Former Williams chief technical officer Pat Symonds has doubts as to whether the team has the ability to improve after a difficult start to the 2018 season.
After a drastic shift away from Williams' previous designs under Symonds, his successor Paddy Lowe went in a different direction with the FW41, which is proving to be a challenge to set-up correctly with both drivers complaining of numerous issues with the handling of the car.
The Grove-based outfit is the only team yet to score a point this season, their best result of the year being 14th, achieved by Lance Stroll in each race so far, with just a sole Q2 appearance.
"We can't get away from the fact that they're really underperforming, particularly when you consider that this time last year they had the fourth quickest car," said Symonds.
"To be in the position they are now in is so disappointing for all the real fans of Williams, and there are a lot of those because it's a classic racing team.
"It's a shame, especially as I believe they were very confident that a new approach to the FW41 was going to bring them up to fight in the top three.
"Can they pull it back this season? I think it will be very difficult. They will undoubtedly do everything they can, but I think it will quite tricky to recover this year."
Symonds feels Force India is also having some trouble with their 2018 challenger but has the ability to turn things around.
Force India managed to finish fourth in the Constructors' Championship for the past two seasons, but holds only ninth, with just a solitary point to its name.
"Again, to see them drop off is troubling," said Symonds. "It's hard to look at their car and readily identify a cause of their troubles and you certainly can't point to the drivers – they're the same as last year and they did a very good job all season.
"They were well matched. I actually thought [Esteban] Ocon might make another step up this year, but we haven't seen that so far.
"So, with Force India, it seems like they just simply don't have the correlation that they need. However, working the way they are; Do they have more chances to claw it back throughout the year? I do think they do, yeah, I really do."
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