Williams’ status as by far Formula 1’s slowest team should assist its eventual recovery, according to George Russell, with the team able to treat grands prix as extended test sessions.
Russell and Robert Kubica have often been a second adrift of the midfield and have not yet challenged for points, such has been the chasm to the midfield due to the lack of performance available from its FW42.
Williams has yet to bring a substantial upgrade package to its FW42 this year and Russell reckons the team’s absence of opportunities can be played to its advantage.
“I think we have understood the car well but we’re still continuing to understand I think,” said Russell.
“For example this weekend realistically we’re still going to be qualifying on the back row. So this gives us the opportunity to test things, rather than fully optimise our package, and maybe explore a different route.
“Every other team that is fighting for points or a good result… every lap on track they have to make the most of it.
“You can take this situation as a positive let’s say, we’re making the most of being in the position we are.
“We know what we sort of have in store let’s say to bring to the car, but these things take time.
“For a front wing it takes 8-10 weeks, the same with a floor, so for us we’ve also got to be more patient than the other teams as we want to bring something greater than a little bit here and there because a little bit here and there is not going to bring much performance, but we’re still testing many things at the moment.
“And we’re getting good information back, and I do believe there will be a point where we can fight with everybody. But realistically we can’t expect anything more than that.”
Russell stressed that Williams’ lack of performance meant that bringing small updates and revisions was a fruitless endeavour, believing waiting for a major upgrade will be a better route.
“Every team when they develop a car you’re developing, developing, developing in a wind tunnel, so do you bring an update here, here and here,” explains Russell, gesturing as if making incremental increases on an x-axis/y-axis graph.
“Or do you wait until you bring it there [the top]? Every update you bring there’s financial implications, many factors that go into it.
“The top teams can get away with bringing upgrades every couple of races whereas it makes no sense for us to do it because if we bring a small upgrade here and there it’s not going to make any difference to our performance.
“We’re taking the approach that we’re treating every race like a test at the moment to fully understand how we can make a bigger impact later in the year.”
