Our major switch happened a while ago; the majority of our people are working on next year's car Pay Symonds

Q: Pat, you said in February that a late confirmation of the 2017 rules would favour the bigger teams and hurt the smaller ones. The rules have been confirmed, but fairly late - so are you feeling some pain? Pat Symonds: Well, yes, not everything was confirmed in the normal time frame - but everybody knew what was coming. The minor little changes that we had recently really are the small bits that come out when you look at the details. In terms of the aerodynamic definition of the car, we were able to go on with that in February time. As for the 'halo' device, obviously we don't know exactly where that is going, so we have to catch up with that - but it's not fundamental. So no pain, but I still stand by what I said: the later the regulations come out, the more it favours the big teams as they have a lot of people to look at different areas. That does hurt us. But in actual fact we knew the outline of the car in February, so I am reasonably comfortable. Q: Expectations are that most teams will be switching focus to 2017 around this time in the season. What is the intention at Williams? PS: Hah! In fact, even before that - our major switch happened a while ago. There are still people working on the current car; we still have upgrades that we will bring. We have a new floor that we are bringing to Hungary, a new wing in Monza - so there are still plenty of things coming. But sure, the majority of our people are working on next year's car. Q: When did the massive switch actually happen? PS: It doesn't happen on a fixed date - it is more that as each project on the current car comes to an end, that person then switches to next year. The point at which we've had more people working on the 2017 car than the 2016 car probably occurred in early June - something like that. I am not sure exactly as we don't make headcounts on that, but early June is my estimation.

I think that most of our competitors improved more than we expected Pat Symonds on Williams' 2016 form

Q: Was that early switch a strategic decision? At the moment you are a fairly comfortable fourth in the constructors' standings, and it doesn't look likely that those behind will catch up - while Red Bull might be too far ahead to realistically catch... PS: Yes, it is a strategic decision. But also a necessary decision. We are a small team and we really couldn't afford to leave things very late. Teams like ourselves, Force India or Toro Rosso have to make such a switch early, whereas the Ferraris, the Red Bulls, the Mercedes and McLarens of this world, they have double the headcount that we have and can run parallel much longer. Q: But was the relative security of a P4 finish also part of the decision process - and not only headcount? PS: It made the decision easier. Q: In all fairness the Williams FW38 is not the car you probably envisioned. Where has it gone astray? PS: I think that most of our competitors improved more than we expected. We made the improvements that we more or less had expected to make. We probably didn't set the targets high enough. Some of our competitors have improved a lot. But a huge factor also was that the power units got much more equal - and that is eroding some of the advantage that we had... Q: You've said that Mercedes' power unit supremacy will decrease next year too. Is that a fact, or just your belief? PS: That is what I believe. Q: Is it true that you've struggled to be sure that new upgrades will work? And if so, has that been a factor? PS: No, not really. I am very pleased with that aspect. We had one aerodynamic situation that worked, yes - but not quite as we wanted. But everything else was very close to target. Very close. Q: What have you learned for 2017? You just said that the power units are closing up: what will that mean for Williams next season? PS: It just gets harder. But on the other hand it is also an opportunity. The 2013 car was aerodynamically very poor. The 2014 car was a major step forward under the new regulations and I have no reason to believe that we can't do it again.

[In 2017] there is a lot more downforce - the drivers love that! Pat Symonds