The car will feature a battery KERS, rather than Williams’s flywheel system which is now being developed for industrial uses. For the last few seasons the ratios have to be 12mm wide and 600g per pair, whereas in the past we were down to 8-9mm gears.” But I’m not expecting it to be a problem because the new gearbox has the same stiffness characteristics as the old one and the rulebook forces us to be conservative with the internals.

“With gearbox usage increasing from four to five races this year,” says Michael, “reliability is vital. The Williams gearbox is the smallest ever produced by Williams and works in conjunction with the new pull-rod rear suspension. The launch spec aerodynamic package was completed in November, and since then the aero team has been focused on the first-race upgrade. The major layout decisions were finalised in June and the new gearbox was on the dyno by September. The car is the first iteration of the FW33 but there will be an aero upgrade at the first race in Bahrain and there will be many others during the course of the year.Īerodynamic work on the FW33 began in December 2009, with the mechanical design process starting in March 2010. It allowed us to increase the optimisation time spent on each part of the car.” “We’ve improved our way of working by increasing the communication between the mechanical and aerodynamic departments, and that improved our decision making processes.

“The design of this year’s car has been pretty smooth,” said the team’s technical director Sam Michael. The car will run in interim livery for the moment but a new livery will come later. The Williams team has released pictures of the new FW33.

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