ROKiT Williams plans major upgrade mid season
By Andrew Hooper
June 3 2019
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Williams
plans major upgrade mid season |
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The ROKiT Williams Team has
confirmed that a major upgrade of the FW42 is planned in the middle of the
2019 season. The team is hoping that these updates will bring "significant
performance" improvement.
The opening races of the 2019 season has seen the
Williams team struggle with a 2019 model car that suffered significant
performance issues. The team has spent a major part of their time
investigating the issues in order to implement updates to the car which will
hopefully turn their season around.
Several of the 2019 races as well as test sessions would see the Williams
team work on the direction that any updates should take to address the
fundamental issues with the car.
As for how all this hard work by
the Williams Team was faring
Deputy Team Principal Claire Williams commented at the recent Monaco Grand
Prix: "We can see some light
at the end of the tunnel now.
"It may be slow but we all know that it takes time to bring performance to
your car.
"There's definitely a lot of good work going on back at the factory that
people may not necessarily be seeing yet.
"The aero team are doing a great job finding performance in the tunnel and
we're going to be bringing that to races over the coming weeks and months
with a package coming mid-way through the season that we will hope will
bring some significant performance to us.
"There are definitely signs of improvement."
The updates that the Williams
Team will bring mid-season will also allow the team to confirm whether the
design philosophy for its 2019 car was the right path to go down. After the
2018 season the team had to come to grips with the fact that their 2018
design was the wrong way to go and that major changes had to be made. But
the 2019 model also ended up posing just as major questions over its design.
For Senior Race Engineer Dave Robson it will prove whether the team had made
the correct choice for the design philosophy behind its 2019 FW42.
In an interview with Autosport.com Robson said: "Those upgrades when they
come will be a big guide to where we really are."
"Coming into this year we did change the philosophy of the car for good
reason.
"Now we need to see whether we are just a little bit behind the curve and
can catch up, or actually if we've made a mistake and might have to go back.
"That is the main theme between now and the break."
As for where it leaves the team if the upgrades fail to demonstrate an
improvement the team will be faced with having to cope with a difficult end
to the 2019 season as well as been forced to making significant changes to
their 2020 challenger.
Robson added: "If it turns out that the concept really is flawed then we
have to get a clear answer on that,"
"We can still evolve our way out of that. I don't think there is anything so
heavily baked in that is going to influence next year's car."
As for the current FW42 Robson was of the view that the team had maximised
the current package ahead of any updates.
"We started on the back foot in terms of not having the time we wanted in
Barcelona, and so the testing we wanted to do just gets delayed. I think we
have caught up with that," he said.
"We are now at the point where operationally and getting the most out of the
car we have got, we are close to it.
"That is a lot of what we have seen over the six races we have seen, so it
is a case of continuing to do that and waiting for bits to come.""
As for the likelihood that the Williams team would cease development of the
2019 car in favour of the 2020 model
Claire Williams said it would be a mistake not be come to an understanding
of the 2019 car and as part of this process assist in the development of the
2020 model..
When questioned as to whether the Williams team would write off the 2019
season Claire added: "No, nothing is a
write-off at Williams, ever. It never has been and it never would be,
regardless of where we are.
"It's just not our mindset at Williams. We don't write a season off just
because we aren't doing well.
"For us, at the moment, we're really looking at 2019 and '20 very much as
almost two seasons.
"It's just evolution and development and we've just got to keep bringing
performance at each and every race.
"We've definitely seen that we've done that, we're closing the gap to the
ninth-placed team and we've got to keep doing that as the season
progresses." |
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