How Williams has confronted its demons head-on

What a contrast from last year. Twelve months ago, Williams was in crisis; the build of its new car ran late, causing the FW42 to miss the first two days of testing action. This time around, Williams has not only managed to complete a shakedown with the car prior to testing, but it also achieved one of its most ambitious aims.

Speaking earlier this year, deputy team principal Claire Williams had said: "We set ourselves some really tough targets over the winter, around aero in particular, about finding performance, and then on some mechanical issues as well and these have been going well.

"The key target now is getting the car to that test on time. At the lights, when they go green, if not before."

How spot on she was.

As the seconds counted down to the 9am start at Barcelona earlier on Wednesday morning, George Russell was duly sat waiting at the end of the pitlane, ready to go out the second the track went live.

Sat alongside him, Carlos Sainz Jr in the McLaren was stationary in the slow lane and could have nudged ahead: but there was no hesitation from Russell as the green lights flickered on. He was gone.

Asked by Autosport about the significance of that moment, Russell says that getting out of the pitlane first - in the wake of what happened last year - was a big morale boost.

"We had an intense morning planned, and to get everything in, it was important to get out from the beginning," he says.

"Things fit properly, the car looks better from the design perspective, so I think overall it has been a very positive morning" George Russell

"But also off the back of last year, I guess it was psychologically important for all of us, and for everybody who has worked day and night back at the factory, to see their car go out first.

"It was an incredibly tough time for some of the people back at Grove last year when they're working absolutely flat out to try and make things ready, working double time. So now it's just a relief for all and we can get cracking on this test programme."

While Russell has not got carried away looking at the morning times, after a year where Williams had been picking up the tail end of the field, being in the mix was obviously an encouragement.

His best time from the first morning of 1m18.168s was nearly one second faster than he managed in qualifying at last year's Spanish GP. It was also just three-hundredths adrift of his best time from testing last year, a 1m18.130s.

"The quality, the build quality of the car is a much better standard than last year," he adds. "Things fit properly, the car looks better from the design perspective, so I think overall it has been a very positive morning.

"But nevertheless, come the end of the week and going into Melbourne, it doesn't matter if the car is here on time or in one piece, it matters on the lap time. We just need to focus on our programme and focus on these two weeks."

Williams's bid to move off the back of the grid comes during an especially challenging set of circumstances for F1 teams, which face the usual development headaches for 2020 while also needing to started on understanding the new set of regulations for 2021.

But while the possibility of splitting resources delivers as many dangers as opportunities, the team's former technical director Sam Michael (below) thinks any work that the team does in getting to the bottom of last year's woes will put it in good stead for the long term too.

"Though the aero regulations change all the fundamental principle flow mechanisms around the car, because of the huge changes with the ground effect and wheels etc, so all the primary wakes on the car are going to change," he says.

"However, the base understanding of what you'd want to achieve, which is produce more downforce with drag as low as possible, that objective doesn't change.

"So I think if you understand the flow around the car well, that's the type of thing that puts you in a good position."

Michael, who switched to McLaren in 2011 before leaving three years later to start a data management company, adds: "If you're developing the understanding, rather than just iteratively chasing a number, then I think it's still very much worth the investment.

"The season hasn't even started, so you'd still very much still be investing in that. If your development is coming through just brute force of iteration-style, which rarely I think works in F1 these days because everybody is so smart, then it's quite different.

"It's not coming down to whether you've got a rig or not got a rig, or whether you've got a dyno or not got a dyno. It comes down to the people and how they use it" Sam Michael

"If I look at Williams specifically, they have good people there who are passionate about what they want to achieve. They've had some fantastic bright spots in history both at the end of rule changes and at the beginning, so I think if they focus on the goodness inside the aero and design groups, then that will come out.

"There's no reason why they can't achieve that. They've got all the right people there to be able to do it and if they focus on that understanding then I'm sure they can achieve it. It's really down to them and what decisions they take."

Michael has first-hand experience of seeing Williams bounce back from troubled campaigns. Back in 2006, following the end of its long-term works deal with BMW, it endured a tough season with Cosworth engines as it slipped from fifth to eighth in the constructors' standings.

However, it recovered quickly the following year, ending 2007 fourth overall after its switch to Toyota engines, which Michael considers as proof that in F1 you should never simply give up on a campaign in the hope that things will get better in the longer term.

"Formula 1 has such a short memory that it's very difficult for them to actually turn around and say, 'We're going to write this season off and focus on the next season'," he adds.

"I'm not saying they're saying that, but if the team does that, they may not be there the next season to capitalise on all of that. So you've got to be very careful with that approach because a sponsor would also look at it and say, 'OK, that's fantastic, we'll see you next year, you get everything sorted and we'll come on board then' so you're balancing off expectations.

"If you look back to F1 30 years ago, there was a big difference between teams who were haves and have nots in terms of the technology, so - if you go back to the 1980s - some people had a windtunnel and others didn't. Some people had gearbox dynos, some people didn't. Some had seven-poster rigs, some people didn't.

"So you had that distinction where, if you had that piece of equipment, even if you were not very good at using it, you had an advantage because you had that brute force of development.

"What's different now in Formula 1 is the fact that everyone has got that stuff, so it's not coming down to whether you've got a rig or not got a rig, or whether you've got a dyno or not got a dyno. It comes down to the people and how they use it.

"And that is the reason why teams do have turnarounds and that's exactly why Williams can do it, because they've got all the stuff there. They've got windtunnels and CFD computers and simulations and programmes and everything else. So therefore it does come down to how people interact and gel with each other."

Being first out of the pitlane for pre-season testing may ultimately count for nothing when it comes to the battles that lie ahead, but in sending out a message of intent it was a positive sign that the fightback is firmly on at Williams.