Williams Racing fills in launch date for 2021 car

Phillip van Osten 05/02/2021 at 11:5105/02/2021 at 12:09

Williams Racing has revealed the launch date of its FW43B, with the Grove-based outfit set to present its 2021 contender on March 5, or just a week before the start of pre-season testing in Bahrain.

As teams carry over their 2020 chassis into this season per F1's regulations, Williams has opted to add a 'B' to its FW43 appellation rather than attribute the all-new FW44 label which will likely go with next year's charger.

Williams' driver line-up remains unchanged this season with George Russell and Nicholas Latifi.

The British outfit also enters its first full season under the management of new owner Dorilton Capital which acquired the team from the Williams family last summer.

F1's third most successful outfit after Ferrari and McLaren will be seeking to pull itself up the grid after a 2020 campaign in which it failed to score a single championship point despite improving its overall performance.

Formula 1's 2021 race calendar and launch dates

But while Williams aims to take another step forward, team boss Simon Roberts has already warned that it is taking a cautious approach to 2021 as it manages its resources ahead of F1's big regulation overhaul scheduled for 2022.

"We definitely have time, people, windtunnel and CFD availability in the early part of the year to develop the '21 car, and that's what we're going to do," Roberts said recently.

"There will be a crossover point. If you said: 'When is the crossover point?' I don't know. But it's not going to be August - we'll be well into the 100 percent 2022 [car development] before August.

"But it's not the end of January either. Somewhere in that range, we'll cross over."