How Williams has confronted its demons head-on

Being the first car out of the pits at the start of testing won't win George Russell and Williams any prizes come the end of the F1 season, but it was nevertheless a significant moment in making up for the team's shambolic start to 2019

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What a contrast from last year. Twelve months ago, Williams was in crisis, its new car build running late and causing its FW42 to miss the first two days of testing action. This time around, Williams has not only managed to complete a shakedown with the car prior to testing, but it also achieved one of its most ambitious aims.

Speaking earlier this year, deputy team principal Claire Williams had said: "We set ourselves some really tough targets over the winter, around aero in particular, about finding performance, and then on some mechanical issues as well and these have been going well.

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Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.

Jonathan has won multiple awards for journalism - in 1991 he was the winner of the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Sir William Lyons’ Award for young journalists, in 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Individual accolade for consumer journalism in the Haymarket wards, in 2011 he won Haymarket’s Scoop of the Year, and in 2018 he was awarded a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for his contribution to F1 journalism.