Following this mornings subdued roll out of the Williams FW30, the team have released a few more photos detailing various parts of the car and Sam Michael has spoken to the media. Williams hope this new car will be a step forward in performance and help push them closer to the Renaults and BMWs, currently occupying the best of the rest zone behind Ferrari and McLaren. The car’s interim livery is also particularly special, thanking the 519 strong workforce at the team for their support and contribution to the ongoing success of the squad, as well as detailing some of the key sponsors over the 29 years of competition.

Our focus has been on performance as well as refining our packaging and weight distribution. We are designing a tidier car with a higher standard of build quality. The FW30 should represent a good step forward when all of the many small areas of attention and improvement are brought together in the overall package.

With four years of regulation stability, we have a good basis to be progressive about the development of this season’s car. With a good reliability record last year, we have been able to build on this quality while also turning some of our attention to clear performance objectives. Sam Michael.

Unfortunately, the new car has been damaged already with young test driver Nico Hulkenberg entrusted with the first run of the machine. The German went off the track after 20 laps and the floor has been knocked about a fair bit. The team will need to make the necessary repairs this evening in order for regular drivers Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima to take over testing duties for the remainder of the test.

Hulkenberg managed to lap the Valencia circuit in 1m14.559s, while Fernando Alonso went out in the new Renault R28 after the fog had lifted and completed 39 laps en-route to a 1m13.027s.

Photographs Of The FW30