Williams hopes the new “significantly different” FW41, revealed on Thursday in London, can be the catalyst to close on the top three teams in 2018.
The Grove-based team was the second to launch their new car ahead of pre-season testing, which begins in Barcelona on February 26, and even if its basic form appeared a marked step forward in design compared to last year.
Much of that can be attributed to technical chief Paddy Lowe, who arrived at Williams at the start of last season, and the former Mercedes boss admits the new car is more than just an “evolution” on its predecessor.
“The FW41 does involve a number of departures from the directions that have been pursued in the past,” he said. “Overall, the philosophy we are starting to see emerge is a new approach to the collaboration between aerodynamics and design to achieve the optimum working result.
“It has many new features, most of which are not all that obvious, but externally the team has pursued a very different aerodynamic concept which has allowed us some significant progress in aerodynamic performance.”
Williams head into 2018 in need of a boost after slipping down the order in recent years from the team which kept Mercedes on its toes in 2014 to falling 100 points behind Force India in last year’s constructors’ championship in fifth.
The performance gap between the top three teams and the rest was another notable story from last year and it is that which Lowe is most focused on reducing.
“We were two seconds or so a lap slower than the front runners last year and that’s something we’d like to close up considerably,” he said.
“So we were looking for a step change and I hope we’ve delivered a strong element of that with this car.”
