Williams became the first Formula 1 team to unveil its 2016 car. For a third successive season the car will carry the red, white and blue stripes of title sponsor Martini, with the team continuing under the Williams Martini Racing banner.
The car retains many of the FW37’s concepts, such as the short nose, and small engine cover. Revised sidepods see a smaller intake apearture, whilst the addition of multiple vortex generators along the sidepods leading edge is a concept the team trialled towards the end of last season.
“Williams has started to cement our position back amongst the front running teams after finishing third in the Championship in the past two seasons,” commented Sir Frank Williams, founder and team principal. “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.”
“The car we are launching today is by no means the final product,” added Claire Williams, deputy team principal.”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.”
The FW38 will take to the track for the first time on 22nd February for eight days of testing that concludes on 4th March. The season officially gets under way at the first race in Melbourne, Australia, on 20th March.
Click here for a Q&A with Williams Chief Technical Officer Pat Symonds.
