Austrian GP: Williams at a loss for lack of pace

The results of qualifying for the 2017 Austrian Grand Prix would see the Williams team achieve one of their poorest results for quite some time. Their cars could only manage seventeenth and eighteenth with the results been a continuation of a weekend that has seen the Williams team struggle to find pace from their FW40. This is even with a variety of upgrades that the team brought for this race weekend.

The last time the Williams team saw neither car make it past the first period in qualifying was the 2015 British Grand Prix. For Williams Technical Head Paddy Lowe this result is one that the team is struggling to get to grips with as they unable to determine the reasons behind their lack of pace.

Lowe would comment on the results of qualifying by saying: "These days are sent to test us, and in my experience if you make good use of them you learn a lot, and it makes you stronger for next time."

As for the circumstances behind why the Williams team were not able to turn around the FW40's lack of pace Lowe added: "We were immediately slow, starting yesterday."

"We were doing different bits of testing across the garage in the normal way, but it was obvious that the pace wasn't in the normal ranking.

"So we did a lot of trials in FP2, we felt we had a good direction from that, and put all our best thinking and analysis and effort into FP3.

"We changed the balance of the car, but we didn't actually make it any quicker.

"We tried a few more things going into qualifying, which also didn't make it quicker. The honest answer is we're not quick here but we don't know why at the moment.

"All our best ideas were already deployed either in FP3 or in qualifying. We'll have to go away and spend a lot more time analysing the situation."