Patrick Head admits that Williams' new FW30 is not yet fast enough to challenge the likes of Ferrari and McLaren.
Williams co-owner plays down significance of early testing pace
Patrick Head admits that Williams' new FW30 is not yet fast enough to challenge the likes of Ferrari and McLaren-Mercedes.
The team's 2008 challenger made an impressive debut at Valencia last week, with drivers Kazuki Nakajima and Nico Rosberg both breaking into the top six on the timesheets.
But despite the apparent improvement in speed compared to last year's car, Williams co-owner Head says they still have some way to go to bridge the gap between themselves and F1's frontrunners.
"The car is better and faster than last year's," he told
Autosport. "But we can still see there is a good gap between Ferrari and ourselves, so we have got a lot of work to do.
"Like most of the teams we are expecting to develop our car before the first race in Melbourne, but I doubt we will be sitting on the first row of the grid in Melbourne. I hope we are reasonably well up though."
Faster
Asked for his thoughts on the FW30's first test, Head said: "We are never happy... it was okay. It is never acceptable, but it is the right direction. It is a faster car, but not fast enough yet."
Nevertheless, Williams' former technical director - and now engineering director - is refusing to put forward his predictions for the new season, claiming testing times are not necessarily an accurate barometer.
"I don't know," he said. "Before the season starts you never know where everyone is, but certainly behind Ferrari and McLaren it looks quite close."
