, their job is to maximise what they’re given,” he explained to Motorsport Week.
“[The mechanics are] not the designers, they’re not the aerodynamicists or anything. So regardless if you’re fighting for first or last they still have the motivation to show they’re the best on the grid let’s say.
“And definitely the mechanics… it’d be easy for them to think ‘we’re not racing for anything’. It’s important to show we’re not a bunch of idiots.”
Results wise, Williams remain firmly planted to the bottom of the timesheets but Russell sees this as the short-term pain for long-term gain.
“It’s not going well at the moment but there’s been a whole reason why it’s not been going well,” he said.
“There’s been a big philosophy change from last year to this year and quite often you have to take one step back to go three steps forwards.
“At the moment we’re still in the one step backwards phase but we’re trying to make three steps forward.”
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This week, Williams announced the departure of technical director Paddy Lowe, who had been on a period of absence since the disaster of pre-season testing.
Currently team co-founder Patrick Head has taken an advisory role and deputy boss Claire Williams confirmed Lowe will be eventually replaced.
“We’ve got to focus on the here and now, and the future, and that’s what we’re doing back at Grove in earnest,” she told Crash.net.
“A lot of work is going on behind the scenes to make sure that we put Williams in the best possible position moving forward, from everyday moving forwards, not for 2020, not for 2021, but for right now.
“We’re making good steps in the right direction, and that’s really nice to see. It’s been incredibly difficult for everybody at Williams over the last many, many months now, and it finally feels like we’re heading in the right direction again.
“We’re happy with the technical management team that we have, and we’re looking at the options that are available to us now and what would fit most appropriately with our structure,” Claire added.
“As soon as we’ve made a decision, and we can make an announcement, we’ll share it.”
