Williams are pinning their 2019 season on a mid-season upgrade which team boss Claire Williams is expecting to deliver 'significant performance'.
Williams has languished at the very back of the field after it arrived at pre-season testing late and is at present the only team yet to score a point, with Alfa Romeo ahead of them already on 13 points.
Spain's minor upgrades aside, the team has yet to introduce any substantial developments to its FW42, with the focus very much on understanding the car and overcoming the current on and off-track troubles, but Williams revealed that there are plans for a significant upgrade despite calls to write off 2019 and focus on next year.
Related: 2019 F1 Constructors' Standings
"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 a Williams. We don’t write a season off just because we aren’t doing well," said Williams.
"I definitely feel that we can see some light at the end of the tunnel now and I think probably just from the time sheets and the last race in Barcelona, we demonstrated that we are closing that gap. 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. I think there’s a certain positivity in the team at the moment. Morale is still pretty good, and that’s all we can ask of everyone: just fighting hard, not giving up and keep on bringing performance to the car."
Williams added that alongside their '19 development programme, they are already looking to '20 and '21 to ensure they avoid a repeat of this year's troubles.
"We’re closing the gap to the ninth-placed team and we’ve got to keep doing that as the season progresses and we’re looking at obviously what 2020 looks like from a development perspective, what we’re going to be focusing our resources and attention on, to make sure that we certainly do a whole lot better job next year for us.
"We’ve got to look at ’21 and make sure we’ve got the right resources in place and the focus in place to take advantage of that situation. Clearly, as everyone knows and have talked about a lot, ’21 could be a really great opportunity for us with the cost cap that’s coming and with whole new technical regulations."
