More to come from Williams

Williams has not had the best of times so far this season but technical director Patrick Head and driver Ralf Schumacher are confident there is more to come from the team. Williams has yet to claim a win this year and its best chance was lost when ...

Williams has not had the best of times so far this season but technical director Patrick Head and driver Ralf Schumacher are confident there is more to come from the team. Williams has yet to claim a win this year and its best chance was lost when Juan Pablo Montoya retired from the lead of the Austrian Grand Prix with a blown engine.

Ralf Schumacher.

Photo by Brousseau Photo.

Head knows it's been a poor start but believes things will improve: "There is an overall acknowledgement that we started the season at too low a level, but we've improved the car a lot since the beginning of the year and we are on quite a strong improvement slope," he told Autosport.

"We have been lucky in that we are only 29 points behind the championship leaders, when you can score 18 in a single race. We don't consider ourselves out of the game and when I see people say it will be a three-way fight between McLaren, Ferrari and Renault it just makes me smile. I suspect we will be players pretty soon."

Williams is currently third in the Constructors' standings, tied on 35 points with Renault. Ralf Schumacher is as optimistic as Head that things will get better and is aiming for more podium finishes and hopefully wins.

"We should be up there in another two months," Ralf told the British press. "It's something we need to push forward. This is a very important period for us to understand this car, get it to the optimum and understand what to do for next year. It is nearly mid- season but it's looking very promising. We have the right people in the right places and there is a lot to come."

"I don't want to comment on the championship. At the moment we are after wins and podiums, which we haven't managed a lot this year. Let's achieve that first on a consistent base and then we can talk about next year. It is fair to say that when we started in February with the testing of the new car it wasn't brilliant but we have made a big step since."