Paddy Lowe thinks there are some "very encouraging" signs about the FW42

Despite all of the things that went badly at Williams during pre-season testing in Barcelona, Chief Technical Officer Paddy Lowe thinks there are some "very encouraging" things to take away from the feedback the car gave.

The Grove-based team had a nightmare start to pre-season testing in Barcelona, missing over two days of testing because their car wasn't ready to go on track yet.

When it did go on track, it proved to be the slowest car on the grid by quite a wide margin, with Robert Kubica finishing the last day over a second slower than any other car.

Still, despite these struggles, Paddy Lowe remains positive, saying Kubica's feedback was encouraging for the team.

“[Kubica said it was] a car that is far more driveable, a car that you can work with from a driving point of view, you can control your management of tyre, you can control the balance and pace, was definitely not a description we could have given about last year’s car," Lowe told RaceFans.

“So that is very encouraging.”

“Something where you turn into a corner and you know what’s going to happen because it happened last time. This is one of the key aspects that has been improved very considerably,” he concluded, as Williams hope to leave their worst-ever season in 2018 in the past.