The new Williams FW43 remains an evolution of the 2019 car, despite the problems the team had with last year’s FW42.
Williams are aiming to bounce back in 2020 after a particularly troubled 2019. With last year’s FW42 delivered late, the team didn’t hit the track until the third day of testing and never really recovered from there. Spending the year mired at the back, they scored just a solitary point and that was through fortune as cars were disqualified in front of Robert Kubica in Germany.
However, despite their pace issues in 2019, Williams have opted against doing anything radical with the new car as they revealed the FW43 to the world on Monday. Taking to the track for a filming day in Barcelona, the team explained that they focused on finding performance in identified areas from last year’s car.
Doug McKiernan, Williams’ design director, said: “We have paid significant attention to understanding the problem areas of the FW42 and we have carefully chosen parts of the car to develop, those that would give us the most performance for the resources we have.”
“The main concept behind the FW43 is that it is a continuous development of the FW42, with no fundamental concept changes to the layout. The most important indicator that we are on the right path will be the level of correlation we have between the tool kit we use to design the car and what the track data is telling us.”
“There has been a healthy development rate in the wind tunnel, and we have found reasonable improvements in the cooling efficiency. The team has addressed the mechanical issues that affected it in 2019, these include the brakes and the overall weight of the car. We have made some good progress across these areas and will continue to focus on them during the season.”
New Chief Engineer Adam Carter, who was promoted following the signings of David Worner from Red Bull and Jonathan Carter from Renault, backed the approach of evolution, rather than revolution, for 2020.
“The decision to retain some of the core architecture of the FW42 means there has been less resource invested in developing new concepts, which in turn has rewarded the design team with greater bandwidth to optimise their work, evident in both packaging and component detail,” he explained.
“By preserving some key parameters, it has allowed for an uninterrupted development programme within aerodynamics in order to maximise the efficiency of the resources.
“As we head towards the pre-season tests and then onto the race season, the most important measure will be the progress relative to our peers, along with our intention of continuing our recent record of reliability.”
Introducing the FW43 🥊#WeAreWilliams #WeAreRacing #WeAreFighting pic.twitter.com/BicXLD7i4i
— ROKiT WILLIAMS RACING (@WilliamsRacing) February 17, 2020
