Williams deputy boss Claire Williams insists the ongoing problems at the former championship-winning team are not part of path to eventual collapse.
This season, the Grove outfit, with former Mercedes technical director Paddy Lowe at the helm, opted to overhaul their design philosophy with the FW41. But the result has been the team struggling to extract performance and drivers lacking the confidence to push.
Currently, Williams sit bottom of the Constructors’ Championship with only Lance Stroll’s eighth in Baku to show from the first five races, however, the daughter of founder Sir Frank insists their year can be turned around.
“When you are winning it’s fantastic and when you are not then you have to re-organise and regroup, and it’s always about how you cope with those challenges,” she told Autosport this week.
“At the moment there is a huge spirit within Williams to get this fixed.
“People can tune in and they can see our performance on the TV and then think: ‘What on earth is going on at Williams?’
“But anyone who thinks that Williams is on its way out or in a spiral of decline, or any other analogy you want to use, would be very wrong.”
Some have put the British team’s problems down to their line-up with 19-year-old Lance Stroll alongside rookie Sergey Sirotkin with the experience of Robert Kubica sat in the garage as reserve and developmental driver.
In Spain, the Pole made his first appearance during a Grand Prix weekend since 2010 when he drove in first practice, but later admitted he was “embarrassed” by the lack of performance.
Also this week, Lowe conceded there was no guarantee that a development plan put in place for the European season would fix Williams’ problems.
“Tenth is nowhere near where we want to be, but sometimes you need to almost have that kind of dose of reality to set yourself a different course and move forward,” Claire added.
“And we will. Everyone needs a bit of patience to allow us to do that.”
