Claire Williams describes 2018 season as "an enormous shock"

Claire Williams claims the poor Williams performances came as "an enormous shock". The British team have picked up just seven points this season as they lie at the foot of the table. With two races left, it's looking unlikely that Lance Stroll or Sergey Sirotkin will score any more points.

Claire Williams felt optimistic before winter testing confirming the results have come as a major surprise. On Monday, Williams announced the departure of Rob Smedley, who will join Dirk de Beer (head of aerodynamics) and Ed Wood (Chief designer) through the exit door.

"It's been an enormous shock actually," Claire Williams told Formula 1.

“I fully expected to come into this year in a much better place. I think we all did, and probably a lot of fans of ours around the world thought that we were going to be coming out with a much quicker race car.

"That was the expectation, so when we got to testing, we didn’t even have to wait till Australia to really realise that that wasn’t the case."

Williams has just two more races to endure before turning full attention to their 2019 car. Having gone through all of the troubles, Claire Williams praises her team and staff for sticking together.

“One of the things that I’m proudest of this year is that the team has really stuck together," Williams added.

“We could have imploded, we could have all started a load of in-fighting, we could have sacked half the people, but that’s not the way that I wanted this to play out."