Williams chief engineer Dave Robson says there has been frustration at the team’s overworked car missing out on results this year, but he will not allow it to cloud their long-term goals.
Under James Vowles’ leadership, Williams made significant changes to the way they built their chassis over the winter but were left without two cars ready for the start of the season, and without a spare in Australia. Overall performance was affected by the cars being significantly over the weight limit, and ahead of major upgrades planned after the summer break, Robson admitted he still feels annoyed at how little progress they have made as a team this year.
“I think there’s both,” Robson said. “We can’t overlook the fact that we ultimately took a step back to move forward, and we’ll see how that plays out. But equally, especially when we were watching qualifying early this year, when we were on the pit wall, after qualifying, we looked at each other and said, ‘I wish this was weight limit.’ Then when you look back, you’d be a lot further ahead.
“James was very good at saying you can’t think that way, but it’s definitely frustrating in that moment. And maybe in retrospect, we wouldn’t have changed anything we did or what we were trying to do. Maybe we would have changed a little bit about how we did it, or maybe we could have started the whole process earlier.
“So there’s definitely frustration and regret in the moment, but I think we can all see the bigger picture and where James is trying to lead us. So it’s a little bit of short-term pain, but I think we can all see where this is going to go.”
The weight handicap meant Williams drivers were left behind early in the season. Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Robson says the problem with the car’s weight isn’t the chassis itself, but the way the new manufacturing method affects other aspects of the car.
“Looking back now, I think we were pretty ambitious in what we did over the winter,” he recalled. “We completely changed the way we built the chassis, which made it a little lighter and allowed us to do some really useful R&D-type work that will continue for the next few years.
“So it was one of those big cases where we took on a fairly large, fairly challenging technical challenge, and it wasn’t exactly what we had intended when we went down that path – obviously that decision was made pretty early on – but the end result was a little bit more complex than we anticipated. It affected other areas where we had to rush the design.
“So the net result is that while the chassis has evolved considerably, the overall car is heavier than intended.”
