Williams eyes 'great opportunity' with new F1 rules in 2017

Williams has a "great opportunity" to close up to Formula 1's frontrunners when new regulations arrive in 2017, says the team's performance chief Rob Smedley.

After finishing third in the F1 constructors' championship for the past two seasons, Williams has slipped to fourth after eight races of the present campaign, trailing Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.

Williams is not as well financed as those teams, placing greater strain on its efforts to develop this year's FW38 in tandem with its design for next year, when F1 will introduce faster cars with wider tyres.

But Smedley reckons next year presents a chance for Williams to close the gap to F1's bigger teams, despite lacking their resources.

"The way we develop the cars in Formula 1 now, with the aerodynamic testing restrictions, is much more favourable for someone who is resource restricted," Smedley said.

"2017 offers Williams a great opportunity to close back to the frontrunners.

"We have to be able to do that, otherwise you join the second tier of Formula 1.

"We have to exploit that opportunity to the maximum, but the target of the company is to do that and move forwards, not just stay where it is.

"There are a lot of strengths at Williams, and we've got to continue to exploit those strengths as well as trying to grow the weaker areas as well."

Smedley said it was vital that Williams continued to focus on upping its game in "all the areas" rather than focusing on particular weaknesses in isolation.

"There's no one particular weakness," he added.

"It's the perennial mistake in Formula 1 - let's all focus on this particular area.

"Unless there is some kind of glaring mistake you can't [do that].

"Even if you are slightly weaker in one area it doesn't mean you should put more weight in that area, because you have to keep all of the plates spinning and push forwards in every area.

"We have to keep finding performance on the car, whether that's by the mechanics of the car, or the aerodynamics, or via the tyre technology.

"We've got to keep pushing forwards with the [entire] operation of our company."