Q & A with Williams's Sam Michael

Sam Michael - Williams' technical director: On the aero first, I think it's a bit early to say where anyone is because we've only been running for a day and to know where we are compared to other teams is impossible on a day like today. You are not going to see that all the way through winter testing because teams are going to change from one test to another.

I really think it's going to take five or six races to see what the spread of the field is. The rules were published in October 2007 and we started work straight away. We had our first wind tunnel test in December 2007.

I don' t think that's a lot different to where anyone else started. The difference was that we wrapped up a lot of our resources around April 2008 and that had an adverse effect on FW30 development.

You could see that in the latter half 0f 2008. But we took that decision because we thought our best chance of closing the gap was in 2009 and we didn't think we could achieve that in 2008. Whether that pays off or not, I don't know. It's anyone's guess.

On aero, it's way to early to see what anyone can do. On the KERS, I would say from the outside it looks like BMW and Mercedes are the most advanced, not Williams. So from that point of view that's going to be a long one to run as well.

Q. Last year the car's competitiveness varies from track to track - has that inconsistency been resolved?

SM: Our competitiveness in the second half of the season was affected by our development for 09. A lot of the other teams developed right up to the last race and you could still see new parts, particularly on the McLaren, going on in Brazil. We, in the last ten races, didn't update anything on the car because we didn't have the resource to work on both programmes to the maximum.

Every car has its different characteristics and strengths and weaknesses, but development rate is the key to everything. If you change the development on one car, you can't do that without having an effect on the other. Because the cars in Formula 1 now are so heavily refined, there are no crap teams in Formula 1 anymore. All the teams are very well structured and have a very good understanding of the car. So the differentiators you are looking for are tiny.

Q. But even early in the season you would be quick on some tracks and slow on the faster tracks. Will the rule changes fix some of that imbalance?

SM: Every team is like that. If you look at Ferrari and McLaren they have exactly the same problem. They have circuits where they are strong and circuits where they are weak so it's all relative - a couple of tenths in either direction.

The fact that they are doing that and they are eight tenths quicker than us because they had a more competitive car than us doesn't mean that they are not seeing the same differentiators. For sure, Williams have been traditionally strong on street circuits. McLaren have always been stronger than Ferrari on street circuits while Ferrari have been strong on high-speed tracks.

But you are talking about two or three tenths now - last year that took you down ten places. All that's happening is that as the rules become more and more refined, those characteristics that are a function of the team stand out much more than they normally do.

Those have always been there. Even when we were winning Grands Prix in 2003, we'd go somewhere like Silverstone which was relatively poor for us but still finish third or fourth because the package was very good. Then we'd go to a street circuit and we'd win by miles. So those changes from one track to another, they are built into the team's philosophy, how they develop their car, but they are there and they don't change very easily because they are things that are ingrained in the car over a long period of time.

Q. There are only 19 more test days left - how nervous are you about finishing a big project like KERS in time? And if you have to decide not to run KERS in the first few races do you have a chance to introduce it during the season without testing it?

SM: It's very difficult to sign off KERS in time for Melbourne with all the other things we are trying to do. We are trying to make sure that the cooling and gearbox and everything else on the car is working first and we are also concentrating on making sure our mechanical and aerodynamic package is optimised before we try and get KERS on the car.

Because if you get something wrong on the aerodynamics or you get something wrong mechanical, you can lose seconds. Whereas KERS, even when you have everything 100% reliable is worth two and a half or three tenths.

It's important, and that two and a half or three tenths will be important during the season but to start with it will be swamped by he aero and getting the setup of the car right around the slicks and making sure all the mechanicals don't break.

On the second question, reduced testing makes introducing any new component during the season difficult, but not impossible. We can use Fridays for this and obviously you have dynos and rigs in the factory to sign things off as well. Introducing KERS during the season if you don't start with it won't be easy, but it's not impossible.

Q. What are your objectives for the year?

SM: The main thing is continue improving our performance and make sure we are respectable for the budget and efficiency that we have. Williams have won Grands Prix before, we've won championships before, and everyone in the company wants to return to that level. Our target is to do the best that we can with the resources that we can and I'm sure that we can hold the team up in a good light.