Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsWilliams

First 2016 car unveiled as Williams launches FW38

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Williams has become the first team to unveil its 2016 car after releasing images of the FW38.

While the team had made no announcement of its plans to reveal the car, Williams released images of its 2016 design on Friday morning. The FW38 is the third to be powered by Mercedes, with the team looking to build on back-to-back third place finishes in the constructors' championship.

First images: Williams FW38

2015 saw Williams switch focus early on to this year's car and deputy team principal Claire Williams hopes the move will have led to a much stronger all-round package.

“2016 promises to be a very competitive year in Formula One and there will be a number of strong teams who have us in their sights," Williams said. "We are confident that we have made a step forward over the winter and that the FW38 will build on the strengths of the FW37 and address some of its weaknesses. We started design work on the car earlier than normal and hopefully this extra development time will stand us in good stead.

“The car we are launching today is by no means the final product. We are already planning updates for Melbourne and will be pushing for constant improvements over the course of the season. Williams enters 2016 in a strong place.

"We have a great team of people and over the past two years we have started to regain our competitive edge. Now we need to build on that and take this team back to where we all want it to be.”

The first pre-season test gets underway on Monday morning at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

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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.