Williams may have jumped several places up the pecking order from ninth in 2013 to third last year on a similarly sized budget, but the next stage may require a substantial increase according to technical officer Pat Symonds.
The Grove outfit finished ahead of giants like Ferrari and McLaren which operate on huge budgets nearly double that of Williams, but Symonds admits making the next step, that of winning the title, will require Williams to find more money.
“I think the step from third to first will be harder than ninth to third, I really do,” he told Autosport.
“The potential has to be to win the world championship and there is no point in doing anything else.
“What will it take to do that? It will take a lot of hard work and it will certainly require a larger budget than we have now.”
Symonds however insists they don’t need to match the spending power of the bigger teams to beat them on-track.
“I don’t think it is necessary to have a budget like Red Bull or Ferrari’s – I believe you can do better with less – look at the fact we are operating on a budget half of Ferrari’s and we beat them,” he added.”
