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ROKiT Williams plans major upgrade mid season


By Andrew Hooper
June 3 2019

 
 Williams plans major upgrade mid season
 
Kubica
 

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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