Williams qualifying performance down to circuit, not car - Lowe

Paddy Lowe says Williams' performance in qualifying in Baku was enhanced more by the track's characteristics rather than by any significant improvement of its car.

Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin easily made the Q2 cut on Saturday, a first this year for the Russian, and ultimately concluded the day just outside the top-ten, the Canadian missing out on Q3 by a mere 0.103 seconds.

On Friday, Lowe revealed the Grove-based outfit had initiated a major operation to fix the issues impacting its FW41. While the 2018 charger has made a step forward, Williams' technical director insisted the results of Saturday's afternoon session were deceptive.

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"It's great morale for the team to get two cars into the top of Q2 and almost into Q3, and underneath that there are some incremental improvements we've made in all sorts of areas, whether to the car or operationally," Lowe told Autosport.

"But on the other hand, this circuit suits our car well, it was the same last year.

"We're not under the illusion that we've made this much progress in terms of overall performance."

Lowe also minimized the impact of its Mercedes power unit being allowed to run a stronger mode for longer in qualifying, a benefit Force India's Otmar Szafnauer valued at up to one tenth of a second.

"People will talk a lot about that but if that was a factor then you would see the same differentials emerge with the top three teams, and you would see Mercedes massively quicker at this race compared to the other two," said Lowe.

"I don't believe it's the explanation."

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