George Russell believes Williams’ position at the rear of the Formula 1 grid this year has enabled it to evaluate more “extreme” approaches that will serve it well in the long run.
Williams slumped to the rear of the 10-team field in 2018 and performance-wise regressed further in 2019, often lapping a second slower than its nearest opponent.
It has yet to escape Q1 and scored just one point, which came courtesy of a post-race penalty for Alfa Romeo that promoted Robert Kubica to the top 10 in Germany.
Russell, who will remain part of Williams’ line-up in 2020, said that the drop in pace for much of the campaign will facilitate the team’s long-term ambitions.
“This year has given us a good opportunity to explore more with set-ups, some more extreme set-up items, how we prepare the tyres, this lap, the other,” he said.
“If you are fighting in the midfield you’d probably be a bit more reluctant to try something drastic because each weekend could be a possibility for them.
“We know regardless where we’ll be and that gives us the opportunity to gain the learning on things like that, or create the best car mechanically.”
Russell also reckons that the dire predicament the team found itself in earlier in 2019 allowed deep reflections than unmasked weaknesses hidden for years.
“Having this big reset has been beneficial for things back at the factory to get things right that perhaps weren’t correct,” he explained.
“The team definitely had a very fast car back in ‘14, ‘15, ‘16, but there were definitely some issues then that were probably under the radar as the car was so quick and the engine was very strong.
“So it sort of all comes at once and you start looking at the details more now when you have a situation like this.”
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