Williams: performance 'achingly shocking'

Williams are currently a lowly eighth place in the constructors' championship and have not scored a point since Nico Rosberg's seventh placed finish at the Nurburgring in May.

That dismal run has left Williams deeply disappointed, but he says he is not despondent about their plight.

"It's the worst we've been since we got proper with Patrick (Head) and we started in 1977," said Williams, referring to the launch of his Grand Prix team. "The lowest we've ever been since then is fifth - so eighth is unblinkingly, achingly shocking.

"The sport is much more difficult now, but I'm not crying on this. We want to beat the others and we can - there is some very good opposition, including six manufacturers, and that's the mountain to climb for us. But it can be done."

Speaking about the problems his team have encountered this year, Williams declined to get too specific about addressing blame. But he said they were aware of what action was needed to turn the situation around.

"Maybe the product is the problem and we have an idea of what we need to do," he explained. "I can't talk about it - but we know what we need to do to produce a faster car."

"Some of the reasons why we have failed in races is lack of adherence to correct internal processes. That sort of trouble. No one's left anything undone - that I'm aware of. I don't want to talk too much about it. There have been a lot of red faces and embarrassment. It's very hard to beat them at the moment and we've not kept up the progress."

Although there was speculation in Monza that the team may be about to make a major appointment to the technical staff, Williams insists that there will just be minor changes to his organisation.

"We're going to start working at 9.30 rather than 10.00am," he joked. "No, serious, there will be no major shake-up, just continual evolution."

And he denied that the team's status as an independent was a key factor in preventing them taking the fight to the manufacturers.

"We can keep up - but it's hard work," he said. "It is doable though. There is a lot of money out there for F1 - it's a very attractive global sport to a number of many companies around the world - and the big word is globalisation.

"Toyota had a good look around our factory and said they haven't got much more than we've got. But we spend a lot of management time in working to save money."