"There is some light at the end of the tunnel" for Williams

Williams deputy team principal Claire Williams thinks there is "some light at the end of the tunnel" at the Grove-based team, as she reveals the team aren't just "hoping for a miracle" in their road to recovery.

The Grand Prix weekend in Azerbaijan last week was one to forget for Williams. The freak accident in FP1 that happened to George Russell, when a loose drain cover ruined the floor and chassis of his FW42, was followed in qualifying when Robert Kubica misjudged turn 8 and totalled his car by going into the barrier.

All the broken parts of the two cars have set back upgrades at the factory in Grove, Claire Williams explains, as she also explains how much of a boost the recent comeback of Williams co-founder Sir Patrick Head has been.

“Ahead of this weekend I was kind of feeling there was a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, and then this happens [Russell’s FP1 drain cover hit], but I’m not going to worry too much about that," she told Crash.net. "It’s one of those things.

“Patrick coming in obviously for us is a great thing. He’s acting as a guide for our team of engineers at the moment, just making sure that they’re doing everything that they should be doing.

“So we are now in a position where we have all our race quantities, we have the quality on those race quantities that we needed, and now we’re looking to bring the upgrades that have literally been sitting on a shelf as we’ve cleared the backlog out of manufacturing.

“So there is some light at the end of the tunnel, I think China demonstrated that we’ve brought a little bit of performance to the car, but we’re still far too far behind the ninth-placed team at the moment.

“We’re doing a lot of work back at Williams. If anyone thinks that we’re just hoping for a miracle or that things will just go our way at some point, that’s not the case. A lot of work has been going on to make sure that we put ourselves in the right position. Obviously Patrick is playing a role in that as well.”