Williams technical chief Paddy Lowe says corner entry instability is the primary weakness of the current-spec FW41, but reckons quick progress can be made once it is rectified.
The FW41 is the first Williams car to be overseen by Lowe, who joined the squad last March, having previously been part of Mercedes’ technical team.
Williams has targeted an improvement of fifth in the championship, but rarely featured towards the front of the midfield during pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, prompting Lowe to explain the current situation.
“The limitation in the car at the moment is corner entry instability” he said.
“That’s quite often the limitation in a car to be honest, but it’s particularly exaggerated at the moment with what we’re running.
“I think if we can unlock some progress there we will find a lot more lap time than we’ve got at the moment, because some other aspects of the car are working really strongly through other phases of the corner.
“Mostly these things involve a strong aerodynamic element but the solutions involve everything from the suspension, the tyres, everything else, so it’s always multi-dimensional.”
Williams also struggled with the softer tyre compounds at the Spanish Grand Prix venue, with Sergey Sirotkin and Lance Stroll both clocking their best times on Softs, finishing 16th and 21st respectively on the combined timesheets.
Commenting on tyres, Lowe said: “That’s something we’re working on; we had a pretty tough afternoon [on Thursday] with Lance, where we couldn’t extract the lap time with the lower fuel loads and the softer tyres.
“You’ve got to bear in mind that these aren’t racing conditions so you factor around that and make sure you’re chasing the right problem.
“But equally there will be problems in understanding the car that can’t be blamed on the weather, so that’s the task we have.”
