Lowe 'disappointed' with Williams' season so far

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Williams technical director Paddy Lowe has admitted that he's disappointed with how the team has been performing so far in 2017.

Williams is currently in fifth place in the constructors championship, just two points ahead of Toro Rosso. However they're a long way - 60 points - behind Force India in fourth.

"Definitely at the half-term report stage we’re not looking as good as we’d like," Lowe said.

"We’re very disappointed. The car is quicker than that points table would reflect," he insisted.

Lowe added that the car's inconsistency between circuits has been a major stumbling block as they seek to improve performance.

"We’ve seen a lot of variation from circuit to circuit," he conceded. "There are places that we significantly under-perform.

"We really need to have a car that will perform more equally at different destinations," he continued. "That’s a big focus for next year."

Williams determined to fight Force India for fourth - Lowe

“Some of those things we understand, some of them we don’t. So there’s a lot of work to do," he added.

“But we’re very much hoping we can have a better second half of the season and put some of that right."

The team scored a major breakthrough at Baku with Lance Stroll's shock podium. It was part of a run of three points-paying outings for the Canadian rookie, who shrugged off early criticism.

His team mate Felipe Massa has managed to finish in the points in three of the most recent six Grand Prix races. But he crashed out in Canada and retired with a rear damper failure in Baku.

Massa didn't even get to race in Hungary after falling unwell. He was replaced by Paul di Resta at short notice, who retired late in the race with mechanical issues.

Lowe has said that the team will soon start to transition to focusing on the development of next year's car. However, there's not going to be a sudden cut-off of upgrades for the FW40.

"It's always a bit of a merge really," he said. "You gradually put more and more focus onto the following year."

He explained that it was a case of deciding which elements were limited to the current car, with no potential to carry over to the following year

"You may reach a point where you say you're not going to invest the effort in those within the current season," he said. "[It's] a case-by-case basis rather than having some sort of overall black and white decision."

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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.