Chief technical officer Pat Symonds says the 2015 regulations caused “a slight headache” for Williams when designing its new car.
The FW37 was revealed on Wednesday morning as the team released the first images of the new car. While Symonds said Williams had some room to make changes to the car thanks to how light its predecessor was, he admitted the new regulations – which impact on front nose design and height – had proved more substantial than expected.
“We felt we came up against design barriers in the FW36 and so took the opportunity to remove those barriers for the benefit of the performance,” Symonds said. “The FW36 carried a reasonable amount of ballast, so we were able to make alterations to the design for added performance without the fear of adding excessive mass.”
“The change in regulations offered us a slight headache. The new front bulkhead and nose geometry had much more of an impact than we had initially anticipated and the effect on the aero was profound. The team have worked hard on pulling back the deficit these regulations have made for us.”
With Williams having finished an impressive 2014 season in third place in the constructors’ championship, Symonds said the focus was on building on the strengths of last year’s car while trying to remove its weaknesses.
“The notion for the FW37 was to look closely at the FW36 and its performances. We then went about recognising what had worked well and identifying and resolving the areas that we felt needed to be improved. Although the aerodynamics of the car were impressive there is always room for improvement particularly as we handle the new 2015 nose regulations.
“The first conceptual stage of the FW37 came before the FW36 had turned a wheel. The main element to this is understanding the rule changes and how they will affect the design of the car, from here we can start see if our ideas will fit within the regulations.”
Click here to see the full gallery of the first Williams FW37 images
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