Abu Dhabi: Buoyant Williams are determined to “fight for the world championship” after securing their second successive third-place finish in the constructors’ championship, according to deputy team principal Claire Williams.
The British outfit have made considerable strides since 2013, when they finished a dismal ninth in the championship, which Williams attributes to sheer, old-fashioned hard work.
Their two drivers, Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa, are fourth and sixth in the drivers’ championship, with 136 and 117 points respectively, ahead of Sunday’s Formula One Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
But Williams insists the team will not rest on their laurels and says they are striving to end their world title drought, with Jacques Villeneuve last powering them to success in 1997.
“I think everyone knows that there is almost a sense of disappointment that we’re third at Williams,” the 39-year-old, whose father Sir Frank Williams is the team’s founder and principal, said at Yas Marina Circuit ahead of Sunday’s season finale.
“We want to be winning races and fighting for that world championship. We’ve made some mistakes this year that have been fairly visible for people to see and we need to improve upon our operations to make sure we don’t make those mistakes next year and we can continue to improve in 2016.”
How does she explain Williams’ resurgence?
“I don’t know what the secret is,” the Englishwoman replied. “I think we just tend to keep our heads down and get on doing what we love doing and that’s racing.
“We’ve worked hard over the past two years in order to turn this team around. We’ve made a lot of changes within the team and fortunately a lot of those changes are paying off. “
“We’ve managed to secure third in the constructors’ championship, which is fantastic, and testament to all the hard work that has gone in behind the scenes to try to turn this team around over the past 18 months,” she added. “I’m really proud of the team and the job they have done this year.”
Williams went on to express her delight that the team have signed 17-year-old Lance Stroll, the Canadian former Ferrari Young Driver Academy prospect.
“Lance is joining our young driver programme, starting next year. We will doing some simulator work with him to try to improve him as a driver.
“As everyone knows, Williams enjoys nurturing young talent and we’ve identified Lance to take on that role next year. He’ll be doing simulator work with our guys at the factory and he will be undertaking a team immersion programme, so similar to the programme we did with Valtteri many years ago.
“He’ll be doing that and we’ll be supporting his season in Formula 3 [with Prema Powerteam] next year and hopefully he will have a great season and we’ll see where he ends up at the end of 2016.”
