Williams 'not giving up on 2018' despite poor start

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Williams' chief technical officer Paddy Lowe insists that the team is absolutely not giving up on this year's world championship season.

Seven races in, Williams is at the bottom of the constructors standings with just four points, all of which were won by Lance Stroll in Baku.

The team has started to shake up its technical team amid deep disappointment over the performance of this year's FW41 chassis. It's already looking at plans for 2019, but Lowe says that doesn't mean they've given up on this year.

"We're already working on next year in parallel, but we absolutely haven't given up on this year," he said. "We are doing a lot of work back at base, some very significant work, it's just not yet appeared on the car.

"The season is still early, and we're absolutely not giving up on it."

Lowe said that the departures of chief designer Ed Wood and aero head Dirk de Beer hadn't left a whole in the set-up at Grove.

"We're really in good shape, we've got a good team together at the moment," he said. "We will continue to build and reinforce, but we're not lacking in the right effort in the right areas at the moment."

Adding more races 'has to make financial sense', says Williams

The team is hopeful that this week's return to France will see the team get a boost from former glories in previous races at the Circuit Paul Ricard.

"It is a place we know very well, with the team having spent many long winters there between 1989-1992," Lowe pointed out.

"There are many memories from our previous visits to Paul Ricard, but one that stands out personally was when Williams first tested traction control here with the FW14B during the winter of 1991.

"Damon Hill was behind the wheel and he thought it was holding him back, but he was actually a second a lap faster!"

Although he's too young to remember the last Grand Prix held at Paul Ricard in 1990, Lance Stroll is looking to bounce back from his first lap exit at Montreal.

"I know the Paul Ricard track from when I drove in Formula 3," he said. "I had a good time there and won a race.

"But I have to be honest because I can’t say I like it," he admitted. It is just run offs everywhere and I am not a big fan."

Meanwhile his rookie team mate Sergey Sirotkin is hoping to score his first world championship points at Le Castellet.

"Paul Ricard is quite a well-known track for me," he said. "I did thousands of kilometres there last year.

"Although I know the track quite well, there are a lot of things that change over a race weekend that you never know. It’s a new track for everyone so it will be nice to see where we end 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.