Russell: Changes promising for Williams heading into 2020

George Russell anticipates a promising 2020 for Williams following its nightmare during the current Formula 1 campaign.

After missing the start of pre-season testing and coming into the year with a poor performing and slow F1 car, Williams has been relegated to the back of the grid all season while rookie Russell has been unable to score a single point so far in 2019.

Comparing the Williams FW42 from the start of the year to its current specification with upgrades from throughout the season, Russell feels clear improvements have been made which lend itself to a head start for the British team looking towards 2020.

“I think the upgrades we’ve brought to the car recently, it’s more been looking into 2020,” Russell said. “We knew that it’s not going to necessarily unlock a lot of performance on the car as it is now – but it’s definitely looking promising going into next year.

“Overall, the car is definitely nicer to drive. I mean, at the start of the year it was not nice at all, let’s say, and it was pretty tricky just to get around a lap.

“But we’ve done a good job to fine-tune the balance, just to make it a nicer car to drive – but now we need to rely on the engineers back at the factory to bolt some more downforce on it.”

Williams looks set to endure its worst-ever F1 campaign having scored just one point this year and sit bottom of the world constructors’ championship trailing nearest rivals Haas by 27 points with two rounds to go.

Russell will stay at Williams for 2020 with his teammate yet to be officially announced following Robert Kubica’s call to leave the team at the end of this season. Formula 2 front-runner and Williams test and reserve driver Nicholas Latifi is tipped as favourite to step up to replace Kubica for next season.