Williams Racing to implement updates for sensitivity issues.

Coming off the opening round of the 2021 Formula One season in Bahrain the Williams Racing Team has has confirmed that it is intending to implement further updates to the FW43B will the aim being to reduce the cars sensitivity to wind related issues that became apparent in testing and the first race weekend. The team has found that the in design changes in line with the new regulations has seen the car being affected by changes in the strength and direction of any wind. This was particularly noticeable in Bahrain with the circuits high winds.

Head of vehicle performance Robson has confirmed this issue with the wind sensitivity has turned out to be worse than the team expected to see once the car was on the track and the team could look at live data from their test programme.

In a recent interview with GPFans.com Robson said: "We certainly didn’t sit down and say we’re going to make this trade and try to be quick on any race where it’s not windy. That’s not what we set out to achieve.

"I think we were accepting of it being a bit more sensitive in order to drive up the total downforce and reduce the drag on the car.

"It’s come out a slightly different trade to the one we were expecting and now it’s a case of understanding why that is and rectifying it as best we can."

Robson also confirmed that the team is working towards a solution to these sensitivity issues even though they are also working on the teams 2022 car.

Robson added: "All aerodynamic cars have a yaw sensitivity and any that don’t simply don’t generate any downforce. It goes with the territory.

"We’ve made it a bit worse, not by intention but it’s part of how you have to make some trades to make some breakthroughs with creating downforce or reducing drag.

"What you try to do is once you’ve got that base car you then start working on the yaw-sensitivity side of it and you hopefully ratchet it up.

"It’s one way of developing a car and it’s where we are at the moment. We’re in that phase where the downforce and drag of the car are both better than they were last year.

"The current price we’re paying for that is a slightly increased sensitivity to the wind and I think the aim at the moment is to hang onto the good stuff and recover some of that yaw sensitivity.

"There are some upgrades planned, the aerodynamicists are currently working hard on that.

"I think we’ll see fewer upgrades than normal because a lot of attention is turned onto next year’s car, but I think we would definitely like to improve the wind sensitivity this year and there will be some test parts in a few races time that will help us take a step in that direction.

"That’s the plan, and I think if we can understand on this car how to better trade one for the other, that should also apply for next year’s car, at least philosophically if not in direct component comparison."