Williams drivers Nicholas Latifi and George Russell suggest there is an opportunity for an improved 2021 at the British team.
Williams earned zero points in F1 2020, which is a first in the team’s illustrious history. Though Qualifying pace was a bit more competitive for the team, race pace was greatly lacking, more so than initially thought before the 2020 season start in Austria.
The team were expected to improve on 2019’s poor showing, but managed no such thing and were instead unable to capitalise on even the most frenetic of races. Williams drivers Russell and Latifi, though, say there is an opportunity for the team to improve in 2021.
Under new leadership, the possibility of an improved 2021 could come to fruition, and Latifi thinks there is a likelihood of this, as the team aim for more frequent opportunities to salvage a minimal amount of points. “I think realistically, there’s for sure an opportunity to move forward,” he said to media including F1, Motorsport Network, Racefans.net and more.
“That’s what the goal is going to be. We’ve seen on a handful of occasions that we’ve been in a position to maybe scrape a point here and there, sometimes not by merit, sometimes by merit. We definitely want to be in those situations more often. A lot of the time this year, all it would have taken was a little bit more performance in the car, and we could be more in the midfield fight.
“I think realistically, the car is going to be an evolution of this year’s car as we see more in the case when F1 introduces new cars for three-year periods, you kind of have the same kind of running order for those three years, albeit with little changes that everyone is improving with. I think it’s unrealistic to expect a dramatic difference, but there’s definitely scope to move forwards, which is what we want to do,” Latifi said, with Russell suggesting that there could be far greater ambitions for 2022, when new regulations arrive.
“We’re continuing to bring test items to the car to try and improve it this year and into next year,” said Russell. “I think now with the new owners it’s really exciting, with more finance behind us, to be able to focus into the future for 2022 and beyond, and also keep a good eye on 2021 to continue to progress the car.
“That’s exciting for us, and hopefully we can make a step to cement our place ahead of Haas and Alfa Romeo, and try and catch onto the back of the midfield,” Russell said in conclusion, though he is only contracted until 2022 – not further. Williams will have Simon Roberts as their team principal and former successful Volkswagen rally chief, Jost Capito, in a senior position as Dorilton Capital pushes to revive the F1 outfit from its slump.
Here’s George Russell on bringing Mercedes knowledge into Williams
Here’s news on Sir Frank Williams
Here’s how F1 teams’ stacked up in tier performance chart
Here’s our tier system of F1 driver performance
Here’s F1 stats difference from 2019 to 2020