Williams chief Paddy Lowe says the team has been left “very disappointed” by its results so far in 2017, believing that it has “significantly underperformed” at some venues.
Williams holds fifth position in the standings, and claimed a shock podium in Azerbaijan courtesy of Lance Stroll, but has been left scrapping for the lower end of the top 10 at most events.
Felipe Massa has taken just seven points from the last eight races while Williams suffered a double Q1 elimination in both Austria and Hungary, the former coming three years after it locked out the front row of the grid at the circuit.
Lowe feels that Williams has failed to collect the points it should have done when the FW40 was performing well, and that a lack of pace has hindered its chances at other events.
“Definitely at the half-term report stage we’re not looking as good as we’d like,” said Lowe, who re-joined Williams from Mercedes for 2017.
“We’re very disappointed, the car is quicker than that points table would reflect.
“I think one of our biggest problems has been that we haven’t been scoring the points we should have done at the track with our speed of car. That’s for a number of different reasons.
“On top of that, we’ve seen a lot of variation from circuit to circuit.
“There are places that we significantly underperform and we really need to have a car that will perform more equally at different destinations, so that’s a big focus for next year.”
When asked whether Williams had a grasp on why its performance varied, Lowe replied: “Some of those things we understand, some of them we don’t. So there’s a lot of work to do.
“But we’re very much hoping we can have a better second half of the season and put some of that right."
Williams holds a two-point advantage over Toro Rosso in the Constructors' Championship.
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