Williams has outlined that anything learned through next year will still assist the team under new-for-2021 regulations, as it bids to recover from its worst season in Formula 1.
Williams slipped to last in the 2018 Constructors’ Championship and has remained rooted to the rear of the field in 2019, frequently substantially adrift of its opponents.
Next year’s technical regulations are largely unchanged but Formula 1 is preparing for an overhaul for 2021.
Williams was a major beneficiary of the new-for-2014 regulations as it climbed from obscurity in 2013 to battle for regular podium finishes, placing third overall.
But Senior Race Engineer Dave Robson has stressed that anything Williams learns through 2020 can still be taken forward into 2021.
“It’s a good opportunity to have a bit of a reset and put into practice what we’ve been learning the last year and what we’ll continue to learn into next year,” he said.
“The key bit is we go into next year not just [thinking] ‘yes we want to make next year’s car quick’, but the key bit is understanding why it’s quick, and then all the learning we do next year is still applicable, even though the regulations change [in 2021], the physics and the interaction of how the whole car works is still the same.
“As long as we can understand that, and make sure that the tools back at the factory are delivering on track, as expected, then I still feel a lot of effort going into next year will still work in 2021.
“So undoubtedly we’ve got to work out how to divide the resources up, but you never write next year off, we’ve got to prove to ourselves and everyone else that what we’ve done this year was correct.
“If it is, and we can keep developing that, then that will still help the development of the 2021 car. We’re definitely not writing off next year.”
Robson stressed that Williams must drastically improve in 2020 – but must do so while understanding the causes, else it risks repeating its 2019 mistakes in the future.
“If we lucked into something we didn’t understand it’d be great for a year but it wouldn’t help the more medium-term development of the car and particularly going into 2021 when things are quite different and you can’t rely on what that luck was,” he explained.
“We’re all scientists so we’d far rather understand what we’re doing and then exploit that.
“But equally we clearly do need to show a fairly big step improvement next year to demonstrate to ourselves that clearly we have improved our understanding.”
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