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Symonds dismisses Lotus threat to Williams

Williams chief technical officer Pat Symonds doesn't believe Lotus will be a threat to his team this season.

Lotus has said it is targeting Williams and Red Bull having made a step forward over the winter following a switch to the Mercedes power unit. However, when asked by Sky Sports if he sees the Enstone team becoming a threat to Williams as the season progresses, Symonds replied: “No.

"I think that they’ve got a good car and they’ve moved forward a lot and well done to them. But like many teams, they really are quite tight on budget and therefore I think the development they’ll be able to do is somewhat limited.

“It’s early to say that they’re not a threat – they’re not a threat right at the moment. And my supposition is that it’ll be difficult for them to out-develop us. But one never knows.”

But Symonds says he doesn't believe the same logic applies to Williams in its attempts to close the gap to Ferrari, pointing to last year's development rate as proof.

“It makes it more challenging. Yes, without a doubt, Ferrari’s a much bigger organisation than Williams with enormous funding. That increases our challenge. But it was exactly like that last year; we started the season behind Ferrari, we finished the season in front of Ferrari. So it’s not a given that we can’t keep up.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.