19/02/2016
NEWS STORY
Hours ahead of the first scheduled car launch of 2016 - that of the Ferrari - Williams has opted with a low-key approach, revealing its FW38 on Twitter.
"Say hello to the #FW38 #WeAreRacing," tweeted the team.
"My car for this season!" added Valtteri Bottas moments later. "The @WilliamsRacing #FW38. May it be an absolute beast! Do you like it? I do!"
"Williams has started to cement our position back amongst the front running teams after finishing third in the Championship in the past two seasons," said Frank Williams. "This has been a great achievement given the resources of those around us. Staying where we are will be a challenge in itself, but we are determined to keep improving because only winning will ever be good enough.
"We have a very stable team going into 2016, with Felipe and Valtteri teaming up for a third successive season. They work well together and both have the ideal blend of speed and consistency. Our technical team has also remained very consistent which will be to our advantage and we have some of the best engineering minds on the grid at our disposal.
"We have a busy couple of weeks of testing coming up to learn more about our package and to refine the car ahead of the first race. We will have to wait until Melbourne to find out exactly where we stand in the pecking order but I'm confident that our hard work over the winter will stand us in good stead."
"Securing third in the Constructors' Championship for two consecutive years is a great achievement," added Felipe Massa, "and one that comes with a lot of expectation - a momentum which I am excited to build on going into the new season. The team at the factory have worked really hard on the new car and we have spent a lot of time understanding where we need to improve. I have a lot of confidence in the team at Williams and I'm looking forward to getting behind the wheel of the FW38 to see how it performs. I'm equally delighted to be teammates with Valtteri for another year. He is a very talented driver who brings a lot to the team."
"This is always a really interesting and exciting time of the year because we have a new car and we can't wait to get it out on track to see how it feels and how fast it is," admitted Valtteri Bottas. "It's been a good winter and from what I've seen we seem to be headed in a good direction with this car. Testing next week will be our chance to see how our performance has improved since the last race. The development of the FW38 has been all positive in theory, now we just need to see it on track.
"As a team we need to be able to win races, which is what we are always trying to do. I'm sure we have made improvements everywhere as a team, so we're definitely looking to fight for better results this year. I'd like to thank everyone at the factory for their hard work over the winter in getting the car ready."
"2016 promises to be a very competitive year," concluded Claire Williams, Deputy Team Principal, "and there will be a number of strong teams who have us in their sights. We are confident that we have made a step forward over the winter and that the FW38 will build on the strengths of the FW37 and address some of its weaknesses. We started design work on the car earlier than normal and hopefully this extra development time will stand us in good stead.
"The car we are launching today is by no means the final product. We are already planning updates for Melbourne and will be pushing for constant improvements over the course of the season. Williams enters 2016 in a strong place. We have a great team of people and over the past two years we have started to regain our competitive edge. Now we need to build on that and take this team back to where we all want it to be."
Check out our Williams FW38 gallery, here.