Williams has revealed a major aerodynamic upgrade for its FW42 ahead of the German Grand Prix.

The only team yet to score a point or reach Q2 this season began the season on the back foot as its FW42 chassis was not ready in time for the first pre-season test. However deputy team principal Claire Williams said their efforts to recover from that setback have gone according to plan.

“We’ve had various test parts that we bought each and every race, probably for the last four or five [races], to improve certain areas, notably on the mechanical side of things. And they’ve all done exactly what we expected them to do. They’ve all been adopted and they’ve certainly helped deliver performance through just creating better balance and stability in the car.

“But then obviously we need needed to focus on aero performance as well because that’s where we were really down after the winter, through putting in this new approach that we did last year. But we always knew that was going to take some time to come to fruition and this weekend we obviously have test parts in relation to aero that we will be running in tomorrow’s session.

“We’re looking forward to seeing how they do. It certainly feels that we are in a much better position than we’ve been and it’s now just about moving forward and continuing that development path that we’re on and hoping that we can continue to close down the gap to pinpoint kind of platform that we needed to make progress.”

The new parts include a heavily revised floor and barge boards. Williams praised her team’s efforts in preparing the new parts so quickly following its troubled start to 2019.

“A considerable amount has been done back at the factory,” Williams explained. “Not just in aero in order to develop the parts but in the design office as well to get them drawn up. And then the amount of work that’s gone in in manufacturing, off the back of what’s been a very hard year for that group especially, has been really quite extraordinary.

“It just demonstrates the spirit that we’ve got with Williams still. The teamwork that we’ve got and the morale to keep pushing and to keep fighting to get us back to where we want to get to. And it’s really been a massive undertaking for an awful lot of people and they have done really an extraordinary job to get to this point here this weekend for us.”

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2019 F1 season