Williams - 7/10
Perhaps the 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was a curse in disguise, but Williams’ double podium and late push for victory increased both hope and expectation that 2015 could see a race win or two. In the end, Williams stood relatively still while Mercedes increased its advantage and Ferrari leapt up to the spot of lead challenger.
Williams still did a good job and was rewarded with a number of podiums, but pit stop errors and a lack of pace in the wet are issues which have been dragging on for some time and resurfaced again. If it wasn’t for such a dire start to the year for Red Bull and Renault, then third place would have been in doubt.
To emphasise the point: In the first nine races of the year, Williams outscored Red Bull by 88 points and Force India by 112. In the final ten races, Red Bull scored 18 points more than Williams and Force India only scored nine fewer than the Grove outfit.
Admittedly, Williams was well aware it needs to make more progress over the winter and turned its attentions to its 2016 car early, causing its relative performance to dip in the latter races to round off a solid but unspectacular year.
