Williams FW35 has 'potential'

Last year at this time, Williams were on a high celebrating Pastor Maldonado‘s maiden F1 victory at Spain. This time around, the Venezuelan finished only 14th and had a forgettable weekend.

Xevi Pujolar, Chief Race Engineer of the Williams team insists that it is too early to right off the chances of the FW35, a car that was touted by many as a significant improvement over last year’s machine. Xevi maintains that the car has ‘potential’ and that it can go faster.

“At the moment it’s still possible, and we cannot give up now,” he told ESPNF1. “What we’ve done now is the fifth race and races are going fast, but we need to try to improve. We cannot say ‘Oh, we’ll give up now’, there’s a long way to go and we don’t want to stay in these positions until the end of the year, we want to make progress.“

“I think there is potential. I mean, if you look at the people at the front there is quite a big gap, but there is an intermediate group that we think we can make progress and gain positions. There’s definitely potential with the car, it’s just that we need to now try to move a bit faster.“

The ‘intermediate’ group that he mentions are the Saubers and the Toro Rossos, two teams that have surpassed the Williams this time around and are looking more dangerous than the Williams thought they were.

The teams now head to Monaco to tackle the Circuit de Monte Carlo.