Williams Martini Racing have released their new car called the Williams Mercedes FW38, ahead of the pre-season testing in Barcelona.
Williams Martini Racing have released their new car called the Williams Mercedes FW38, ahead of the pre-season testing in Barcelona. The team is looking to build on from a successful 2015 season. Last year, they got four podiums and finished third in the Constructors Championship with 257 points.
Sir Frank Williams, Founder and Team Principal said, “Williams has started to cement our position back amongst the front-running teams after finishing third in the Championship in the past two seasons. This has been a great achievement given the resources of those around us. Staying where we are will be a challenge in itself, but we are determined to keep improving because only winning will ever be good enough. We have a very stable team going into 2016, with Felipe and Valtteri teaming up for a third successive season. They work well together and both have the ideal blend of speed and consistency. Our technical team has also remained very consistent which will be to our advantage and we have some of the best engineering minds on the grid at our disposal. We have a busy couple of weeks of testing coming up to learn more about our package and to refine the car ahead of the first race. We will have to wait until Melbourne to find out exactly where we stand in the pecking order but I’m confident that our hard work over the winter will stand us in good stead.”
Claire Williams, Deputy Team Principal, added, “2016 promises to be a very competitive year in Formula One and there will be a number of strong teams who have us in their sights. We are confident that we have made a step forward over the winter and that the FW38 will build on the strengths of the FW37 and address some of its weaknesses. We started design work on the car earlier than normal and hopefully this extra development time will stand us in good stead. The car we are launching today is by no means the final product. We are already planning updates for Melbourne and will be pushing for constant improvements over the course of the season. Williams enters 2016 in a strong place. We have a great team of people and over the past two years we have started to regain our competitive edge. Now we need to build on that and take this team back to where we all want it to be.”
Driving for the Williams team are Brazilian driver, Felipe Massa and Finnish driver Valtteri Bottas. Massa finished 6th with 121 points in the 2015 Constructors Championship while Bottas finished 5th with 136 points.
Felipe Massa said, “Securing third in the Constructors’ Championship for two consecutive years is a great achievement and one that comes with a lot of expectation – a momentum which I am excited to build on going into the new season. The team at the factory have worked really hard on the new car and we have spent a lot of time understanding where we need to improve. I have a lot of confidence in the team at Williams and I’m looking forward to getting behind the wheel of the FW38 to see how it performs. I’m equally delighted to be teammates with Valtteri for another year. He is a very talented driver who brings a lot to the team.”
Adding to that, Valtteri Bottas said, “This is always a really interesting and exciting time of the year because we have a new car and we can’t wait to get it out on track to see how it feels and how fast it is. It’s been a good winter and from what I’ve seen we seem to be headed in a good direction with this car. Testing next week will be our chance to see how our performance has improved since the last race. The development of the FW38 has been all positive in theory, now we just need to see it on track. As a team we need to be able to win races, which is what we are always trying to do. I’m sure we have made improvements everywhere as a team, so we’re definitely looking to fight for better results this year. I’d like to thank everyone at the factory for their hard work over the winter in getting the car ready.”
The car complies with all the relevant FIA guidelines and it will take to the track at next week’s testing. The first race will be held in Melbourne, Australia on the 20th of March.