Claire Williams has dismissed any concern that the Williams Martini Racing team are in ‘a spiral of decline’, and there is a ‘huge spirit’ within the Grove-based team to fix the situation they find themselves in.
The team find themselves bottom of the championship standings after the first five races of 2018 with Lance Stroll’s eighth place in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix the only time they’ve registered a points finish so far, a huge drop compared to the past two seasons where they have finished fifth in the final standings.
However Williams, the team’s deputy team principal, has rejected the idea that the team are on the way out, and they are currently in a spell of rebuilding.
“When you are winning it’s fantastic and when you are not then you have to re-organise and regroup, and it’s always about how you cope with those challenges,” Williams said to Autosport. “At the moment there is a huge spirit within Williams to get this fixed.
“People can tune in and they can see our performance on the TV and then think: ‘What on earth is going on at Williams?’
“But anyone who thinks that Williams is on its way out or in a spiral of decline or any other analogy you want to use, would be very wrong.”
Williams insists the team are aiming to better tenth in the championship, and the rebuilding of the team, which has been complicated slightly by the recent departure of Ed Wood as chief designer due to personal reasons, is ongoing and will just need some patience for it to be completed.
“Tenth is nowhere near where we want to be, but sometimes you need to almost have that kind of dose of reality to set yourself a different course and move forward,” added Williams.
“And we will. Everyone needs a bit of patience to allow us to do that.”
