Stroll hopeful updates resolve Williams ‘malfunctions’

Lance Stroll is optimistic Williams’s upgrades delivered for the German Grand Prix will fix its nightmare performance problems suffered at Silverstone.

The British team endured a frustrating home race weekend at Silverstone as its aerodynamic updates produced major problems which saw both Stroll and teammate Sergey Sirotkin suffer multiple high-speed offs.

The team has described the cause as aero stalls, with the rear wing and floor producing an unstable airflow across the FW41, causing the car to lose downforce at high speeds.

With no time to find ideal solutions at Silverstone, both cars were altered and started from the pit lane but with its struggles remaining both cars finished at the back of the field.

Williams has pinned its hopes on further aerodynamic updates, with particular focus on a new front wing, which has the primary aim of solving its Silverstone issues before delivering an improvement in performance.

“We are all hoping that we see something good in the new front wing, and we definitely have to resolve what happened in Silverstone,” Stroll said. “They have been looking into it. Unfortunately, a very disappointing upgrade due to the difficulties we faced in Silverstone. We will discuss in detail what we are going to do and how to move forward.

“The new upgrade that we brought with the wing, and how it works with the floor, there was a sudden aerodynamic stall. We lost like 50 points of downforce, which is a huge number, as we turned into the corners. It all came from the DRS activation, so normally what should usually happen is when you activate the DRS, occasionally the rear wing and floor stall.

“The upgrade we brought was a malfunction and it stalled throughout the entry phase of the corner, a very, very long time. Once I turned in I basically had no downforce on the car. It was an aerodynamic surprise and an unexpected occurrence.”

Williams is looking to kick-start its ailing 2018 Formula 1 world championship campaign having slumped to the bottom of the constructors’ standings with just a single points finish – Stroll’s eight place in Azerbaijan – from the opening half of the year.